» Wed Dec 23, 2009 10:47 am
I liked Dead Money on the whole, although I did get annoyed at the speakers every so often as I prefer to take my time carefully exploring an area and the short time they allotted me meant I had to rush through some places.
It being my first time through I spent almost the entire pre-casino portion of the DLC running on the thin edge of survival, as I didn't know to get certain perks or holotapes ASAP and as such had to be careful with most of my resources. I am planning another run shortly with a better-prepared character, and it should be interesting to see just how much difference that makes.
I did not particularly care for the Ghost People's ability to get back up from a 'kill' unless I removed the head or an appendage, however the superabundance of bladed melee weapons meant all I had to do was close in and hack at them while they were down and it only took a few seconds to amputate something, so it wasn't too bad. It did make using the Holorifle something of a losing proposition due to severely limited ammunition supply, but given how much damage the thing does it's probably just as well that I couldn't spam it in every fight.
Playing it in hardcoe mode made things interesting, as I had to use a goodly amount of my food supply to counter the Hunger meter, and also had to keep restoring the constant health damage the area itself inflicted just for being there. The inability to sleep meant the Fatigue meter kept climbing, although I never got past Stage 1 deprivation and that really didn't affect much. Thirst was seldom an issue, although using most of the water sources for healing sent my radiation meter skyrocketing and Rad-Away was in continuous short supply.
While running on thin margins for an extended period really enhanced the 'this place is hostile and will try to kill you in every way possible so you'd better be careful' feel, I cannot honestly say I will miss it all that much in subsequent runs as it did get tiresome after a while. I'll still be using hardcoe mode, though, as a (admittedly partial) counter to all the supplies careful looting uncovers.
Overall I would say it's worth getting and running through on every character, but not necessarily for the swag. Granted the Auto-Rifle and Holorifle are awesome new toys, and the Bear-Trap Fist is pretty good for CQC, but even without those I'd still enjoy it as it does a pretty good job of making you wonder exactly what the hell is going on while not going over the top in the process.