[JemyM]

Fallout: New Vegas DLC3 Old World Blues
The third DLC for Fallout New Vegas is about doing science, and I am still alive.

Story
Let me put it up front, the story in OWB is over the edge silly. Despite my initial "oh no, what the f have they done" I found the humor hillarious. If you can't stand silly stuff though, this isn't for you. But don't skip until you reached gameplay below. The story is also obviously inspired by Portal.

The Courier visits the Mojave Drive-In and finds a strange satellite. Upon investigation, a blue light sweeps down and all goes dark. When waking up, the Courier have lost the spine, the heart and the brain, now replaced with electronics (removal of spine and brain does put forth some interesting philosophical and psychological questions, but I guess we should disable our judgement when playing this one). A group of ex-human cyborg scientists (hovering droids with brains floating in a jar) urge the Courier to go on a trip around the Big Mountain crater to find equipment to take on the evil Dr. Mobius, one of them who fell to the dark side of Science.

From then on, the Courier will freely run around in the new area, Big Mountain. Nice places to go to include a couple of testing labs for upgraded equipment where the Courier will have to do tests like infiltrating an office (like a Chinese communist) and blasting through a highschool (to find who among the students have been seduced by communism). The Courier will also get a new home called "The Sink" that can be upgraded a bunch of times. Each machine in The Sink (about ten of them) have an A.I. personality (they even have an ending). OWB contains some of the best voice acting you have heard. Really. These personalities will likely make you laugh out loud in front of the screen, being memorable in the way Minsc with his space hamster was. For example we have a testosterone-filled murdereous over-the-top evil Toaster who murder and cut "smaller appliances" to pieces. We have a small-droid who is programmed with a strong addiction to clean empty dishes who scream at you to PLEASE, PLEASE GIVE HIM YOUR COFFEE MUGS!

Gameplay
If it hadn't been for the gameplay in OWB, I might have smacked down hard on OWB thanks to the silly story that completely throws out all seriousness and grittiness of the Fallout series out of the window. Let me put it up front (again); in pure gameplay OWB might be the best DLC for the fallout series yet. This is probably one of the most packed DLC's I played for any game. It's also the one that brings in a couple of game-mechanics that I had wanted as early as vanilla Fallout 3.

Let's see. I already mentioned that Old World Blues is free-roaming. You get a load of quests at once and you take them in any order you like. There are loads of places to visit and unlike earlier expansions, each place is unique, often with important loot inside or large bosses or other surprises. No matter where you go, in what direction, you will always run into something new and unique.

There are a plenty (yes plenty) of unique stuff to find, several new (and good) weapons and armors. There is a soundwave gun that can be upgraded with other soundwaves. There is also an advanced stealthsuit which is actually talking, inject you with stimpacks and give you useful information. I optioned to wear this despite the loss of DT. The DLC also makes good use of the crafting system. For example; instead of giving you skillbooks you now find recipes that can make a skill book, if you have the neccessary spare parts.

Upgrading the Sink gives you a home that is really beneficial to you, in a way no previous home have been. There is a sink where you can refill empty bottles with purified water. There is a botanic garden with plants regrowing over time. There is an Auto-Doc who can change your face, your starting traits and upgrade you with implants (that finally made all those caps I collected through Mojave useful). There are several machines that can convert useless items to useful ones to be used in crafting, including books, mugs and notepads. All of theese must be upgraded by finding notes hidden around the mountain.

I found OWB to be definitely harder than earlier DLC's, probably because there are no lasting companions in this one. Monsters respawn all the time and they can be quite tough if you run the game on Very Hard like I do, despite being level 45 with the best energy weapon in the game. I do not remember there being special boss-like monsters in the previous game, here you can go up against giant monsters with like 2000 hp.

I saw the gameoverscreen and got crippled beyond belief more times during this DLC than I can count, and it was initially hard to keep my stuff in good condition. I even had to resort to crafting Doctor's Bags at one point, which I never had to do before. I later realized though that the respawns around the home gives you more than plenty of expensive loot that pays well for repairs (a computer in your home can repair for you).

Final Verdict
If you can lower your bar and accept it's silliness, OWB is the largest and most packed DLC up to date, and I think I am not exaggerating if I include every Fallout and Bioware DLC on that toplist. It also drop some hints for DLC4 that made me really excited about it. I hope OWB increase the bar on how DLC's should be done.