tick tick boom: Dead Money
My experience with Dead Money is boringly typical: great characters, frustrating gameplay. Thus, I ramble FOREVER.
So, the bad: dense poison gas. Exploding collars. An over-reliance on jumping hazards when - at least on PC - jumping mechanics are…whimsical. None of which would be dealbreakers, if the direction-marker wasn’t also lying bastard.
I get lost at the best of times - in meatspace, too. This life-breaking annoyance is counterbalanced by an encyclopedic awareness of every detail of a space once I’ve gotten lost in it a half-dozen times. I could draw a three-dimensional map of Megaton or point out the fastest (if urine-stinking) tourist-clog-avoiding shortcuts through the city centre, but that doesn’t really keep me from miserably sniffling my way around a neighbourhood looking for the little street I know I’ve walked down three times before that should be right here. So…a large map of identical rooms and exteriors mostly concealed by toxic fog and hidden radios making your head asplode? Not so recreational.
It’ll probably be like the Pitt, which I really got into on the second go-round (I found nearly all those steel ingots, eventually!), but this first time, I gave up and looked up playthroughs a good dozen times, and then finally downloaded a damn mod to make the fog not toxic. The worst stretch was a simple goal: get to a bell tower, one unfortunately several load-screens away so I couldn’t line-of-sight, and the ticker kept pointing me into a fog-filled courtyard of no exit. It was meant to be where you cut through on the way back from the bell tower, jumping down from the second floor, with no way to get up there from street level. ARGH. Went back to each of the three companions I’d just settled in place to start the journey again and again, thinking I’d just come from the wrong direction, and still only chanced on the right direction through stupid luck. AAARGH.
On the happier side, the good: the characters are wonderful, and the setting’s distinctively eerie. Those ghost-fellows, darn creepy but kind of pleasurable to watch stagger-leap-stab. I’d re-built my character for my new NCR play-through with this DLC in mind, so Patsy is currently a big healthy girl with fists like a stevedore. Once I had a beartrap thumper, well, those poor ghosties went on the endangered list right quick.
Elijah’s a satisfying villain (though I was disappointed I couldn’t tell Veronica afterward that her mentor was a bat-spanking megalo who chased away and then tortured her lover - or maybe she’s had enough Brotherhood-induced disillusionment for this year, hmm?). It felt good scuttling off while he trapped himself in the vault, surrounded by the gold I didn’t even try to take. I may have quoted Battlefield Earth. He’s just one of the Sierra Madre’s occupants to have lost purpose in obsession - the casino’s motto, “Begin again,” almost dares those who approach to mire themselves in their personal miseries under the guise of a new start. And can a courier who’s escaped the grave only to doggedly chase after killers really say s/he’s any different?
I liked Dog and Dean particularly because you can’t exhaust all conversation options and then pick the most utilitarian path, which I totally do with every other NPC. You offend them, well, there’s no return to that main convo branch. Being a huge sap, I decided early on to save everyone through the magic of trust because I am the motherfucking desert messiah. The game punishes this effort especially harshly (goddamn holographic projectors stuffed in goddamn convoluted places), and my happy ending felt earned. Being good ain’t easy.
Just ask Christine. I blew through most of my precious drugs and skill magazines getting her story, and didn’t regret it. And she was still determined to chase down Elijah after so many horrific injuries - yes, another badass Fallout woman. Like most reviews I’ve read, I was disappointed my character was seemingly too thick to realise Christine was talking about Veronica and tell her…or perhaps too thoughtful? After all, she no longer had a foot in the world outside her vengeance, choosing to remain in a world without human contact - how painful would it be to complicate that with the option to return to a lover from that ruined life, now scarred and emotionally twisted?
I wish I could have gotten more time with these characters - although none of them were onboard with the sneak-up-and-kill-silently strategy, universally preferring the Leeroy Jenkins slide. Usually right as I threw a gas bomb in the ghost’s path. They would have been significantly less than helpful against the holograms. But, dammit, I could have used their company.
One last thought - the New Vegas version of Fallout is really coming down on human’s inhumanity to superhuman, huh? DC’s super mutants, aside from two, were nothing but XP-fodder. In Vegas, almost all the supers are lost souls, still fumbling for a place and meaning in a Master-less world, and this is the second to be ill-used by humans. Poor monsters…
This entry was originally posted at http://mustinvestigate.dreamwidth.org/24558.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
So, the bad: dense poison gas. Exploding collars. An over-reliance on jumping hazards when - at least on PC - jumping mechanics are…whimsical. None of which would be dealbreakers, if the direction-marker wasn’t also lying bastard.
I get lost at the best of times - in meatspace, too. This life-breaking annoyance is counterbalanced by an encyclopedic awareness of every detail of a space once I’ve gotten lost in it a half-dozen times. I could draw a three-dimensional map of Megaton or point out the fastest (if urine-stinking) tourist-clog-avoiding shortcuts through the city centre, but that doesn’t really keep me from miserably sniffling my way around a neighbourhood looking for the little street I know I’ve walked down three times before that should be right here. So…a large map of identical rooms and exteriors mostly concealed by toxic fog and hidden radios making your head asplode? Not so recreational.
It’ll probably be like the Pitt, which I really got into on the second go-round (I found nearly all those steel ingots, eventually!), but this first time, I gave up and looked up playthroughs a good dozen times, and then finally downloaded a damn mod to make the fog not toxic. The worst stretch was a simple goal: get to a bell tower, one unfortunately several load-screens away so I couldn’t line-of-sight, and the ticker kept pointing me into a fog-filled courtyard of no exit. It was meant to be where you cut through on the way back from the bell tower, jumping down from the second floor, with no way to get up there from street level. ARGH. Went back to each of the three companions I’d just settled in place to start the journey again and again, thinking I’d just come from the wrong direction, and still only chanced on the right direction through stupid luck. AAARGH.
On the happier side, the good: the characters are wonderful, and the setting’s distinctively eerie. Those ghost-fellows, darn creepy but kind of pleasurable to watch stagger-leap-stab. I’d re-built my character for my new NCR play-through with this DLC in mind, so Patsy is currently a big healthy girl with fists like a stevedore. Once I had a beartrap thumper, well, those poor ghosties went on the endangered list right quick.
Elijah’s a satisfying villain (though I was disappointed I couldn’t tell Veronica afterward that her mentor was a bat-spanking megalo who chased away and then tortured her lover - or maybe she’s had enough Brotherhood-induced disillusionment for this year, hmm?). It felt good scuttling off while he trapped himself in the vault, surrounded by the gold I didn’t even try to take. I may have quoted Battlefield Earth. He’s just one of the Sierra Madre’s occupants to have lost purpose in obsession - the casino’s motto, “Begin again,” almost dares those who approach to mire themselves in their personal miseries under the guise of a new start. And can a courier who’s escaped the grave only to doggedly chase after killers really say s/he’s any different?
I liked Dog and Dean particularly because you can’t exhaust all conversation options and then pick the most utilitarian path, which I totally do with every other NPC. You offend them, well, there’s no return to that main convo branch. Being a huge sap, I decided early on to save everyone through the magic of trust because I am the motherfucking desert messiah. The game punishes this effort especially harshly (goddamn holographic projectors stuffed in goddamn convoluted places), and my happy ending felt earned. Being good ain’t easy.
Just ask Christine. I blew through most of my precious drugs and skill magazines getting her story, and didn’t regret it. And she was still determined to chase down Elijah after so many horrific injuries - yes, another badass Fallout woman. Like most reviews I’ve read, I was disappointed my character was seemingly too thick to realise Christine was talking about Veronica and tell her…or perhaps too thoughtful? After all, she no longer had a foot in the world outside her vengeance, choosing to remain in a world without human contact - how painful would it be to complicate that with the option to return to a lover from that ruined life, now scarred and emotionally twisted?
I wish I could have gotten more time with these characters - although none of them were onboard with the sneak-up-and-kill-silently strategy, universally preferring the Leeroy Jenkins slide. Usually right as I threw a gas bomb in the ghost’s path. They would have been significantly less than helpful against the holograms. But, dammit, I could have used their company.
One last thought - the New Vegas version of Fallout is really coming down on human’s inhumanity to superhuman, huh? DC’s super mutants, aside from two, were nothing but XP-fodder. In Vegas, almost all the supers are lost souls, still fumbling for a place and meaning in a Master-less world, and this is the second to be ill-used by humans. Poor monsters…
This entry was originally posted at http://mustinvestigate.dreamwidth.org/24558.html. Please comment there using OpenID.