Forum:Old World Blues agitates me

I don't know about you, but Old World Blues was quite the disappointment compared to the last two DLCs. Now if you have not played OWB yet, this would be a good time to stop reading.

Where do I start? First there was the Think Tank. Biggest collection of moronic geniuses (an oxymoron if there ever was one) I have ever seen. Doctor 0 is a useless lump who's...pretty much Dr. Venture (and voiced by the same guy humorously enough) as a brain in a jar who can't figure out the simple solution of putting a slash through the number to differ between the letter O and the number zero. Dala is basically a closet pervert who 'gets off' by staring at living organisms, usually humans and lobotomites. Dr. Klein is an egotistical loud mouth who thinks he is so much smarter than everyone else, when really he is just as stupid as the rest of the Think Tank. Even when the other members are smart enough to back down from a fight with the Courier, he acts like he doesn't even need their input or support, like he is the monarch of science. And 8...talk about a one sided conversation. He is probably somewhat smart, but I can't tell because you can't even understand him. Yeah I get it, that's the joke half the time, it's just not that funny. Lastly, there is Borous. I HATE this guy the most. Reasons why is because not only is he delusional by all accounts, treats humans and animals as play things, but he won't shut up about his days in highschool. We get it, you were picked on for being a nerd and the girl you liked shot you down. It's been over 200 years, they're dead, get over it. And by the way, American High? Really? Besides all that, doesn't the fact that he is responsible for unleashing CAZADORES and NIGHTSTAKLERS upon the world not enough to just piss you off? Oh, but let's not forget the giant idiot outside the Think Tank, Mobius. The guy writes down equations, but can't even remember what they were for. He can't even remember the reasons behind his actions when off the mentats. He can't even pronounce reason correctly. He's basically a semi-smart Fiend's brain in a jar who's obsessed with the word "forbidden".

Next, there is the enemies. While I am glad to learn the origin of nightstalkers and cazadores, does it not seem like at level 45 everything in there is ridiculously strong? Yeah, I know, things are suppose to scale with your level, but don't these enemies, whether they be lobotomites, trauma harnesses, and especially the robo-scorpions, seem like they have a huge amount of DT and/or health? My ranger sequoia barely made dents in the robo-scorpions and even pulse grenades didn't do much damage. Even worse than that is the ungodly perception of nightstalkers and lobotomites and a few other enemies in the Big Empty (and yes it's called the Big Empty. Don't correct me Think Tank, because every place in the post-apocalyptic world that is Fallout gets renamed). I had 100 sneak, and I could be out at night, wearing the stealth suit MkII, equipped with a stealth boy, with my pip-boy light off, and if I got within 20 yards of an enemy it would start flashing between caution and hidden until they found me. That is just wrong. And what's with Dr. 0 being able to create Mk5 Securitrons? Mr. House needed the platinum chip just to get them to Mk2.

Then there is the new gear. Most of these new toys are not really worth grabbing up. Didn't care for the K9000 gun all that much. The proton axe and its counterpart, the protonic inversal axe, are probably good weapons but I never used them since my character was gun-based. I will try them with my second character though. LAER didn't seem any better than plasma or laser rifles. Wasn't all that impressed with the Stealth Suit MkII. Salient Green was a nice concept, but since you can't make any outside the Big Empty without the help of the Biological Research Station, it doesn't help that much. Nightstalker Squeezin's aren't that useful, even with the perk. I did find one weapon that pretty much owns anything, as well as take all the fun out of fights; Sonic Emitter: Tarantula. Just score a critical hit on any enemy, whether they're a robot, a human, or some kind of creature, and watch their limbs explode off their body as they burst into flames, dying instantly. Seriously, I thought the fight against the X-42 Giant Robo-Scorpion was going to be one hell of a battle. All I did was shoot the Sonic Emitter at it with the Tarantula sound wave, scored a critical hit, and watched it explode in one hit. I reloaded the auto save and fought it without the Sonic Emitter just so I would have a tougher time at destroying it.

I also didn't care much for the story plot. So my character gets butchered, having their brain, spine, and heart removed, yet can still function because my brain just happened to have been scarred by a bullet in just the right place so that I'm not a mindless bag of flesh like the lobotomites, and to get my brain back I have to obey the whims of a group of idiotic scientists by going on fetch quests to gather items that I can use to break into the lair of an even bigger idiot. Oh, then I have to have an argument with my own brain. That's a philosophical mind f*** I didn't want to deal with. Who's the real you in that scenario; your body or your brain? Then I have to go back and either convince the Think Tank to let me go or kill the lot of them. I would have taken my revenge on them for trapping me in the Big Empty and lobotomizing me in the first place if my character wasn't such a goody-two-shoes.

The positives? Well, I enjoyed the theme to a degree. Learning where some of the things in Fallout originate from, like the evil cazadores, and the spore plants, was kind of cool. I enjoyed the 50s super-science atmosphere. The personalities in the Sink were funny and incredibly useful, making previously useless junk like clipboards and toasters have purpose. I liked the "World of Tomorrow" theme in the Sink that the appliances brought. The Toaster and Muggy had me laughing my ass off. I also liked the teleporter field around the crater that kept you from leaving as oppose to invisible barriers. I also liked learning more background on Elijah and Christine and getting a huge tease about Ulysses.

Overall, most of Old World Blues was irritating. Hated the main characters, wasn't impressed with most of the new stuff, and the sonic emitter is cheap as hell, enemies were too difficult in some circumstances, and the story was rather boring. While there were some good points to the DLC, compared to the deadly horror and thrilling story that is Dead Money, and the wondrous beauty and grand adventure that is Honest Hearts, Old World Blues was rather disappointing. I'm still holding high hopes that Lonesome Road will be the best DLC of FNV and tie up the Ulysses storyline very nicely. Sorry this post is so long, and I'm sure some of you have a different opinion of OWB and you are free to voice them and I will read them, but for me OWB was a let down.

For me, Old World Blues was the second best one, after Dead Money. I played them in order, a couple days apart, and when I finished OWB. Honest Hearts looked extremely dull in comparison. It didn't come anywhere near as good as DM, and OWB was far more interesting, what with the great Think Tank characters and all those Sink personalities. --Tag! 05:55, September 14, 2011 (UTC)

I thought OWB was much better than Dead Money. Three minor variants of a ghost which was tough to kill because I was working on a guns character with lower unarmed. I ran out of .308 ammo but found 7 Automatic rifles? A nice rifle but it would have been more useful if I could have wielded it as a melee weapon since there was nothing to feed it. The only positives are the skill books and the SM chips for a near endless supply of Weapon repair kits. Kill some ghosts, take damage running through Cloud to shoot/turn off a radio, sleep to heal, repeat endlessly.

In OWB I liked the Perks, selection of unique weapons, and they were generally useful. FIDO with .44 hand loads is nice but heavy. Christine's COS silencer rifle is my main weapon now. I had more pucker episodes with groups of Y-17 harnesses finding me, than with lobotomites. Their PER is listed as being 5 but seemed higher. With Silent running, Sneak 100 and the stealth suit, nothing with an average PER should see me at night before I see it on the compass. GRPeng 07:16, September 14, 2011 (UTC)

@best DLC (in terms of stuff/perks): OWB>Honest Hearts>Dead Money @best DLC (in terms of story/setting): Dead Money>Honest Hearts>OWB @OWB's contributions: it had the best perks of any of the add-ons by far; you become a cyborg for no apparent reason - so free SPECIALS, resistances and DT bonuses. What's not to like? The other regular (level-up) perks are rubbish, but the traits and weapons were very good. The story @sneaking discrepancies: well, I can kinda understand how Cazadores and Nightstalkers from a scientific point of view; the Cazadores have giant compound eyes and their wings can detect vibrations in the air, whereas Nightstalkers are essentially mutant dogs, which have several times better senses than humans. Maybe their PER is higher than it actually seems? Just my two pennies; also, can't wait for Lonesome Road. Q-35 09:27, September 19, 2011 (UTC)

Getting close to finishing it and... honestly it's not GREAT. I think like Dead Money, the first half was tedious but once you got through the slogging of collecting it got better. I think the K-9 dog gun is a funny idea... but not useful. I do love the inversion axe and the talking stealth suit. I tend to like my Fallout-verse less wacky and more desperate so I'm just not going to be as inclined to like this installment. I found the talking appliances to be a little much. MikeJTanner

Personally, I thought Old World Blues was possibly one of the best DLCs I have ever played for ANY game for several reasons. If you took the time to pay attention to absolutely everything that was going on, you know why all of the scientists are the way they are, and I, personally, found their quirks quite amusing. I also absolutely loved learning about the origins of the brutal cazadores along with the elusive nightstalkers, and finding out the fate of the Yangtze survivors. The interaction with my own brain and with the personalities in the Sink also proved to be quite humorous, especially considering I don't usually get to experience these things. Where I respect your opinion, I suggest you play it again sometime and just search for answers, it proves to be quite rewarding. Poolie

I thought talking to your own brain was dumb, as I though your brain was controlling your body remotely. As for the scientists strangeness it was caused by mental degradation that was both intentional and as a result of old age. I thought Borous was obsessed with high school specifically "American high school" because he never went, and was a communist spy or defector. I figured he made up the stories because they are awfully generic and he would likely have more important failures, embarrassments and achievements in his post high school academic life. Although it could be a result of his mental condition or his work in the X-8 facility which might of made his memories feel more recent. I did think that some of the characters came across as to weird for Fallout and I did not think that they were that funny at all. Sex jokes, references and scenes can come across very badly in video games and this was defiantly one of those times. (ken)