Impressions of Dead Money
Posted: Sat Dec 25, 2010 3:07 am
I'm not pompous enough to think this is news, so I'll just leave this here, I just got done with Dead Money, and I actually rather enjoyed it.
I won't overly rehash the premise, big casino heist, ghost people, killer smog, I WILL say this expansion actually ended up feeling more thena bit like Bioshock, and not to it's detriment.
Like previous dlc, they strip you of all your equipment because of a macguffin, however you don't get it back until you complete the dlc. The difficulty is ratcheted up quite a bit, the ghost people require dismemberment or disintigration to stay dead, and you can't directly fight the holograms at all. After a while ammo isn't that hard to come by, but you never really feel...safe.
I think that's where this dlc shines. I never felt safe, I never felt like I had complete control of the situation. And I can think of one mission, alone, with a bell tolling in the distance, that evoked some amount of dread.
Imagine my shock at New Vegas evoking responses like that. I find two of the new characters interesting, the third is kinda bland. The story overall is actually pretty good, with some nice backstory. And while the holograms are a BIT hokey, they don't overdo it, and give them some semi logical limitations.
The new stealth armor looks nice, and I actually ended up like the Sierra Madre security armor, especially the helmet. The Holorifle, once upgraded, is a really nice weapon,a nd I think it'll depose the oft maligned Gauss rifle.
In my estimation, this is leagues better then FO3 dlc. It's not much longer, MAYBE an hour or two longer, but it feels much weighter, and it had an actual story to tell. They also dropped some hints towards a future dlc at a military installation called the Big Empty, and a final showdown of sorts at The Devide, probably the grand canyon. I still feel the dlc was a bit short, and I wish to god they knew how to intergrate this stuff into the regular game, but I feel this was a step in the right direction. I'm actually sorta excited to see what Big Empty looks like. Anyhoo, I skipped some stuff, but this was just my first impressions. I think this thing is overpriced by about 200 microsoft spacedollars, or about 3 real world dollars, but it's not bad at all.
I won't overly rehash the premise, big casino heist, ghost people, killer smog, I WILL say this expansion actually ended up feeling more thena bit like Bioshock, and not to it's detriment.
Like previous dlc, they strip you of all your equipment because of a macguffin, however you don't get it back until you complete the dlc. The difficulty is ratcheted up quite a bit, the ghost people require dismemberment or disintigration to stay dead, and you can't directly fight the holograms at all. After a while ammo isn't that hard to come by, but you never really feel...safe.
I think that's where this dlc shines. I never felt safe, I never felt like I had complete control of the situation. And I can think of one mission, alone, with a bell tolling in the distance, that evoked some amount of dread.
Imagine my shock at New Vegas evoking responses like that. I find two of the new characters interesting, the third is kinda bland. The story overall is actually pretty good, with some nice backstory. And while the holograms are a BIT hokey, they don't overdo it, and give them some semi logical limitations.
The new stealth armor looks nice, and I actually ended up like the Sierra Madre security armor, especially the helmet. The Holorifle, once upgraded, is a really nice weapon,a nd I think it'll depose the oft maligned Gauss rifle.
In my estimation, this is leagues better then FO3 dlc. It's not much longer, MAYBE an hour or two longer, but it feels much weighter, and it had an actual story to tell. They also dropped some hints towards a future dlc at a military installation called the Big Empty, and a final showdown of sorts at The Devide, probably the grand canyon. I still feel the dlc was a bit short, and I wish to god they knew how to intergrate this stuff into the regular game, but I feel this was a step in the right direction. I'm actually sorta excited to see what Big Empty looks like. Anyhoo, I skipped some stuff, but this was just my first impressions. I think this thing is overpriced by about 200 microsoft spacedollars, or about 3 real world dollars, but it's not bad at all.