Review: New Vegas Old World Blues

I have the touch! I have the powah!

I made some bad choices in Fallout. I didn’t realize the scope of my idiocy until I started playing Old World Blues. Where Honest Hearts was basically perfectly suited for my maxed out guns/explosives/survivalist character build… Old World Blues reminded me with a giant kick in the ass that there were others. Others in this case means: medicine, science, and energy weapons. Though there was no way in hell that I was going to betray my long standing commitment to never touch an energy weapon in a Fallout game, I needed the science and medicine. And I only did it so that I could learn more about a disembodied group of doctors. And also so I could convince my brain to get back into my body. So blah blah blah, transmission, blah blah blah Pip Boy, you get warped to a place called the Big Empty.

Old World Blues is easily the flat out weirdest of the DLC so far released for Fallout New Vegas. It is dripping with a sense of humor that could only be described as the result of someone watching unhealthy amounts of Monty Python and old campy Sci-Fi movies. It’s incredible. But terrific writing for Fallout New Vegas DLC is pretty much the norm at this point, and you aren’t shortchanged here. In fact in addition to the terrific writing, and the impressively deep storytelling is the sheer amount of rewards you get for completing the content. Getting to all that amazing stuff however is something else. You’ll have to face hordes of unstoppable robo-scorpions that are almost as tough as Deathclaws. Bands of lobotomites wearing headgear that looks like it was designed by Jigsaw from the terrible Saw movies. And if that wasn’t enough you’ll have your fair share of roaming nightstalkers, sentry bots, and the insanely disturbing corpse-in-a-space-suit that seems designed just for my nightmares.

And then my idiocy became blatantly obvious. There were energy cells everywhere, and ammo was more scarce than purified water. I couldn’t find bullets to save my life… I was struggling terribly for the first few hours of the content. Scavenging corpses, hoping to find a lone shotgun shell, or a band of bullets to call my own. I started finding a peculiar amount of 357 magnum rounds, and 44 magnum rounds, but found that any guns I had carted along with me didn’t pack enough of a punch. And my special .45 Auto pistol that I had earned from Honest Hearts was bone dry in no time. Crafting bullets at a reloading bench helped… but only a little. Toward the end of the content, I had managed to scrounge enough 12 gauge hulls together for my riot shotgun to feast on lead once again, and tore through the final segments like cake.

When I finally reached the end I was very pleasantly surprised by the twist ending, and the final showdown. A showdown that includes a tense verbal standoff between you, and your brain. When you’re done sorting that out, you’ll be rewarded with an amazingly detailed hideout in the Big Empty. The hideout is complete with a sink, two light switches, a jukebox, a botanical garden, and a built in central AI with it’s own shop. There’s even a toaster and a book chute! Oh and did I mention that they all have personality modules that you need to collect in order for them to function? Because they do. From a jealous couple of light switches, to a psychopathic toaster that eats other appliances, each utility has it’s own unique personality. It’s weird. You can shut them off later, but I really like hearing the toaster announce his reign of terror has just begun every time he eats other toasters. The ending is a little ho-hum for me in terms of impact, but overall Old World Blues is great.

I know this was light on details, but details make this one. Even the setup is too good to give away. Just grab this one, and trust me when I say it is easily the most entertaining thing that’s been released for Fallout New Vegas thus far.

Fallout New Vegas is available now for PC, PS3, and Xbox 360
It was developed by Obsidian Entertainment, and published by Bethesda Softworks