The main quest for Point Lookout was really bad. When I say that, I don't just mean boring, but don't get me wrong, it was really boring. While many times in a actually good open-ended story, I have found myself outweighing the pros and cons of siding with each person. However, with this DLC, I found myself trying to decide what to do, only to realize I hated both characters, Desmond and Calvert, and just ended up killing them both. Technically, I sided with Desmond, but killed him one second after Calvert. Where I think Point Lookout really shines, however, is in its side quests. The map itself was incredibly boring, I did go to every location simply in search of more things to do, in terms of quests. In fact, there were two side quests that I would have much preferred to be the main quest, the Blackhall one and Velvet Curtain, just with a little extra length. Point Lookout suffered from being a little generic, with one of the most boring stories I have experienced, and terrible design of its main questline, while still having some of my favorite side quests in FO3.

"War. War never changes." But the game industry does, it evolves every moment to hopefully create brand new classics. In modern years the quantity of masterpiece games has diminished, and the amount of duds (New Call of Duty games, Redfall, etc.), has vastly increased. So, I have been playing through many older games, specifically many published by Bethesda. I've played Dishonored and Prey, but both of those can't hold a candle to this masterpiece.

As an open-world RPG, one would expect it, based off modern standards, to be long and grindy, with predatory systems to "speed up the leveling process" (I'm looking at you Ubisoft). However, New Vegas has none of these things, instead focusing on the way an open-world game should be, expansive and open. While the map I would say is actually one of its very few weak points, the scale of destruction clearly lacking because of its short development cycle, the map facilitates the rest of the game's open-endedness well enough. The quests are fantastic, especially in the early game. I did not progress in the early game similar to most other players, by skipping Novac and Primm, coming back to them later into my playthrough, but the opening was still the time of best discovery. To try and slow down the player and force them to go to the towns in the lower half of the map first, the developers placed almost a wall of deathclaws roaming. With a little bit of patience, though, I was able to sneak past them incredibly early and head along the outskirts of the strip. I'm not going to go into detail about my whole journey, but when I eventually got into the strip, the interactions with Benny at the Tops was great.

A staple of the Fallout series at this point is the many factions and characters that populate them. New Vegas has no shortage of factions and characters. My personal favorite factions were Mr. House, the Boomers, and the very small Enclave remnants. Mr. House in particular was very well-developed, being the character that the most NPCs had an opinion about. It was very interesting to ask people around the map of their opinion of all the faction leaders. In the end, I did the House ending, and using my speech stat to convince the NCR to leave. Sadly, in this first playthrough, I became an enemy of Caesar very early on, so I was not able to talk with him much, but from what I've heard he is a surprisingly profound character. Being able to connect with characters by doing quests for them felt natural (such as with Sarah).

Do you ever feel lonely in the wastes? Need a friend to help you survive? That's where the companion system comes into play. Boone, Arcade Gannon, Rex, there is so just so many characters to join you in your adventure. While many of the companions are great, I found myself essentially collecting them, by making them my companion and immediately sending them back to the Lucky 38. Still, Arcade Gannon's companion quest was my favorite quest in the game, because it resulted in me getting my two favorite armors in the game, the Remnant Power armor and Gannon Family Tesla Armor.

Speaking of my favorite equipment, there are many memorable unique armor sets and weapons that I found myself collecting from time to time. Explosive weapons like Annabelle and Thump-Thump were deadly in the early game, probably one of the only reasons I could complete many quests. I've talked about this more in my DLC reviews, but the DLC unique weapons are just the cherry on top. I just wish I got the jury rigging perk earlier than like 5 hours before I beat the game, because it is just so useful in repairing all the cool unique armor sets. It's just so expensive to pay people to repair it, considering I was always a little low on caps. I very rarely sold weapons, because I dropped them to make space for unique weapons.

I have to admit, many systems of New Vegas are outdated, such as the combat, but one that has held up extraordinarily well is the dialogue and writing. I've seen many comparisons to Fallout 4's new, and much weaker, dialogue wheel. Having a silent protagonist allows the player to imagine the way their character would respond only adds to the role-playing elements. I very much enjoy how each dialogue option is varied, with different tones being present with each option. You can act passive aggressive towards someone you don't see eye-to-eye with, while still not hurting your reputation with them or their faction.

"Have you seen that tower on the strip all lit up. You can see it for miles!" The Strip is all that remains of an old world gone by. Mr. House deems it to be the last place in the Mojave that retains its old world glory, even if it is only a dot in the grand scheme of things. Still, it is a bright, glowing dot surrounded by the dull, radiated wasteland of the Mojave. New Vegas is, in my current opinion, my favorite game of all time. The developers at Obsidian were brilliant, creating what can be simply described as a masterpiece. "Truth is, game was rigged from the start." - Benny

Ulysses could have been a lot better. That truly is what disappointed me in this fourth and final DLC installment to New Vegas. Joshua Graham showed that Obsidian could create a great character with only the limited screentime that you get in a short DLC, but Ulysses didn't live up for me. The ending in particular I thought emphasized this heavily for me, with a great spectacle walking up to the missile with Ulysses having his back turned to you. However, the dialogue with Ulysses is subpar at best, especially compared to the rest of this great game and other DLCs. I personally enjoyed the dialogue with Mobius and all of the other Doctors in Old World Blues, and especially Joshua Graham in Honest Hearts, but Ulysses just didn't do it for me. While he had said that he didn't want to kill you, you were basically forced to fight him if you didn't want to completely ruin your reputation with one or more of the factions. It should have been a bit easier to talk him out of it peacefully, however that was a little bit my fault. I accidentally wore Enclave Remnant Power Armor during it, which I am fairly sure was the reason as a Speech 100 character, I was not able to get the Speech 100 check.

Apart from Ulysses, the DLC was great, my favorite out of any of them. In particular, Lonesome Roads is able to do something that the base game was not able to do, that being creating a great atmosphere. I still think New Vegas is incredible, but it could have done with more time in development to establish tone through the buildings and landscapes. While most of it is not playable, the destruction that is so emphasized throughout Lonesome Roads is clear, and picturesque in a way. It portrays the horrors and ruin of the area perfectly.

One part of the DLC I was very surprised to have enjoyed was the linearity of it. The whole magic of the Fallout series is the openness in being an RPG, yet Lonesome Road restricts the player to one set path with a few offshoot areas to explore. But, as I was playing, I actually enjoyed this, as it felt more like a challenge of the character, forcing them to break a sweat, even for a pretty over-leveled character. It was kind of like the extra levels in some Mario games (I think I'm remembering that right), where they take components from all earlier parts of the game and increase the difficulty.

The weapons and gear acquired is nothing incredibly special, with the exception of the Advanced Riot Gear, but the auto-stimpaks were a great addition. Despite not adding many new enemy types, recycling the same Marked Man enemy types for the entirety of the DLC, the ones they did add were well-designed. In particular, I think the Tunnelers were the perfect kind of difficult enemy. They challenge the player to play in a way they are not used to, merely fending them off rather than obliterating them. The placement of all the Deathclaws forces the player to think about the way they approach an area, because just one misplay could result in death. The previously aforementioned Marked Men troops, while incredibly common, are more difficult than your average NCR trooper or Legionnaire, yet still not frustrating.

On the topic of difficulty, this DLC handles it much better than Dead Money. While in my Dead Money review I bashed it because of how frustrating it is, I think Lonesome Road is simply difficult. Not to an extreme, either, just enough that you have to play with significant intent, rather than a jaunty stroll down an uneventful road. Nevertheless, I obviously had to find some way to sort-of "break" some of the difficulty, and found that there was only three weapons I needed to beat it. I leaned into Christine's CoS Sniper Rifle for Deathclaws, Flare Gun for Tunnelers, and the unique laser rifle (I don't remember the name) for Marked Man enemies. The best way I can sum up Lonesome Road is: Difficult, but not frustrating, with a passable story and great atmosphere

Good lord is there a lot of fetch quests in this DLC. I was debating whether or not to give this 3.5 or 4 stars, but that is really what it came down to. I understand that this DLC was going for a light-hearted tone, and that took nothing away from the experience for me, even improving it at some points. However, it is hard to overlook the amount of fetching you have to do to get all of the sink modules. I understand this is basically all optional, and you only have to go to like three of the facilities, but if you are going to play the game, you might as well experience the actual content.

I enjoyed this more than Dead Money, but I do think Honest Hearts was just a bit better than Old World Blues. The characters were interesting to interact with, but none were super memorable with the exception of Mobius. Still, he was not on the same level as classic characters like Mr. House and Joshua Graham. Otherwise, it was an fun DLC, just nothing groundbreaking and with mission structure lacking compared to the base game.

The only reason that I gave this such a high rating is one character - Joshua Graham. The reason I like this DLC so much more than Dead Money is because there is a character I actually care about, and want to see through their story. The gameplay of the DLC itself is basically just a scaled down version of the base game with less choices, but that is fine. My favorite armor set in the game is unique to the DLC, the desert ranger outfit, but other than that and the survivalist’s rifle, the gear is pretty lacking. I just wish we could have seen more of Joshua Graham. If he was in the main game as a primary option, I’d side with him over even Mr. House.

I played this DLC after Honest Hearts, and I think I was just a little disappointed. The first half of the DLC in the villa was just so frustrating. I feel like the whole design of the DLC just leads players to run past all enemies, with the bomb collars, toxic gas, and tanky enemies being so hard to deal with. To add insult to injury, none of the characters are super memorable, with my personal favorite side character being Dean, but I still had no real connection with him. In quite the opposite fashion of the main game, Dead Money felt incredibly linear in its design. Not everything is a negative though, as I did like the second half in the Sierra Madre much more than the first, and the holograms were interesting to deal with. All in all, it was a very mediocre DLC for an incredible game.