And Now it's A Habit: OC on Honest Hearts

[Overcast]

Another DLC for New Vegas, and it has a very different kind of feel to it compared to Dead Money. When I spoke of Dead Money I remember pointing out how they stripped you of all you owned, the extremely restrictive nature of nearly all resources while simultaneously forcing your things to wear down faster, the power of most enemies that you will face, how certain things were unkillable and required some puzzle solving skills it was a singular cell of hell with a story and moral that gripped me nice and tight. Truly engaging.

This one isn't quite that. No full stripping of your gear, it will wear down a little faster but not like Dead Money, the enemies are fairly straight forward. This one is a bit more straightforward. What has been added are a nice wealth of crafting tools, the story is one of redemption, innocence, and whether or not we accept that the world is filled with bad people and the only way to get by is to deal with the problem at the source or if we can find our own paradise in the world. With an undercurrent of Religious beliefs what really needs to be understood is this expansion is about only two people, the New Canaanites(a survivalist group that are the decedents of the Mormons in Utah) Joshua Graham and Daniel who respectively seem to have a concentration between the Old and New testament. Their opinions tint every single thing you do short of a few side quests, and even the companions that you get are only really meant to further extend how you see the two of them. As such your companions are not quite so exciting as they were in Dead Money.

The further expansion on the story of Joshua Graham was enjoyable. Sure he wasn't the bitter evil bastard who got you in a whole mess of fun trouble in Van Buren, but his Old Testament style justice and genuine badassery when you get him as a companion just grew on me. Also he has one of the coolest looking armors in the game if you are a light armor lover like myself.

Another good point was the Survivalist, a character you only get to know by exploring the various caves around Zion. It has that strange feeling of immersion that really sucked me in. Explore around, he is worth learning all about.

Altogether I didn't feel as impressed with this one as Dead Money, but for $10 I feel it was worth it. Still I hope to get some more Survivalist type immersion in Old World Blues. But most of all they better bring all the stops when we finally get to Lonesome Road, because after all the shit I've been hearing about Ulysses I'm going to expect him to be able to match me on level of badass.

[Krylo]

I didn't really think Dead Money was all that hellish, though I play on Hardcore/Normal as opposed to like, Hardcore/Fuck you or whatever the higher difficulties are called. This might also be because I was rolling melee with a bumper sword and 10 strength. It was pretty rare I had to stop and hack apart the ghost people after smacking them (they tended to come apart whenever I touched them). ...And monocyte breeders offset a lot of the issues with the cloud.

Mostly I just found it kind of annoying. It was just restricted enough to make me feel like I couldn't go around exploring because I'd have to hack up thirty more ghost people and dodge through these clouds, and waste this many more stims and blaargh, but not so much that it really made me feel trapped. I guess the part where I had to roll alone to the top of the tower, with the heavy clouds and speakers and radios everywhere along with ghost people got a bit hectic because I couldn't stop to fight, but other than that, eh.

I don't know which I liked better though. Dead Money let me leave with some nice outfits (Vera's and Dean's) to wear around the Strip, and I honestly enjoyed all my companions. Especially Catherine. Though I can't say enough good things about the mutant.

That said, Honest Hearts had a much more engrossing and immersive 'world' for me to be in, and the ability to travel back there after I was done is nice too, along with Joshua actually acting as a shop with a shit ton of caps so I didn't have the same feeling of 'argh I have so much shit but I don't want to get rid of anything'. In Honest Hearts I can sell Joshua my shit, get caps, and then later come back if I want/need and buy it back from him.

Which is actually an issue I had with FO3's DLC, too. I hate the 'you're here can't come back, have no way to store or sell anything, BUT HERE IS A BUNCH OF LOOT! What? You DIDN'T take strong back and 10 strength? Lawl, hope you like walking, because fuck if you'll be able to run for half of this.'

It's kind of an annoying design point that has been threaded through all of Beth's Fallout DLC with the exception of Honest Hearts.

That aside, I was also a fan of the survivalist. Following his stories through the caves and finally on the mesa with his rifle is pretty fantastic, and a wonderful explanation for the Sorrow's faith. I also enjoyed him being equated to the judeochristian god by the Sorrows, and how the story telling dealt with the Sorrow's being indoctrinated by Daniel--that is to say in a very real way that merged the two religions instead of wiping the original out.

Speaking of: I also liked that I could be a staunch atheist, and the replies that entailed. "Uh, I don't know if you've figured this out yet, but I don't believe the same things as you?"

Also: Tribals with Shishkebabs = me getting Shishkebabs = best DLC. Also: Anti-Materiel Rifles, but pfffft. Not nearly as awesome as flaming swords.

Edit: Oh, and non-faction marked ranger armor and mask in one of the survivalist's caves. Awesome. You know who looks badass as fuck in a ranger duster? Everyone. Even Arcade.

[Overcast]

Yeah I was Hardcore/DEAR GOD WHY and with a guns character. With bad perception, so even when I found my first machine gun I was still doomed. And come to think of it I still haven't gotten any implants yet. The post-bell tower run for your life moment was a bad dream for me. I had up to that point been relying on my stealth and the fact that bear trap fists were pretty big damage, but the alarms seemed to have made them all looking for me. Combined with the radios, the clouds, the endless traps, and everything and I was wrecked.

But being trapped kinda forced the story in that matter. I will agree that Honest Hearts let you get more immersed in the landscape since it wasn't always trying to kill you.

I've never been so bothered by the UNABLE TO SELL thing though. I think that in Dead Money there just wasn't too much for me to hold onto, there was one new gun that I didn't want to hold onto, and one pretty excellent light armor. And one sample of gold, because I had to take one. And maybe someone's robe. Okay so memorabilia, but even in Honest Hearts if I had that problem I'd still have to drag my ass since selling them wasn't what I wanted, just wanted something to stare at. And I am just made of caps, so I just drop what I don't think is interesting.

I really dug the new .45 Auto. I'm a stealth gunner so it was a sweet new holdout once I got a silencer on it.

[Marc v4.0]

Hell Yes. M1A1 Thompson submachine gun.


I loved the loot chest at the end, "Here, have all the cool gear that we know you wanted to kill everyone for"

I am debating if I should start working on my NV LP now or wait for the rest of the DLC, but I am also debating on how to effectivly mesh DLC into the LP. Hurm


edit: Oh, only one real complaint, The grunt perk doesn't work for This Machine or the Automatic Rifle. I cannot fathom how they could exclude the M1 Gerand and the Browning AR from it. Saddest Day.

[Krylo]

Originally Posted by Overcast

I've never been so bothered by the UNABLE TO SELL thing though. I think that in Dead Money there just wasn't too much for me to hold onto, there was one new gun that I didn't want to hold onto, and one pretty excellent light armor. And one sample of gold, because I had to take one. And maybe someone's robe. Okay so memorabilia, but even in Honest Hearts if I had that problem I'd still have to drag my ass since selling them wasn't what I wanted, just wanted something to stare at. And I am just made of caps, so I just drop what I don't think is interesting.

Oh yeah, I had like 60,000 caps too, but it just goes completely against my grain to throw shit away when it's worth money. Plus in Honest Hearts I wanted one of each tribal outfit, the survivalist's rifle, a 45 pistol, a 45 submachine gun (aka the thompson), an anti-materiel rifle, a shishkebab, a riot shotgun (I wasn't sure if I had one at home), etc. etc. Plus the 70ish pounds of stuff I went in with. I'm a collector.

Which left little weight for my basic scavenging instinct. So being able to sell extra stuff was nice, and extra nice on top of it was being able to go back after the fact.

In Dead Money, on the other hand, I had to keep on looking over my crap and do math in my head on whether this was worth keeping over that on weight to caps ratios, and trying to decide whether to toss the armor I found and go in lighter clothing, or whether I should keep it and toss out a couple of cosmic knives even though I might want to use them in recipes, etc. Plus I HATE throwing out ammo, but being a melee character I never really used/needed all the ammo I got.

My companions outside of the expansion did though.

[Overcast]

I would have liked for it to beef up my sniper rifle as well.

But as for the LP at this point I would wait until the other two come out later this summer. Just about everything has something that can inspire you to search, you can get to know Veronica and try to find her mentor, or just want a new place to break after you go for broke in New Vegas. The Burned Man could hook you toward trying to get to New Canaan after you here Caesar's little thing about his uprising or perhaps just the rumors themselves when you hear that Zion might contain the man himself. The Big Empty can come right from Dead Money. And Ulysses, he is the man who turned down the package. He was the one who got me shot above all else. And if someone is talking about The Courier and it isn't me, it is him. I'd love to know about all of those things.

Ahh, most of that stuff was outside so I was fine with leaving it. Though yeah, grabbing some Sorrow or Dead Horse outfits were rarities.

[Osterbaum]

Originally Posted by Krylo

I'm a collector.

I just NEED to have every firearm in the game on display in my Novac appartment. I just go back there every once in a while and choose which couple of weapons I want to take out this time.

Honest Hearts was pretty good. A tad on the short side, but I guess I wasn't really expecting much more from a 10€ DLC.

e: Although if it was 10$ on Steam for you guys, then maybe I should've expected it to be less than 10€ for me!

[Krylo]

Originally Posted by Osterbaum

I just NEED to have every firearm in the game on display in my Novac appartment. I just go back there every once in a while and choose which couple of weapons I want to take out this time.

I only put the unique weapons on display, but keep multiples of every other weapon in one wardrobe in the lucky 38, then put multiples of every piece of clothing/armor in another one, then keep miscellaneous shit in the desk, and all my extra ammo in the footlocker at the foot of that bed.

Need multiples for repairing.

Edit: Speaking of unique weapons, they better fuckin' make the DLC that opens up after the ending soon because I want to use the Blade of the East for more than knocking General Oliver out of the park.

[Marc v4.0]

Originally Posted by Krylo

Edit: Speaking of unique weapons, they better fuckin' make the DLC that opens up after the ending soon because I want to use the Blade of the East for more than knocking General Oliver out of the park.

They have stated multiple times that this absolutly would not be happening at all.

[Krylo]

Those fucks.

Edit: I mean even ignoring the whole 'Unique weapon I can use for all of ten seconds' thing, all the DLC really fucks up the pacing of the game. The original obsidian writing team did a good job making what you were doing seem urgent to the point that all the side questing already seems kind of weird. "Gotta find the guy who shot me in the head and stole my shit... right after I shut down this radio station... and become a member of the Brotherhood of Steel... and reroute a satellite into a death ray... and get some deathclaw eggs for this omelette... and I guess I should stop the powder gangers quick... and head to this old casino" and then as you get closer to the end it just gets even more ridiculous. "Caesar's Legion is going to attack at any moment you say? Hold on. Running off to Utah."

And there's two more DLC slotted to be released.

This stuff worked fine in FO3 because Bethseda is honestly terrible at pacing already. Nothing felt urgent in FO3 until the very end. Hell, when you first come out of the Vault there's a good chance your character doesn't even really give a shit about finding his/her dad in so much as surviving. Which makes all the side questing feel natural. You're just out finding your way in the wasteland, learning about your new world, and righting wrongs or making yourself rich as shit (depending on whether you're being 'good' or 'bad'). That's not really the case in New Vegas.