"Finding it, though, that's not the hard part. It's letting go."
So, Fallout New Vegas is one of my favorite games. I have put more than 100 hours into the game over the course of multiple playthroughs. Just recently I realized that I've never played the DLC of New Vegas so it's time to rectify that. More New Vegas goodness! What could possibly go wrong?!
Dead Money is an ambitious chapter in the ethos of New Vegas, containing some of the best writing in the entire game with characters so unbelievably good you'd wish they were part of the base game. Alas it's packaged with gameplay that is so unbelievably frustrating.
"Has your life taken a turn? Do troubles beset you? Has fortune left you behind? If so, the Sierra Madre Casino, in all its glory, is inviting you to begin again."
Dead Money begins by following a radio signal leading you to an abandoned Brotherhood of Steel bunker. From there you fall into a trap and you wake up in the villa of the Sierra Madre, a forsaken city near the Grand Canyon, engulfed in a poisonous cloud. You're "greeted" by Father Elijah, a Brotherhood of Steel scribe with ties to one of your companions. It's not the most friendly greeting, he lets you know he's put a bomb collar around your neck. He also put bomb collars on three other persons, a Super Mutant, a Ghoul and a woman who can't speak. It's your job to find these loveable nuclear wasteland misfits and put together a team for probably the biggest heist since the bombs fell: robbing the vault beneath the casino.
It's a heist! Like Heist! The Italian Job!
I can't tell you enough how much the premise excites me. Recruit other people, learn of their backstory and how they are linked to the gloomy and ominous Sierra Madre. Robbing a casino with your life on the line thanks to some Brotherhood of Steel psychopath. And it's genuinely great, everything is so well written and the characters are great in that typical Fallout-fashion: relatable to a certain degree before their entire personality falls apart. You have the Super Mutant Dog, the docile servant of father Elijah and his alter-ego God, a more violent and ruthless side of the same coin. There's Dean Domino, a Ghoul who's been in the Sierra Madre for hundreds of years and who has intimate knowledge of the Sierra Madre. Lastly there's Christine, a woman who can't speak and uses sign language to communicate with the player.
The environment also has its own story to tell which you can uncover via text logs on the terminal. You can learn of the casino's founding and its eventual demise. Every character that had a hand in the casino's founding, their actions still haunt the place. They have never left.
So there you have it! Great story, terrific characters, it's time for the ride of a lifetime, the heist of the century, let us venture forth into the Sierra Madre!
Okay so it's no secret that the gameplay in Dead Money is tedious as hell and it pains me so much to say this but it kind of ruined the whole experience because of some things that were incredibly frustrating.
So first and foremost, you are stripped of all of your equipment and you're forced to scrounge for weapons, armor and items to use. You can buy them from vending machines using casino chips are forage equipment the old fashioned Fallout way: killing and looting. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, lots of other games employ a similar method of gameplay like that one island in Breath of the Wild no one can shut up about.
Exploration however is hampered by a few things, namely pockets of poisonous clouds that can kill you fast. The place is also littered with traps, especially bear traps and since they blend in really well in the environment these are incredibly hard too see. Then there are the Ghosts, enemies that can't be killed unless you decapitate them or sever some other body part. There are also deadly holograms, you can't hurt these at all and they decimate your ass in an instant. And last but not least we have easily the deadliest item in the Sierra Madre: Radios.
Yes radios kill. Their frequency can set off your bomb collar so don't stand to long in their vicinity. Some radios can be shot or deactivated either by turning it off manually or via a computer terminal. Other radios can't be shut off. You have to be quick and make your way through and try to spot radios whenever your collar emits a beeping sound. Problem is, there are a lot of radios, they are not always easy to find and combining this problem with every other hazard, like the enemies and the poison cloud, you can see why this gets frustrating very fast.
Combining all of these factors gives way too game that's just not fun too play. It becomes tedious and frustrating and I was save scumming my way to victory because everything kills you very fast. Ammo and supplies are also limited so the game becomes a sort of survival horror type game with progression that's slow as molasses.
There are not a lot of things you can use to alleviate these issues, only the small handful of resources that the villa provides. You will die a lot, unless you find the necessary recipes, the vending machines will not be of much use. I also put most of my skill points into energy weapons and only found one dinghy pistol and a whole lot of nothing for ammo.
I died a lot, if it wasn't for the radios I was dying because of the poison cloud or the many hard to see traps. But I pushed on, eager to see where the story would take me.
The story has not disappointed me but the gameplay will prevent me from ever playing it again. I'll just stick to the Fallout Wiki thank you very much.
So, Fallout New Vegas is one of my favorite games. I have put more than 100 hours into the game over the course of multiple playthroughs. Just recently I realized that I've never played the DLC of New Vegas so it's time to rectify that. More New Vegas goodness! What could possibly go wrong?!
Dead Money is an ambitious chapter in the ethos of New Vegas, containing some of the best writing in the entire game with characters so unbelievably good you'd wish they were part of the base game. Alas it's packaged with gameplay that is so unbelievably frustrating.
"Has your life taken a turn? Do troubles beset you? Has fortune left you behind? If so, the Sierra Madre Casino, in all its glory, is inviting you to begin again."
Dead Money begins by following a radio signal leading you to an abandoned Brotherhood of Steel bunker. From there you fall into a trap and you wake up in the villa of the Sierra Madre, a forsaken city near the Grand Canyon, engulfed in a poisonous cloud. You're "greeted" by Father Elijah, a Brotherhood of Steel scribe with ties to one of your companions. It's not the most friendly greeting, he lets you know he's put a bomb collar around your neck. He also put bomb collars on three other persons, a Super Mutant, a Ghoul and a woman who can't speak. It's your job to find these loveable nuclear wasteland misfits and put together a team for probably the biggest heist since the bombs fell: robbing the vault beneath the casino.
It's a heist! Like Heist! The Italian Job!
I can't tell you enough how much the premise excites me. Recruit other people, learn of their backstory and how they are linked to the gloomy and ominous Sierra Madre. Robbing a casino with your life on the line thanks to some Brotherhood of Steel psychopath. And it's genuinely great, everything is so well written and the characters are great in that typical Fallout-fashion: relatable to a certain degree before their entire personality falls apart. You have the Super Mutant Dog, the docile servant of father Elijah and his alter-ego God, a more violent and ruthless side of the same coin. There's Dean Domino, a Ghoul who's been in the Sierra Madre for hundreds of years and who has intimate knowledge of the Sierra Madre. Lastly there's Christine, a woman who can't speak and uses sign language to communicate with the player.
The environment also has its own story to tell which you can uncover via text logs on the terminal. You can learn of the casino's founding and its eventual demise. Every character that had a hand in the casino's founding, their actions still haunt the place. They have never left.
So there you have it! Great story, terrific characters, it's time for the ride of a lifetime, the heist of the century, let us venture forth into the Sierra Madre!
Okay so it's no secret that the gameplay in Dead Money is tedious as hell and it pains me so much to say this but it kind of ruined the whole experience because of some things that were incredibly frustrating.
So first and foremost, you are stripped of all of your equipment and you're forced to scrounge for weapons, armor and items to use. You can buy them from vending machines using casino chips are forage equipment the old fashioned Fallout way: killing and looting. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, lots of other games employ a similar method of gameplay like that one island in Breath of the Wild no one can shut up about.
Exploration however is hampered by a few things, namely pockets of poisonous clouds that can kill you fast. The place is also littered with traps, especially bear traps and since they blend in really well in the environment these are incredibly hard too see. Then there are the Ghosts, enemies that can't be killed unless you decapitate them or sever some other body part. There are also deadly holograms, you can't hurt these at all and they decimate your ass in an instant. And last but not least we have easily the deadliest item in the Sierra Madre: Radios.
Yes radios kill. Their frequency can set off your bomb collar so don't stand to long in their vicinity. Some radios can be shot or deactivated either by turning it off manually or via a computer terminal. Other radios can't be shut off. You have to be quick and make your way through and try to spot radios whenever your collar emits a beeping sound. Problem is, there are a lot of radios, they are not always easy to find and combining this problem with every other hazard, like the enemies and the poison cloud, you can see why this gets frustrating very fast.
Combining all of these factors gives way too game that's just not fun too play. It becomes tedious and frustrating and I was save scumming my way to victory because everything kills you very fast. Ammo and supplies are also limited so the game becomes a sort of survival horror type game with progression that's slow as molasses.
There are not a lot of things you can use to alleviate these issues, only the small handful of resources that the villa provides. You will die a lot, unless you find the necessary recipes, the vending machines will not be of much use. I also put most of my skill points into energy weapons and only found one dinghy pistol and a whole lot of nothing for ammo.
I died a lot, if it wasn't for the radios I was dying because of the poison cloud or the many hard to see traps. But I pushed on, eager to see where the story would take me.
The story has not disappointed me but the gameplay will prevent me from ever playing it again. I'll just stick to the Fallout Wiki thank you very much.
NovaNiles
13 days ago