Rank the DLC's

What is the best DLC?

  • Total voters
    271
I managed to vote on the wrong one on the polls :puppy-dog:

But for me there's just the one: Dead Money.
While I did tire of the ghosts the characters and the writing made up for it tenfold. The fact that you can't go back was a smart move, too. Man I loved that one.

OWB was too pulpy scifi for me. The post-apoc feel wasn't really there and that alone killed it for me. The wacky humor was too much too - but I like to brood :look: It had tons of interesting stuff going on individually, but I wouldn't play it again.

LR was long and tedious and... I didn't care for the one character made for the DLC (I'm not counting ED-E cheat hacks and beeping) and blowing shit up wasn't as rewarding as it could have been. Repetitive.

HH was just bad. NPCs were kind of shallow and had cooler outfits than characters. The story was meh. Some nice mountain views, though.
 
Lonesome Road for me.

I thought all DLC were at the least quite good, but I found Honest Hearts a little short and the writing not very interesting. I did like the worldspace though. Old World Blues was interesting on its own and had some nice moments and places, but it was too much of a change from the Mojave for me. Dead Money was real good, I loved the writing but I just do not dig the horror-ish setting of that DLC. Although Lonesome Road was lineair and the blowing up of unexploded warheads was kind of "meh", I really liked the scenery and dark atmosphere of the DLC.
 
Wow, it's not often Dead Money gets this much love from the fanbase! I'm glad I'm not the only one who really enjoyed it. c: I've never understood why it gets so much vitriol - maybe it's because it's a little more difficult than what some players would like? /:
 
I can understand the sentiments people express against Dead Money, but I can't sympathize with them. It's probably my favorite DLC, and it's the closest thing the Fallout franchise has delivered to the feeling you got in Necropolis or The Glow since... well, Necropolis and The Glow. I liked going in with just the clothes on my back, the feelings of being completely outclassed (I tend to go in at low levels) and of scavenging and scrambling to meet the challenge. It did "ominous" and "claustrophobic" better than many of the vaults, and it managed to tie things intimately in to the pre-war past while simultaneously keeping it mythic and remote.

Lonesome Road and Old World Blues are tied too closely for me to ever pick a second place winner that would get to hold the title for more than a few days:

-The linearity of LR loses it points, the Marked Men were a bit of a stretch, and the story of The Divide (and Ulysses/The Courier) could have used some more concrete detail (and better direction for the voice actor delivering the bulk of it), but I enjoyed the story and the experience overall, and I think it's one of the best evocations of an urban wasteland in the series. They never outright say that the warheads you're blowing up are actually armed, so I can usually get by by telling myself you're just keying in with a failsafe device to detonate their conventional explosives. Otherwise, the treatment of nukes here would go from "not reverent enough for my tastes" to "worse than Fallout 3" and this one would rate a fair bit lower.

-When it was shiny and new, OWB would have taken the top spot, but the lack of a gradually unfolding narrative (and of nearly any writing between the huge dialogue block at the beginning and the one at the end) is a sticking point for me, and in practice the OWB experience sometimes feels more like I'm crossing items off a checklist than I am doing anything meaningful (have I gone here? Have I gone there? Have I upgraded the Smart Lights?). Not to detract from the wonderful writing and theming, but on reflection, OWB shares a lot in common with Fallout 3. It's a combat-heavy lootfest where meaningful interactions are thin on the ground, an experience centered around leaving no stone unturned in the quest to make sure you didn't miss any perks or unique weapons (weapons which are often an ill-fit for the setting once you get them back to the Mojave).

Honest Hearts comes in last, but in some ways I love it more than any of the others. It's beautiful, occasionally even to the point of being relaxing, and it's fun to explore. Zion has a unique feel to it without seeming out-of-place in the game world. Even if it had sucked in every other capacity, it gave us the Survivalist's story, and that's enough to elevate it into the limelight on its own. If they'd had the time to flesh it out, this list probably would have been a lot harder to make. I did find that Graham, like Ulysses, failed to meet the hype for me, falling a bit flat in both the characterization and VO departments, but I understand the fanbase is about 50/50 on that.
 
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I am reinstalling the game, sans all the dlc.
I hated them.
Profoundly.

The DLC's did their absolute best in un-doing everything good about FONV, and turning it back into FO3.
Horrible, horrible, horrible, I am trying to un-experience the whole thing.
The only good thing was the level cap, but I can do that myself with a console command.

Sub-Human said:
I'm supposing that it'd be better to have DLC that add to the vanilla game (additional quests that further develop your Courier, reveal some backstage Pre-War fighting and Post-War action heavily related to New Vegas, etc.) because when my character travels miles of desert to some Canyon, gets trapped in a casino, or gets teleported or something to a Pre-War military base it takes away from the experience.
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You really said it best. When you go from a fairly realistic world of Mojave, to somewhere with perpetual dark-orange cloud cover and ghost-people and whatnot, it changes the "base realism" you are dealing with. You are left with a feeling that you are operating in an insane ghost-world, and that Mojave is merely an anomaly. It ruins the entire experience of immersion for me.
 
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zegh8578 said:
You really said it best. When you go from a fairly realistic world of Mojave, to somewhere with perpetual dark-orange cloud cover and ghost-people and whatnot, it changes the "base realism" you are dealing with. You are left with a feeling that you are operating in an insane ghost-world, and that Mojave is merely an anomaly. It ruins the entire experience of immersion for me.
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It's not like the DLC's were THAT far-fetched... I mean it's a completely different backdrop and premise but DLC's are a chance for something non-vanilla to happen in reference to the main storyline. I feel like we got the background/story extension with Lonesome Road anyway, so it's not like they abandoned giving more time towards the history of the land you're playing in.

Not to mention the whole "burning man" exploration as well, which delves deeply into the Legion before the most modern grouping you have now.

I'm more in the camp that Dead Money was fun, just because it wasn't a simple and easy experience. I feel like anyone with vision and below average reflexes can complete the new Fallout games. Might as well add something challenging.
 
durstlimpbizkit said:
It's not like the DLC's were THAT far-fetched... I mean it's a completely different backdrop and premise but DLC's are a chance for something non-vanilla to happen in reference to the main storyline. I feel like we got the background/story extension with Lonesome Road anyway, so it's not like they abandoned giving more time towards the history of the land you're playing in.

Not to mention the whole "burning man" exploration as well, which delves deeply into the Legion before the most modern grouping you have now.

I'm more in the camp that Dead Money was fun, just because it wasn't a simple and easy experience. I feel like anyone with vision and below average reflexes can complete the new Fallout games. Might as well add something challenging.
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We just have different expectations, I guess. Even the first games 1 and 2 are an amalgam of various vibes and feels. Fallout 1 has the experience of Shady Sands, and many may expect a Shady-Sands kind of vibe, while others are expecting a Brotherhood Bunker kind of vibe, or a Masters dungeon kind of vibe.

Fallout New Vegas really fit my expectation of that vibe and feel, while the dlcs, among them particularily Dead Money, broke my expectation. I could go into detail, but that is a bunch of subjective opinion-making... it just didn't do it for me :D
 
Dead Money was leaps and bounds above the rest, since it really channeled the spirit of Classic Fallout in that none of the characters were black and white, and instead many shades of moral and amoral gray.

Also, the back story to Dead Money actually made sense and didn't either omit, handwave or simply ignore some bits while making other bits relevant and actually explains the who, what, where, when and why.

Finally, I think that Dean Domino(a very obviously play on Dean Martin) was definitely a great character as though his motives were purely the heist of the Sierra Madre, he wasn't a one dimensional villain, nor was he at the same time a hero by any stretch of the imagination but instead encompassed well rounded traits to make him actually believable.
 
zegh8578 said:
We just have different expectations, I guess. Even the first games 1 and 2 are an amalgam of various vibes and feels. Fallout 1 has the experience of Shady Sands, and many may expect a Shady-Sands kind of vibe, while others are expecting a Brotherhood Bunker kind of vibe, or a Masters dungeon kind of vibe.

Fallout New Vegas really fit my expectation of that vibe and feel, while the dlcs, among them particularily Dead Money, broke my expectation. I could go into detail, but that is a bunch of subjective opinion-making... it just didn't do it for me :D
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I don't think we're too far apart; and aside from opinion I think that's about as close as you can come to an equal ground. So I'm all about it.

Either way at least you know the creators at least care enough to do something creative instead of just phoning this stuff in.
 
1. Honest Hearts - rare choice, I know :smile: I just love the setting and the calm atmosphere. And I always liked the tribal aspect of fallout games. And of course, Joshua Graham! He is probably my most favorite FONV character (love the mystery behind him, his "rebirth", his philosophy, his voice...). Pitty is that HH is really a bit short in terms of story. HH certainly has its flaws, but sometimes I feel that HH is like your child
that is not really that perfect, but you love him above all anyway...

2. Dead Money - superb writing, great characters with believable motifs and I actually like the ambient sound in Sierra Madre, which really adds to the atmosphere. Elijah is great villain. I love the overall theme - "letting go". Only con is that its sometimes too frustrating with all the speakers and holograms and cloud(but then again, thats part of the challenge which makes this DLC great)

3. Lonesome Road - too linear, sometimes too scripted. But the feeling of depression, loneliness and utter destruction, followed by guilt (when you learn the truth about the Divide) makes up for it. Also I like the closure, that your courier gets. And Ulysses is great character with great voice, sometimes seems insane, but that just fleshes out his personality. He comes second after Joshua Graham for me.

4. Old World Blues - still a GREAT DLC, no question about it. But somehow it comes last in my list. I love the humorous nature of this DLC, but sometimes it seems that all I am doing is running around fetching things in environment that is the least interesting of all DLCs for me. In some aspects it can be one of the best (loot), but comes last in my two favorite aspects - atmosphere and setting.

All DLC are still far superior to FO3 DLC (except Point Lookout, that one is on par with HH for me):smile:
 
Although Honest Hearts had clear problems with pacing (especially with that end that came too soon), I thought it had a wonderful concept: The unspoiled wilderness and presence of remote tribes have a calm beauty that compliments the DLC's philosophical perspectives on revenge, innocence, and internal conflict well. They felt like they were made for each other, and Josh Sawyer articulated them in a really fascinating way. I still wish the story progression was better executed, and you might get the feeling that although the central idea of the DLC is great, the execution isn't so much. It's not my favorite of the four as Dead Money and Old World Blues were the better designed, but it had its own special feeling to it like each DLC does.

Want to finally mention that Randall Clark's story is the jewel to come from Honest Hearts. It's some of the finest storytelling in Fallout or any videogame I've seen.
 
Practicat said:
Want to finally mention that Randall Clark's story is the jewel to come from Honest Hearts. It's some of the finest storytelling in Fallout or any videogame I've seen.
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That tends to be the one constant with respect to "Honest Hearts". Whether the player hates HH, or whether they enjoyed HH the most of the DLCs, or whether it found itself in the middle, piecing together that story of what happened to this ONE Great War survivor in the post apocalypse and seeing how his legacy impacted the region for generations that followed was just an amazing experience, and a masterful stroke as far as storytelling goes. I'm of the camp that feels like "Honest Hearts" was mostly a let-down, but I cannot lump Randall Clark's story in with the rest of that disappointment. It was just too good.
 
Honest harts is the only one that stands out for me, even that one wouldn't be "remembered" without Randall the badass. I just finished dead money, as soon as i stock up on 12.5mm ammo and some herbs native to the Mohave im off to Zion.
 
1. Dead Money

It is Definitely more a survival horror game than a proper RPG, even if there are some RPG parts, but it manages to be the best Fo3-FoNV DLC and one of the best parts of the FoT-FoBos-Fo3-FoNV run.
It has a great atmosphere, some mindblowing characters, an haunting place, and real challenges.
A masterpiece, only crippled by a few minor flaws. As said before, not really an RPG, and the Villa areas is too big and visually repetitive. You get lost too often and spend too much time walking in already visited areas that look the same.

2. Old World Blues

A mixed bag for me. It is amongs the good DLC, just like The Pitt or Honest Heart, but i am really not fond of the quest structure.
You are in the middle of the map, and you have to look everywhere for a thousand of equally important macguffin, in a land of mindless killing machine, while listening some Mobius nice comments. Once you are done with it, you go find Mobius to move forward the plot.
It reminds Fo3 so much that it hurts. No matter how good/fun is the writting, it is crippling the game for me.
On the other hand, the Think Tank, Mobius, The Sink were pretty entertaining and i appreciated that when you thought about it seriously, it was quite frightening too.
As totally immoral the Think Tank were, you couldn't help to have empathy for them.
On the other hand, i find unfortunate that you weren't allowed to spare people less horrible than them in other Fo games/DLC.
I also liked that, in retrospect, it seemed that Obsidian attempted to advertize the upcoming Wasteland 2, with so much toaster and robot-scorpions.

3. Honest Heart

Quite an enjoyable DLC.
It is IMO, weaker than Old World Blues on the main story/characters, and seems unfinished at times.
It pretty much looks like a walking simulator, just like Fo3, but it is done far better IMO.
A slow pace, no harassing music, ambiant sound, rain, nice scenery, comments from your companions, the place history, the come-back of the tribals, the survivalist stash, the reasonable amount of population fitting with the location.
In the end, you are doing the same shit than in Fo3, but in an enjoyable way.
There is not much mindblowing stuff compared with the first two DLC, but on a hour-to-hour basis, it is more enjoyable than Old World Blues.
As said by everyone else, Graham is quite good on paper, but kind of underwhelming when you meet him, even if he is not that bad.

4. Lonesome Road

Some nice scenery/level design/ennemies, but it is basically a corridor FPS, just like Operation Anchorage.
Ulysse is too cryptic for his own good. In the end, he wasn't clear enough for me to get what he wanted and to care about him.
Whatever was the objectives of that DLC, they failed to deliver them, for me.

5. The item DLC
They do more harm than any good.

On the global pool of DLC.
1. Dead Money
2. Old World Blues
3. The Pitt
4. Honest Heart
5. Mothership Zeta
6. Point Lookout
7. Lonesome Road
8. Broken Steel
9. Operation Anchorage.
10. The FoNV item DLCs
 
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1. Lonesome Road. Play as the Legion. Everything makes more sense. Ulysses' dialogue is magnificently cryptic. The first play-through I admit (Independent) there were some holes I didn't quite understand. This forced me to replay and rebuild my character. I wish they made him into an actual companion. Everyone's so gun-ho for the NCR I was hoping he'd be a fresh mound of opinion. There was so many directions they could've taken him.

2.Sierra Madre. Only because I thought I was going to show off to Elijah the Euclid's C - Finder and pistol whip him for leaving Veronica. Even though my run scared the shit out of me, I still enjoyed it.

3.Honest Hearts. I loved Waking Cloud and Graham. It was a bit shorter than I hoped. There were a few disappointments. Daniel and Follows Chalk pissed me off so I'd run around Zion clearing caves and missions while tripping Yao Guai balls off of the Dartura Tea.

4.Old World Blues. I always have high science, and the lobotimites greeting me every time I went outside got pretty annoying. I wish they expanded on giving you scientific freedom. Yeah Roxie is adorable, but I was hoping for more.
 
I have FO3 [since 2008] and NV [pre-ordered], and all of the DLC for both games... and I've yet to play any of the DLC adventures. :oops:

*(Or complete either game; or ever have encountered the Enclave in FO3; nor entered the city of New Vegas or Free Side.)
 
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