Fallout: New Vegas - Dead Money

Written By: Ice Cold Tabasco

Indeed, once you play this expansion, the most infuriating thing is not the enemies, melee oriented gameplay, or tedium, its letting go of some of the best characters Fallout has ever seen.

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The first piece of DLC for Fallout: New Vegas, Dead Money, was met with mixed reviews, all with legitimate reasons as to why it was great or not so. In my opinion, Dead Money did a lot right when considering the story and characters, but less so with gameplay.

Being dumped outside of the Sierre Madre casino, stripped of all your equipment and given a unique energy weapon, you are tasked with breaking into the Sierre or die. Now, this aspect of Dead Money is rather interesting, being stripped to only the bare essentials with a seemingly impossible task to complete. It creates a tense, nearly palpable atmosphere as you hunt for a few more bullets for your revolver or a single stimpack to bring you back up to speed, transforming an RPG to a survival horror romp. With limited success in many areas.

The heist of the century.

That tense atmosphere is brought mostly by the fact that you are equipped with an explosive collar, through the entire length of the DLC, that can be set off by various radios placed around the map. These things are the worst, fucking things, EVER! While it’s a straightforward addition when its introduced in the early game, it gets unfair later on, with these radios even becoming indestructible, forcing you to roll with the punches. You will die more times by stagnant radios than an actual enemies. To add on to this bullshit is this red mist that does damage to you once you step into it (In my case, playing in Hardcore mode will have your health degrade, regardless if you're in the Cloud or not). Not being as bad as the radios, but enough of a nuisance to make you double take and question developer decisions.

Oh, and the FUCKING enemies! Called Ghost people, they are often equipped with melee weapons and explosives, doing sizeable damage in single digits. But in numbers, they WILL fuck your shit up if you travel alone. Also, with limited ammo and weapons available at your disposal, they need to be dismembered to actual kill them. You will often fight with a knife taped to a stick to get by, as Dead Money foolishly favors the melee skill. The one no one uses, because guns exist.

Fuck. These. Guys.

While this can encourage the player to manage what limited resources they have, you can’t will ammunition into existence. You WILL need a gun, and you will need AMMO, using a makeshift spear is only a quicker way to get yourself killed. What I recommend is saving your ammo early on and going Kratos on everything that moves, then your sorta set, as you will run out of ammo, but with less frequency.

One remedy for this problem were the companions that are given to you as protection. Each with passive buffs like reducing the time it takes for a radios to blow your head off, or guaranteeing Ghosts die after they first fall. All wrapped up in genuinely interesting backstories, personalities, and motives for why they want to get into the Sierre Madre. They contribute to the phenomenal story and writing given to this expansion, only having me long for more of it when it was my time to return to the Mojave.

All in all, Dead Money does its job with providing a fantastic story and cast of characters, but is hampered with the gameplay aspects it attempts to erect. Indeed, once you play this expansion, the most infuriating thing is not the enemies, melee oriented gameplay, or tedium, its letting go of some of the best characters Fallout has ever seen.

Verdict
6/10

Above Average