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But best title ever!
Dead Money reviews, we have 'em.
About.com provides a mini-review without a score. <blockquote>The setup is actually quite fresh and new compared to the main Fallout 3 or New Vegas or DLC missions so far. Having to work with other people, moral choices that actually matter, and the limitations imposed by the red mist and radio collars, is interesting. At least at first. In execution, however, Dead Money is easily the most frustrating and difficult missions yet.
The game suggests you enter the Sierra Madre at level 20 or above. I'd say you probably don't have to be that beefed up to actually beat it, though, because it isn't the enemies or anything that is likely to kill you. What will kill you is the stupid radio collar, or a kitchen full of explosive gas with no explanation on how to get through it, or strict time limits where you have to run for an exit as fast as possible to avoid having your radio collar go off. The mission is frustrating and annoying and kind of not fun. I rarely if ever die in normal Fallout 3 / NV gameplay. But I died a ton here. Be sure to save often, because there were a few times I died and lost a surprising amount of progress. Save often.</blockquote>Front Towards Gamers, 7/10. <blockquote>Elijah sends you on your way explaining that to get in you need to find the three other collared “people” to help in the caper, which brings us to the bit of the game I find to be most rewarding, new characters. Your team pretty much breaks down like so: a super mutant with multiple personalities (sound familiar?), a mute techie that is surprisingly easy to communicate with, and a ghoul crooner that has been at the Madre since the bombs fell. Each of them also have an ability that helps you deal with the new problems that are tossed at you in Dead Money and each of them are pretty interesting as companions as well.
The most beneficial aspect of them is the new perks each of your caper companions give you when they accompany you however. There are numerous obstacles you run into travelling in this new area, all of which seem to simply be placed in the game to ramp up the difficulty or make you take strange routes to your targets. First and most noticeable is the giant red cloud, which is (of course) highly toxic, corrosive and all around annoying. When you’re wandering around, this cloud is a frequent nuisance, blocking routes and forcing you into buildings. Then, there are also radios, which like I said before can make your head go boom. When you come across a signal that can interfere with the collar, a beeping starts…which means you best blow up the radio if able or get the heck out of range. Lastly, and most annoying, are the Ghost people who are evil bastards that can only be killed by decapitation, vaporization, or your super mutant companion. So whenever one is knocked out, you find yourself having to go over to the corpse and hitting it a few more times. All of these obstacles seem to just be tossed in so you have to either go around, or in the case of “ghosts”, making the fight artificially harder. While on its own, all this would be fine, however, the lack of stimpacks makes it very annoying especially since the Ghost people also like to toss grenades at you all the time.</blockquote>NeoSeeker, 8.7/10.<blockquote>The new characters are certainly colorful – a schizo behemoth, a traumatized mute, and some douche in a suit – all topped with the Fallout brand of humor we love so much. Players with an eye for detail and the patience to hear their companions’ life stories will be rewarded with some interesting character tie-ins between the DLC and core game; none of it crosses over once you leave the Sierra Madre, yet these juicy tidbits and revelations the writers snuck in are enough to make fans giddy. The overarching story of the luxury hotel and its fabled treasure trove is expectedly tragic yet surprisingly beautiful. Players who make it through to the end are rewarded with a satisfying conclusion to a romantic drama centuries in the making, not to mention a Super mutant’s weight in gold.
Unfortunately, Dead Money just wouldn’t be a true Fallout experience without some kind of annoying bug. V.A.T.S. now has a new bug (at least I’ve never seen it until now), one that reminds us why saving compulsively every few minutes is a damn good habit. After entering the slo-mo sequence, my Courier would sometimes freeze going into third-person instead of attacking, but surrounding enemies remain unaffected, meaning I get a front row seat to my own horrible death.
Fallout diehards no doubt snagged the add-on the very hour it came out on Xbox LIVE, but for everyone else, rest assured Dead Money is a more than worthy investment of 800 MP. The difficulty is significantly higher than what most are used to, and the style certainly sets the DLC apart from the rest of New Vegas. Even so, the change is more refreshing than bothersome, and the killer narrative is hard to beat.</blockquote>Examiner.com, doesn't rate it.<blockquote>Gameplay wise, tense is barely accurate for describing the experience. The primary enemy in Sierra Madre is the Ghost People, who are very powerful, but easy to render unconscious. However, without a swift removal of a limb or their head, they stand back up, ready to fight again. It is never entirely explained why this happens, only that it does. Coupled the Cloud, a mix of copper and other chemicals that slowly depletes the Courier's health when in the cloud, traps left by the Ghost People, the collars being sensitive to speakers and radios (thus causing head-separating explosions after a time) and a scarcity of supplies, the prowl around Sierra Madre becomes a Colony-esque fight for survival. In addition, the Sierra Madre boots all of the Courier's hard-earned weapons, armor and other tools, leaving him naked in this hostile new territory. To make up for the innate hell that Sierra Madre is, Dead Money provides a handful of new perks, ranging from the ability to manufacture Sierra Madre currency to a new light armour perk that makes light armour somewhat advantageous, and bumps the level cap up to thirty-five.</blockquote>Ars Technica, "rent" (not sure how you're going to rent a DLC, though).<blockquote>Most of the game is spent walking to an area, fighting some enemies, flipping a switch of some sort, and then walking back. You'll have to escort your teammates to various locations, but since you can only work with one at a time, you end up escorting them individually. This leads to quite a bit of dull backtracking, especially since you can't fast travel at all. You'll also need to utilize stealth quite a bit—especially when navigating past the new indestructible holographic guards—and that has never been the series' strong suit.
[...]
The way Dead Money is set up, it feels more like you're simply moving from one area to the next, instead of really exploring. And exploration is one of Fallout's biggest draws. But the explosive collar, difficult enemies, and treacherous new terrain run counter to this. There's little incentive to go poking around when you might run into a radio that'll blow your head off in a few seconds. The story is certainly substantial, and the new characters are worth getting to know. But you'll have to push through the actual game to experience it.</blockquote>
About.com provides a mini-review without a score. <blockquote>The setup is actually quite fresh and new compared to the main Fallout 3 or New Vegas or DLC missions so far. Having to work with other people, moral choices that actually matter, and the limitations imposed by the red mist and radio collars, is interesting. At least at first. In execution, however, Dead Money is easily the most frustrating and difficult missions yet.
The game suggests you enter the Sierra Madre at level 20 or above. I'd say you probably don't have to be that beefed up to actually beat it, though, because it isn't the enemies or anything that is likely to kill you. What will kill you is the stupid radio collar, or a kitchen full of explosive gas with no explanation on how to get through it, or strict time limits where you have to run for an exit as fast as possible to avoid having your radio collar go off. The mission is frustrating and annoying and kind of not fun. I rarely if ever die in normal Fallout 3 / NV gameplay. But I died a ton here. Be sure to save often, because there were a few times I died and lost a surprising amount of progress. Save often.</blockquote>Front Towards Gamers, 7/10. <blockquote>Elijah sends you on your way explaining that to get in you need to find the three other collared “people” to help in the caper, which brings us to the bit of the game I find to be most rewarding, new characters. Your team pretty much breaks down like so: a super mutant with multiple personalities (sound familiar?), a mute techie that is surprisingly easy to communicate with, and a ghoul crooner that has been at the Madre since the bombs fell. Each of them also have an ability that helps you deal with the new problems that are tossed at you in Dead Money and each of them are pretty interesting as companions as well.
The most beneficial aspect of them is the new perks each of your caper companions give you when they accompany you however. There are numerous obstacles you run into travelling in this new area, all of which seem to simply be placed in the game to ramp up the difficulty or make you take strange routes to your targets. First and most noticeable is the giant red cloud, which is (of course) highly toxic, corrosive and all around annoying. When you’re wandering around, this cloud is a frequent nuisance, blocking routes and forcing you into buildings. Then, there are also radios, which like I said before can make your head go boom. When you come across a signal that can interfere with the collar, a beeping starts…which means you best blow up the radio if able or get the heck out of range. Lastly, and most annoying, are the Ghost people who are evil bastards that can only be killed by decapitation, vaporization, or your super mutant companion. So whenever one is knocked out, you find yourself having to go over to the corpse and hitting it a few more times. All of these obstacles seem to just be tossed in so you have to either go around, or in the case of “ghosts”, making the fight artificially harder. While on its own, all this would be fine, however, the lack of stimpacks makes it very annoying especially since the Ghost people also like to toss grenades at you all the time.</blockquote>NeoSeeker, 8.7/10.<blockquote>The new characters are certainly colorful – a schizo behemoth, a traumatized mute, and some douche in a suit – all topped with the Fallout brand of humor we love so much. Players with an eye for detail and the patience to hear their companions’ life stories will be rewarded with some interesting character tie-ins between the DLC and core game; none of it crosses over once you leave the Sierra Madre, yet these juicy tidbits and revelations the writers snuck in are enough to make fans giddy. The overarching story of the luxury hotel and its fabled treasure trove is expectedly tragic yet surprisingly beautiful. Players who make it through to the end are rewarded with a satisfying conclusion to a romantic drama centuries in the making, not to mention a Super mutant’s weight in gold.
Unfortunately, Dead Money just wouldn’t be a true Fallout experience without some kind of annoying bug. V.A.T.S. now has a new bug (at least I’ve never seen it until now), one that reminds us why saving compulsively every few minutes is a damn good habit. After entering the slo-mo sequence, my Courier would sometimes freeze going into third-person instead of attacking, but surrounding enemies remain unaffected, meaning I get a front row seat to my own horrible death.
Fallout diehards no doubt snagged the add-on the very hour it came out on Xbox LIVE, but for everyone else, rest assured Dead Money is a more than worthy investment of 800 MP. The difficulty is significantly higher than what most are used to, and the style certainly sets the DLC apart from the rest of New Vegas. Even so, the change is more refreshing than bothersome, and the killer narrative is hard to beat.</blockquote>Examiner.com, doesn't rate it.<blockquote>Gameplay wise, tense is barely accurate for describing the experience. The primary enemy in Sierra Madre is the Ghost People, who are very powerful, but easy to render unconscious. However, without a swift removal of a limb or their head, they stand back up, ready to fight again. It is never entirely explained why this happens, only that it does. Coupled the Cloud, a mix of copper and other chemicals that slowly depletes the Courier's health when in the cloud, traps left by the Ghost People, the collars being sensitive to speakers and radios (thus causing head-separating explosions after a time) and a scarcity of supplies, the prowl around Sierra Madre becomes a Colony-esque fight for survival. In addition, the Sierra Madre boots all of the Courier's hard-earned weapons, armor and other tools, leaving him naked in this hostile new territory. To make up for the innate hell that Sierra Madre is, Dead Money provides a handful of new perks, ranging from the ability to manufacture Sierra Madre currency to a new light armour perk that makes light armour somewhat advantageous, and bumps the level cap up to thirty-five.</blockquote>Ars Technica, "rent" (not sure how you're going to rent a DLC, though).<blockquote>Most of the game is spent walking to an area, fighting some enemies, flipping a switch of some sort, and then walking back. You'll have to escort your teammates to various locations, but since you can only work with one at a time, you end up escorting them individually. This leads to quite a bit of dull backtracking, especially since you can't fast travel at all. You'll also need to utilize stealth quite a bit—especially when navigating past the new indestructible holographic guards—and that has never been the series' strong suit.
[...]
The way Dead Money is set up, it feels more like you're simply moving from one area to the next, instead of really exploring. And exploration is one of Fallout's biggest draws. But the explosive collar, difficult enemies, and treacherous new terrain run counter to this. There's little incentive to go poking around when you might run into a radio that'll blow your head off in a few seconds. The story is certainly substantial, and the new characters are worth getting to know. But you'll have to push through the actual game to experience it.</blockquote>
