Final Impressions: Dead Money

[Ozza]

I liked it. Reminded me a lot of Operation Anchorage. Strip you clean and send you in with nothing. Then come out with lots of new cool toys, possibly tons of money, and a little hint at bigger things to come. For 10$ I didn't expect a whole lot.

 

All I can say is I'm very interested in the Courier's future now.

Edited February 28, 2011 by Ozza

[MysteriousStranger101]

I loved this DLC more than others from fallout 3 except point lookout. This DLC kind of melted my favorite games into a fun and outright terrifying adventure; it had the feel of something out of bioshock, it had the outright adrenaline rush and survival of resident evil, all with the creativity of fallout. For me, playing at VERY HARD, it was a fantastic experience, the vault was a nicely designed gift after all the elaborate puzzle I faced to get there. I loved Elijah as a villian simply because if you exhaust a lot of the options you have access, including the ones about veronica, you see while he is a bad guy, he's not a bad guy. He wants to rebuild the old world and the sierra madre is the key to that even though he went kookoo for cocoa puffs. And I cannot understand WHY everyone complains about the radios, they are a fun and exciting puzzle that actively makes you think unlike others. I had to play through the showdown at the Tampico 27 times. And you know, it was fun every single time. And to be 100% honest I found it so satisfying to watch Elijah's turrets turn him into swiss cheese.

[WastelandAssassin]

finally finished Dead Money, and i have to say, WHAT AN EXPERIENCE!!!

 

this was by far the hardest thing i had to do, even with my decent character

i came prepared with the Light Step perk, so traps were of no problem to me (i also took the time to look everywhere, so most traps wouldn't have caught me)

but even with that, the overall experience was quite intense

 

at first, the combat was really difficult

i remembered seeing a walkthrough of this DLC, and in it, the player had very little ammo, so i decided to use the Spear Knife for as long as i have to, and save the ammo i had for dire cases

so my companions had to do some of the damage for me, and God even made a lot of my kills for me, though this was quite a good thing for me

 

the red clouds were about as much pain in the rear as can be

without Dean, i died so many times, wandering into these areas by mistake, not even seeing the smoke

but in the end, they seemed to affect me less and less, and by the time i finished the DLC, they really didn't bother me at all

 

what was bothering me all the time was my weight limit, and just how much loot there was to take

my character is rather weak, with a humiliating carry weight limit of 195 Lbs, so i could carry very little

i made a stash at the start of the DLC, near the fountain, and basically loaded all the stuff i wanted to take home there, to take at the end

and even after limiting what i would take, and loosing all the crap i had, i still went out with over 500 Lbs of items, and i didn't even take a single Gold Bar (stupid me, i could have taken 2 instead of the armors i took)

 

all of this was just the initial thoughts of what happened just now, but it really doesn't sum the DLC at all

so in terms of difficulty and gaming experience, it forced me into a play style i rarely use, and as hard as it was, i enjoyed it very much

it was meant to be difficult, and did that in a way that makes sense (unlike Mothership Zeta, with it's overpowered weapons and such)

it wasn't just the enemies, it was the whole environment i battled, and somehow i won against it all (i still wander how)

 

as for storyline, i don't recall a storyline as deep as this in all the FO3 DLCs

even though i didn't listen to all the conversations, as that would have taken me hours, i still listened to a great deal, and i really enjoyed talking with the different characters

Dog and God were a brilliant match of opposites, Dean a common case of a greedy man, even though he had some good in it, and Christine always had the brilliant conversations, even if she couldn't talk in about 85% of them (the guessing part was quite amusing, but also quite deep and really nicely done)

even Father Elijah was well made, not the simple villain, but a visionary, even if his intentions were evil

 

in terms of level design, it was rather repetitive, but it served it's goal well

it's really easy to get lost, and it's really hard to pay attention to all that happens around you, making ambushes deadlier, traps catching you off guard, and you missing many stashes and valuable items

navigation was really hard for me, but even as hard as it was, i was able to find 13 of the 15 stashes left by Dean, the unique snowglobe, all the Dead Man's Hand cards, and enough items to fill a truck

 

all in all, the only thing this DLC lacks in my opinion, is replayability

having Dog or God can affect the game, but not too much

getting Dean out alive is just too much of a pain to even try (though it may be worth a try)

and Christine doesn't give you too many options of conversation

 

all in all, the result is that this is a wonderful experience for one time, but i don't see myself playing it again any time soon

on the other hand, it's perfect, as i don't think i'll play New Vegas again until the next DLC arrives, so i'll forget at least some of it

 

so to sum it up, it may not be the best of all the Fallout DLCs so far, but it sure as hell comes close, or maybe even first place (still haven't decided)

[theLeeHarvey]

That was a good review. Informative and insightful. The more posts like yours I see, the more it makes me think about taking Dead Money for another spin and trying to reevaluate my opinion of it.

[WastelandAssassin]

That was a good review. Informative and insightful. The more posts like yours I see, the more it makes me think about taking Dead Money for another spin and trying to reevaluate my opinion of it.

 

i'm really glad you liked it

 

i tried to write something that justifies the DLC, especially on the length of it (i just couldn't sum it down with less words properly)

 

this DLC is rather unique, i'll say that for sure

and it takes some time to get used to, because of all the new things it adds

so i would really recommend you giving it another try, just for getting as much of the story (you can leave the loot aside, it isn't really what counts, though there are some great stuff there)

 

i think that the most fun i had there, was due to actually having all the conversations, and reading most of them

so get immersed in the story, and enjoy it for the duration of the DLC

i think you'll probably miss it in the game

[Jiggalopuff]

JUst got done trawling through this topic. I pretty much agree with the OP. I kept wanting to speed through it, so that I could go back to the original game. Then again, I believe part of my (lack of) enjoyment of this adventure was the fact that I was an unarmed specialist who mainly specialized in speech and barter. If I had a different build(perhaps melee/stealth), I may have enjoyed this more. Things I didn't like about the Dead Money:

 

-Having to blow up/avoid the radios, some were even "shielded". The clouds were equally annoying.

-What seemed to be very little character development or roleplaying. The collar's took away a sense of freedom.

- (IMHO), somewhat cliche characters. Christine was interesting, with her being unable to communicate verbally. Dog/God was somewhat one-dimensional. Dean was almost interesting, but he didn't make much sense in the end; Why did Dean spend 200 years hanging around the casino, especially in a world where gold was hardly valuable? One would've thought he'd venture out into the wasteland out of boredom or something.

-The above gave the DLC an overall linear feeling. I felt more like I was trudging through a boring shooting game than playing an RPG. Even killing the ghosts got boring after awhile, since they all pretty much acted the same.

[evilbeefjerky]

Gold is still valuable in Fallout's world; the NCR used to back up it's currency with gold until their mines got blown up.. or something.

 

Anyway the radio thing drove me crazy, it was cheap an annoying especially in the final sections.

Also, I am amused at how the epilogue tries to foreshadow future DLC, and tries it's best to make a fight between two Couriers sound epic. Yeah. Doesn't work. When I think of Couriers fighting the only image that pops in my head is someone from Fed Ex and someone from UPS throwing parcels at each other.

[YellowManCow]

I loved the look and feel of Dead Money, the problem is that it hardly added anything replayable to the game. The villas and the Sierra Madre made for a very interesting little city, but once you complete the main storyline they become boring and useless as there's no life left. Once you clean out the loot (which usually happens during the main quest line), there's nothing to bring you back, nowhere really to explore.

 

My biggest gripe is that Dead Money does nothing to enhance the Wasteland in any way. I guess what I was expecting was an expansion along the lines of Point Lookout, something that would give you a new wasteland to explore along with unique critters/enemies as you trek across it to the red cloud on the horizon. This would give you something new to explore before AND after you reach the "city" of the Sierra Madre where Father Elijah ensnares you for his quest. As it is now, you teleport from the Brotherhood bunker in the middle of the map to the casino. Since you teleport from a location far from any Mojave Wasteland map borders, I really have no clue where the Sierra Madre's supposed to be in relation to the Mojave. And I guess what bugs me most is that the Mojave Wasteland map is GIGANTIC with so much space left empty and blocked off, so most of this could have been added somewhere on an unused part of the map, greater enhancing the realism of the Wasteland overall while expanding its "borders".

 

Guess I'll have to wait for further DLC before I see any new wasteland additions.

Edited March 16, 2011 by YellowManCow

[Fearseeker]

In my Opinion Dead Money was pretty enjoyable.

 

The most impressive part, was the design of the Sierra Madre. It was refreshingly different from everything else in the Mohave and really helped set the mood, with it's small and narrow alley and the building which looked like the were actually build by somebody, unlike the cement blocks that one usually encountered.

 

Second came the characters. Dog really had me hooked and especially his voice acting was awesome (but that could just be my love for the mentally ill, who knows). While the DM companions were much more distinctive then the vanilla companions, the lacked somewhat in regards of Character development (with christine it pretty much boiled down to one Speech check).

The only character that realy disapointed me was Elijah. During the whole game he remained somewhat of an blank page to me and when I killed him in the end he fellt just like any other random NPC that i came across so far. After the game i was left with the impression that Elijah was just some guy doing his thing and i just happened to stumble into it, there wasn't anything that enabled me to feel emotional conected to him.

 

The Ghost People were definetly creepy but i would have wished for them to be a little more dangerous. I didn't realy get the feel that an encounter with them was something to avoid or fear (mabey they are more fearsome in Hard mode). Making some of them sneek up on you or prepare an ambush for you (imagine one of them droping in on you from the ceiling) would have made them perfect.

 

Gameplaywise I think that resources were a little to plentiful around the SM. While you started out with an Survival feeling, just like with The Pit you just collected equipment to fast (again I don't know if this was better in hard mode, but i doubt it since the item placement isn't realy effected).

 

All in all i would say that Dead Money was really good while playing, but after completing it, I lacked an sense of accomplishment since everything that happened in DM was just far to removed from the courier (and the player).