It came as no surprise to anyone that a game like Fallout: New Vegas would get some form of downloadable content. The previous game had oodles of it, and most games nowadays get something downloadable at one point or another. So, Dead Money has now graced my Xbox 360′s hard drive, and has given me a new adventure to test out. After heading to the Sierra Madre casino, I’m more than happy to tell you about the quality of the journey. So, is this sucker worth ten bucks, or should you save your money for soda and chips?

As with most quests you’ll find in the wasteland, Dead Money finds the Courier stumbling into an old, abandoned bunker from the Brotherhood of Steel. Inside, you find a few notes, a couple computers, and a peculiar radio on a pedestal in the center. As you walk toward it, sleeping gas pours into the room, and you fall unconscious. Later, you awake in a courtyard in a new location, and someone is speaking to you through a hologram. That person is none other than the former Elder of the Brotherhood, Elijah. The now loony former Elder has fitted you with a slave collar, and you have to find three other prisoners to aid him in raiding the fabled Sierra Madre casino. It’s either that, or he blows you up.

The story of Dead Money is very, very conversation heavy. Most of the quests don’t have as much to do with the Sierra Madre as they do the characters within its walls. Quite a bit of care was put into writing each conversation, and for good reason. Your first three missions include conversing with a Nightkin with multiple personalities, convincing a pre-war singer turned Ghoul to aid you, and attempting to communicate with a woman without vocal cords. So, as you can tell, the storyline of Dead Money is very character-driven.

Conversations are very well written, flow naturally, and carry quite a bit of tension with them.

As for its quality, Dead Money‘s story is probably one of the better storylines that I’ve seen in a piece of downloadable content, this side of the GTA IV expansion packs. Dialog is really only as good as the writer who pens it, and the quality is what makes it engaging. Every single conversation weaves and twists naturally, as if you’re actually in the game and talking to these characters. The only part that has a few hiccups is when meeting the mute character, Christine, due to her inability to speak. However, those issues lie in the fact that the Fallout series hasn’t evolved past the talking head phase, and one has to rely on reading text to get the full drift of the situation. Still, one small hiccup isn’t enough to derail the quality in the least.

Graphics in Dead Money aren’t really much to talk about, so let me just hit the points that make Dead Money stand apart from the main experience. In essence, the main graphical element that Obsidian uses to their advantage here is lighting. For those who don’t know, there really is no better way to properly set mood in a video game than to have proper lighting. If you look at each of the first conversations you have with your three companions, each of them has proper lighting to accentuate the tone of the conversation. The new voice actors also do a fantastic job with each of their characters. The best of the three is definitely Dog/God, who is voiced by Dave B. Mitchell, who also voices Festus in the game.

The biggest benefit of downloading Dead Money is a hefty amount of new perks, and a raised level cap of 35.

As with the core experience of Fallout: New Vegas, Dead Money is all about survival. At the start of the quest, all of your gear is taken, and you’re left with a new type of energy weapon and some crappy ammo for it. During the course of the DLC, this story doesn’t change much. The most that you will find to equip yourself with is a set of security armor, and a .357 snub pistol called the Police Pistol. Thus, you have to keep every confrontation brief, so you can conserve what few stimpacks that you’ll find. Though you can purchase items through vending machines that use Sierra Madre chips, it’s not easy to keep yourself healthy. On top of that, most of the place is booby-trapped.

The big gameplay mechanic that comes in Dead Money has to do with your collar. Signal interference can set the thing off, so if you hear it beeping, you need to get out of range of an audio device. On paper, it doesn’t sound too bad. However, the level design sometimes makes the game unnecessarily difficult. One part of the finale featured an area with two armored speakers that would set the collar off every time I would run near them. So, to finally get past the section, I had to strip my character naked, run as fast as possible, and make a jump that I don’t think the developers designed the level to make. This part of the game is so maddening that I almost stopped playing due to the frustration. It sort of defeats the purpose of having DLC to make people pick the game back up if they get ticked to the point of demanding a refund.

On top of that, the level design in general is a bit frustrating. There are various poisonous clouds, and at certain points, bear traps will respawn without any knowledge to the player. So, if you think you’ve cleared out an area, chances are you’re wrong five minutes later. The enemies are also a new breed. The Ghost People, as they’re called, can not be killed by conventional means. You are required to dismember at least one limb to stop them from coming back after every time they’re knocked down. Thus, the Bloody Mess perk comes in handy. You can get a perk from a companion that stops this, but it’s easy to miss.

As for DLC benefits, you won’t find yourself getting much equipment from Dead Money that’s going to replace any of your mainstay equipment. However, the game does give a massive amount of new perks to the player, on top of increasing the level cap to 35. This is a piece of DLC that requires you to at least be level 20 to survive, however. So, the worth of the download is really up in the air. As DLC goes, Dead Money is primarily storyline based, and the gameplay can be particularly frustrating. On the other hand, the storyline is amazing, and the atmosphere is incredible. It’s good, but I can only recommend it to fans. If you’re not curious about the ongoing story in Fallout: New Vegas, this may not be the download for you.

Sealing his vault doors.

-Micah C

A review code for Dead Money on the Xbox 360 was provided by Bethesda Softworks. The DLC lasted for four and a half hours, and was completed.

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