Thoughts on Old World Blues.....
Old World Blues…..
After discovering a crashed satellite you're suddenly transported to the Big MT (Big Mountain) research crater. There you find that you've been lobotomized, and that you're the only hope of saving the "Think Tank" – a strange group of post-human researchers who inhabit the facility.
They enlist you to save them from their own experiments, and attack from another Think Tank scientist named Dr. Mobius. Your mission is to gather items to help save the Think Tank.
You start from a home base called the Sink in which you have various appliances to purchase, fabricate, and maintain equipment. It also has an Auto Doc that in addition to the usual stuff also allows you to completely change/re-arrange your character.
Now here’s where things can get tedious – first, all your appliances require personality tapes (some have various) ….. Which you’ll have go out and find before being able to use them. You do however have access to the dispenser to buy/trade items, but of course upgrades will have to be found.
This obviously creates a lot of run and fetch quests but it also provides for plenty of exploring, story lines, and lots of discoveries. Unfortunately some of the areas you’ve visited will need to be visited a few times as completed quests will generate new ones requiring you to search the same area for yet more upgrades!
Oh BTW there’s still the main plot quests that has to be done, and also tend to be repetitive.
During your travels around the research crater you'll discover lots of new technology, clothing, and weapons.... and if you don’t get bored by some of the repetitive tasks, will find a really good story line, especially if you’ve played Dead Money since it provides insight behind the story of Elijah and Christine (prominent characters in Dead Money). In fact "the Big Empty" (Big MT) is mentioned a number of times in Dead Money and some of the tech used is from Big MT.
There's also plenty of humorous moments and dialogues throughout the game, especially with Dr. Dela, who’s easily sexually aroused by you. You’ll also discover the stealth suit you find has a personality of its own as well! And that voice sounds strangely familiar. Could it be……????
While you could skip a lot of the side quests you’ll find that you really need to do them in order to make life a lot easier, and to find those yet undiscovered places.
Music - if you’re an old school jazz fan like me, you REALLY have to listen to the added radio station. There's some really nice jazz tunes there which I absolutely loved.
Overall I’d rate it 9.0 due to ability to completely upgrade/change your character, new weapons, clothing, ties into Dead Money, music. However my DLC order...
- Honest hearts – beautiful graphics, great story.
- Dead Money – Mystery/Intrigue, Characters.
- Old World Blues – Lots of new tech, ties into Dead Money, Jazz lovers delight.
Performance after New Patch…..
Old World Blues is the first time I’ve played New Vegas since updating to the new patch, and while I didn’t notice the stuttering in wide open areas that was present in the main game, and the Honest hearts DLC, performance did seem improved. However I did experience a few CTD’s while playing the DLC. Not sure what to make of it, but it would usually happen when I fast traveled to an area and then tried entering a building…. The game would then just CTD with a "Fallout has stopped responding" message. Hmmm…..??? Didn’t happen to many times (about 3) but it did happen. Anyway once I restarted the game all was good without loss of progress.
Anyway give it a try, you may feel better about it
Later.
