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.