Dead Money is the first downloadable content for Fallout: New Vegas.
Release Date: Feb 22, 2011
Fallout: New Vegas doesn't always feel like a desperate situation. There's usually food and water nearby, plenty of ammo, guns and armor to loot off of bodies and once you've leveled up, you should have no problem taking on most of the creatures or psychos in the wasteland.
Things aren't so relaxed in the first downloadable content for New Vegas, Dead Money. Now, it's important to note that even if you don't think you'll get around to this particular mission anytime soon (there is so much to do in the Mojave after all), purchasing it raises your level cap by five.
Dead Money tells the tale of the Sierra Madre casino and the fabled wealth trapped inside. It begins like any other extra Fallout content – a message on your Pip Boy. Wander to the location on your map and enjoy the artistic watercolor-style cutscene.
Stripped of your high-powered weapons, equipment, and bottle caps, you essentially start from scratch in Dead Money, although it's recommended that your character be at least level 20 before you start. Adding to the fun is that you're immediately fitted with a slaver collar -- meaning if you don't do what the Man in the Sky (a.k.a. Father Elijah) says, he'll blow your head off.
Not only that, but you need to work together with a small crew of misfit characters, all of which are interesting and enjoyable to get to know. But if one of them dies, you die, too. While it's a neat angle, I was disappointed to learn that you can still only have one official companion at a time and they actually don't have as large of a role as I thought they would. After all, it's a scary world out there, and it's nice to have some company. Plus, they have companion perks that are really useful, so it's a shame you don't get to utilize them more often.
Instead of bottle caps, Sierra Madre casino chips are the only form of currency and ammo, supplies and guns are incredibly limited. You can use nifty vending machines to purchase food with the chips, but in order to get more useful things like Stimpaks, you have to find special codes scattered throughout the city.
Ghost people inhabit the town, and they sure aren't friendly or easy to take down. Much like Dead Space Necromorphs, unless you dismember or decapitate them, they'll keep getting up and attacking you. If your character has a high unarmed skill, you should manage fine, but others will need to take it slow and try to minimize contact with enemies due to the short supply of healing items and weapons.
The unexplored land surrounding the Sierra Madre casino and village isn't a cakewalk like the Mojave Desert. A red misty smoke simply called The Cloud, blankets the area. It just so happens to be toxic so you can't rest anywhere that's not fully enclosed, which is pretty much nowhere. Between the poisonous atmosphere, inconveniently placed bear traps and rigged shot guns, ghost people with the MO to kill and hidden speakers that will trigger your explosive collar, it's quite the dangerous place. The music, sound effects and environmental hazards all work together to create a very hostile world that's quite freaky.
The constant stress of looking for ammo, chips, supplies and so on along with trying to avoid enemies like the plague makes Dead Money feel much more like a survival horror version of Fallout, which is cool. If you were hoping for a run-and-gun style mission, you won't find that here – you'll need to proceed with caution while navigating the confusing Fallout maps.
Typical of Fallout games, there are performance issues and game-breaking bugs that seriously detract from the experience. There's also a random difficulty spike halfway through that can be really frustrating. The game switches from a stealth focus to combat-heavy, but with such limited ammo and supplies, fighting off waves and waves of overly aggro ghosts isn't much fun. Running away isn't much a great option either, as you'll frequently get snagged in traps or high-pitched frequencies that set off your collar.
Unlike a majority of the DLC for Fallout 3, Dead Money doesn't really reward you with awesome armor or weapons. The tale is better than most of the previous add-on content, but the story does get overshadowed sometimes by tedious quests. If they had allowed fast-travel through the confusing streets of Sierra Madre, it would've made everything much less frustrating.
Is it surprising that Dead Money feels like it was released before it was actually ready? No, but it's still disappointing. With some more development and care this could've been a shining example of what downloadable content can be.
Instead, standard Fallout bugs like freezing and "features" like a stuttering frame rate and wonky textures plague the game. I also encountered one game-breaking bug. One of the characters suffers from a split-personality and I apparently chose to recruit the wrong one. Subsequently all quest lines broke, but I didn't realize it until I had already completed everything and wasn't given any new missions. I had to restart the whole game, which flat-out sucked.
I know Bethesda and Obsidian are infamous for making games with lots of bugs, but I was really shocked that this DLC is so easily broken. I didn't make some crazy decision wearing a strange costume in an unforeseen area, it was something the game offered to me and yet it halted my progression. That's unacceptable.
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