Fallout New Vegas DLC: Is it worth it?

[Kapol]

Seriously? You're going to spend, what, upwards of 20 quid on expansions to a game? There are far better ways to spend your cash.

Fallout New Vegas: Dead Money £7.49
Fallout New Vegas: Honest Hearts £7.49
Fallout New Vegas: Old World Blues £7.49

Total: £22.47

What a rip off. DLC is how developers and publishers bleed extra money from gamers. Don't do it to yourself.

Or, you know, it's how the developers earn some money after a release cycle by offering extra content after a game is officially released. I do think that DLC is restricted to characters that don't offer much or simple reskins, it's a rip off. But when the DLC actually expands on the original game and offers more of it, as these do, it's a good thing. The worst thing I could say about these DLC packs is that they share the same problem as the main game on release in that they can be buggy as hell (Honest Hearts has crashed my PC at least 5 times).

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

Actually Dead Money and Old World Blues are pretty quality as gameplay goes. They have some great storyline and voice acting too. I really enjoyed them. Honest Hearts is a little bit meh but I think that's probably just my personal taste as I like the indoors in fallout more than wandering the wasteland.

All of the DLC's togther are like playing a sequel so I don't think it's a con.

I really enjoyed them and I can recommend them.

It's all working towards Lonesome road which will give us an insight into the couriers past and how they got involved with the whole business of vegas to start with I'm looking forward to see how the story turns out.

 

[Kapol]

It is a WASTE OF MONEY. I would barely pay 22 quid for the full game right now, let alone a few more hours of DLC.

If these packs were priced at say, £2.50 each, I would not hesitate to buy them.

Instead of wasting time adding massively overpriced additional content, they should concentrate on making the next game. This blatant cash grab is both sad and pathetic.

How is providing content for money a blatant cash grab? It is really any different then full games that cost about $10 but only last a few hours? Like Limbo, or Portal? There are only a few hours in content in each of them and they're about the same price.

DLC, when done right, extends a game's experience and can be used to further a game's story. That's exactly what these are doing. I do agree there is plenty of overpriced DLC (such as the characters in MvC3 and Mortal Kombat 9), but that doesn't mean that all DLC are overpriced pieces of garbage.

 

[Blazing Steel]

Dead Money - Good story and the gameplay is changed up a bit with traps everywhere. Wasn't my cup of tea but overall still a good buy. Main drawback was I wasn't impressed with the loot.

Honest Hearts - I liked it. Kinda felt like point lookout only half the size and rocks insted of swamps. Also I wasn't impressed with the story line.

Old World Blues - Bout 15hours through and it's awesome. Seriously go check it out.

Dead Money and Old World Blues are intercontected somewhat. I uderstood Dead Money more after I played the Old World and they both give hints towards the next DLC(s) involving the other courier.

In order of awesomeness:

Old World Blues
Dead Money
Honest Hearts

EDIT:

Dead Money - Very few crashed/glitches
Honest Hearts - By far the most crashy fallout DLC to date for me. Not only did it freeze all the time important quest people would just vanish ruining that save.
Old World Blues - No fails to date .
On a new PS3 320Gb Slim for referance.

 

[hoboman29]

I can immediately say get honest hearts they have some damn good weapons and armor especially guns (the .45 smg is mad powerful maybe overpowered) and it provides a good challenge at higher levels with my experience i was constantly getting crippled

 

[MiracleOfSound]

Old World Blues - hell yes.

The other two? Meh.

 

[Knight Captain Kerr]

Actually Dead Money and Old World Blues are pretty quality as gameplay goes. They have some great storyline and voice acting too. I really enjoyed them. Honest Hearts is a little bit meh but I think that's probably just my personal taste as I like the indoors in fallout more than wandering the wasteland.

All of the DLC's togther are like playing a sequel so I don't think it's a con.

I really enjoyed them and I can recommend them.

It's all working towards Lonesome road which will give us an insight into the couriers past and how they got involved with the whole business of vegas to start with I'm looking forward to see how the story turns out.

This is pretty much what I have to say about the add ons. Buy them.

 

[Alon Shechter]

Dead Money was unexpected and very odd, at times frustrating.

Honest Hearts was, in my opinion, very good plot-wise but without a very interesting world to explore. But it had a Thompson gun and Slender Man drawn on walls, so it wins!

Old World Blues is..
Who am I kidding, it's fucking hilarious. The first conversation in the DLC makes me laugh my arse off.

 

[GundamSentinel]

I can only speak for Dead Money: the story was good, but the gameplay was a real pain. I caught myself thinking: 'When will it end?'

 

[AlternatePFG]

I enjoyed all of the DLC immensely, and got quite a bit of playtime out of them. Story wise, I'd say Dead Money was the best of the bunch, Honest Hearts had a really interesting side plot, and Old World Blues is just hilarious.

 

[DustyDrB]

I loved Honest Hearts and Old World Blues, hated Dead Money. The gameplay in Dead Money is just awful. There are four big ways that Dead Money makes the gameplay tedious and annoying (collars, traps, cloud, holograms). Your companions can be annoying as well, repeating lines of dialogue at a ridiculous rate (not while you are talking to them, but while you're just walking around). That's a problem with Honest Hearts as well, but it bothered me more in Dead Money (I guess I was annoyed at it anyway, so anything more it did just grated that much more).

Lootwise, you can look at the Vault for a good list.
Dead Money [http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Dead_Money#Items]
Honest Hearts [http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Honest_Hearts#Items]
Old World Blues [http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Old_World_Blues_%28add-on%29#Items]

Honest Heart's has the best Guns (.45 Autos, including A Light Shining In The Darkness. The Survivalist's Rifle. Those two special guns should remain in any Guns-based character's inventory forever). It also provides a good bit for characters who focus on Survivalism. You get a really good piece of light armor in the end, and can also find some Desert Ranger Combat Armor (the armor displayed on most of the Fallout: New Vegas promo material). It doesn't provide any effect bonuses, but it gives you a good DT and looks badass.

Dead Money gives you easy access to a lot of basic, but important items (stimpacks, weapon repair kits, various drugs). There is also a chance at the end for you to get some items that will earn you many caps (by many caps, I mean 10,0000 to over 300,000 caps). It provides probably the best light armor in the game. Aside from the loot, you'll gain easy access to a vendor who will have the most caps in the game (meaning you can sell more to "him").

Old World Blues provides something for everyone, but especially Energy Weapons based characters. There are also some guns (a special sniper rifle that trumps even the Gobi Campaign Scout Rifle and a miniguns that fires magnum ammo). There's also a good bit for unarmed and melee characters. You also get the best medium armor in the game in this.

 

[Kapol]

What games cost $10 and only last a few hours? I've gotten plenty more than 'a few hours' out of Portal, and there is the quality of those hours to be considered. You can't seriously compare a FONV DLC pack to Portal for god's sake.

BTW I'm not saying it's a blatant cash grab because of the DLC itself, it's rather because of the price.

Here, I'll provide a list of a few examples and how long they took me to beat. I'm not going to count multiple playthroughs as, if I did, I'd have to count them for the DLC as well, and since I haven't had an oppertunity to play through them again due to only having gotten them fairly recently, that wouldn't be a fair way to show the difference. Anyways:

Fallout: New Vegas-Dead Money: 4-5 hours
Fallout: New Vegas-Honest Hearts: 3-5 hours
Limbo: 2 hours
Braid: 2 hours
Castle Crashers: 3-5 hours
Dead Rising 2: Case Zero: 3-4 hours (treated as individual game as it's sold as such)
Dead Rising 2: Case West: 3 hours (same as above)
Penny Arcade Episode 1: 3-5 hours
Penny Arcade Episode 2: 3-5 hours
Portal: Still Alive: 2 hours
Scott Pilgrim: 4 hours

And those are just 360 alone, and even then it's only ones I've completed. It would take a while to list all of my PC games that fall into the same catagory.

As for the quality, the DLC are about the same quality as the Fallout game they expand, story and gameplay wise. So, in that way, I'd say that they're worth more then some of the games I've played for longer.

And yes, I can compare the two. I love portal, but just because they're add-ons doesn't make the NV add-ons any less good. Plus, I'd argue playing through the add-ons is actually more likely. Portal has the issue where, once you solve it's puzzles, then you know the solution to them. For me, it gets a bit dull to know the answer. There's quite a bit to do in each of the DLC I've played, and plenty more to descover in more playthroughs. Not to mention playing through on both 'core' and 'hardcore' modes (though that mainly changes the Dead Money add-on more then Honest Hearts).

As for the price, I think it's fair compared to other games. You could pay $15 for a couple of maps in CoD, $5 for a single fighter in Mortal Kombat or MvC3, or $10 for a full new area to explore.

And, if you really can't stand to pay that much, wait for the next Steam sale and see if they go down in price. I got both Honest Hearts and Dead Money for $2.50 each during the sale.

 

[GonzoGamer]

It is a WASTE OF MONEY. I would barely pay 22 quid for the full game right now, let alone a few more hours of DLC.

If these packs were priced at say, £2.50 each, I would not hesitate to buy them.

Instead of wasting time adding massively overpriced additional content, they should concentrate on making the next game. This blatant cash grab is both sad and pathetic.

How is providing content for money a blatant cash grab? It is really any different then full games that cost about $10 but only last a few hours? Like Limbo, or Portal? There are only a few hours in content in each of them and they're about the same price.

DLC, when done right, extends a game's experience and can be used to further a game's story. That's exactly what these are doing. I do agree there is plenty of overpriced DLC (such as the characters in MvC3 and Mortal Kombat 9), but that doesn't mean that all DLC are overpriced pieces of garbage.

What games cost $10 and only last a few hours? I've gotten plenty more than 'a few hours' out of Portal, and there is the quality of those hours to be considered. You can't seriously compare a FONV DLC pack to Portal for god's sake.

BTW I'm not saying it's a blatant cash grab because of the DLC itself, it's rather because of the price.

I can see both sides of this argument and I think both are right depending on the title/dlc in question.
On one hand I am sometimes very grateful when a game I really like comes out with more content: of course this always depends on how much content was in the original release and how much the dlc costs. For games like Borderlands or Fallout 3, I didn?t have any problems laying down some more money but I didn?t even get all the packs for them.
At the same time the emergence of dlc also makes me worry that we will never see a game with that San Andreas amount of content right on the launch disc. If we ever get a gta that big again, it will probably cost $60 for the first 1/3 and another $20-40 for each island. A San Andreas size game starts looking like less of a good value when it starts climbing past $100. For most games I just wait for goty now.

As for the FNV dlc, I?ve played a good portion the first two and I can?t recommend them. It just seemed like they didn?t put much thought into them: almost like they really were going for a quick cash grab. I haven?t played the latest but I love the trailer and I?ve heard some really great things. I?ll wait to try that one too but it looks like there might finally be one worth buying.

 

[OManoghue]

Dead Money is fantastic and has some threads that go into Old World Blues. So both of those are worth it due to the fact that Old World Blues is phenomenal and is way better if you understand everything. Dead Money was a very atmospheric and creepy setting. Honest Hearts, was okay. Didn't leave any kind of impression on me, just another angle of the post civilization world which was neat to see, it just didn't have any unique enemies all of them were from NV or FO3.

 

[PanicxBoss]

Go for Old World Blues for sure, make your own calls on the other two.
Why Old World Blues? Awesome writing, fun locale, new enemies and a cool house. And... it has Prof. Farnsworth in it. From Futurama. GOOD NEWS EVERYONE!

 

[Siris]

I would say that only Old World Blues is worth it

 

[Mylinkay Asdara]

Greetings, dear readers. I have a question for you.

I just recently acquired Fallout New Vegas and finished it not two hours ago

Spoiler

Very Good morality, sided with the NCR, preserved the Brotherhood, yada yada

I will likely pick it up for a second playthrough sometime soon. My question is this, dear reader: Is the DLC worth it? I didn?t buy it because I wanted a chance to play the game and then decide if I would invest more. I?ve heard people saying they loved the DLC, and some people saying they hated the DLC.

So, for all who played the Fallout: New Vegas DLC, my question is this: Would you recommend it?

EDIT: I have a balenced play-style focused on Guns, headshots, and speech.

I just asked myself this and bought them all. Here are my brief thoughts:

Dead Money: In a word, frustrating. Interesting and certainly if you are about story and background that will carry the day and it is worth it. If, on the other hand, you don't like relying on the auto-save when you inevitably die (repeatedly) out of no-where and have to repeat that experience until you figure out what the issue is where you are - then you might want to give a pause. Frustrating. I was, however, playing on Hardcore, so that may effect my judgement (of all of these).

Honest Hearts: Decent. I enjoyed it, and it had that 'land of tribals' feel that seemed absent from Fallout 3 and NV otherwise. Nice to see some areas are still wild and unorganized in post apocalyptia. It seemed... bigger than needed for what it was asking you to do, which I guess would have been more interesting had I not been a high-level character already 'done' with the rest of the game.

Old World Blues: Extremely fun to play, but buggy as all hell - in my personal experience. So, again, I have to reluctantly say it is also frustrating, even though I was personally willing to put up with the frustration to enjoy the very quirky and refreshingly informative environment.

Why you should get all 3: There are breadcrumbs through all three DLC packages about this "other Courier" who, we might remember, apparently was loosely affiliated with our little delivery at some point we never see. Since future DLC will probably resolve and/or focus on this - you might want to get the whole story and the bunches of goodies in weapons and armor.