After a month of delays, it’s obvious why “Old World Blues,” Fallout New Vegas’ newest DLC never hit the 360 in June.
It’s a bug-riddled mess.
With entirely too much dialogue through the first hour or so of the game, hardcore fans of the series will get lost in the multi-layered story that isn’t nearly as enticing as previous DLC offerings. The map itself isn’t all that large either, which almost completely eliminates the fun to be had while exploring. Between that and obvious gameplay glitches, such as the game locking itself in first-person-view mode and random crashes, its hard to recommend “Old World Blues†to anyone but the most dedicated Vegas courier.
It isn’t all bad though. Some of the new weapons in the game, such as the Plasma Axe, the k9000 Cyberdog Gun, Saturnite Fist and Sonic Emitter-Revelation are all interesting and worth toying with. As far as the combat goes, the enemies in “Old World Blues†are easily some of the toughest standard enemies the series has ever seen. There’s a good reason why it says before you start the DLC that your character should be at least at level 15. Even at level 40, without a hefty assortment of health items, these monsters, most of who carry Shishkebab’s or high-powered guns, are no walk in the park. Add in a few Nightstalkers and all of a sudden, this small map is incredibly dangerous.
Because of this and the added +5 level cap, passionate Fallout fans will find something to enjoy in “Old World Blues.†But be warned; the game will be fighting you the entire time. Ultimately, in spite of everything this title has gong for itself, it’s biggest enemy is, itself.
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports.
Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders.
His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023.
Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief.
Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale.
Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.
2 Comments
Nice review, I knew there would be tons of bugs. They had some big update as well at the same time that definitely stabilized regular gameplay (as Im playing through my second time and havent even touched the dlc’s) but I knew the dlc would have bugs. Hopefully fallout 4 will be bug minimal.
The biggest bug I came across is the ‘caps limit’ where “the sink” simply stops giving caps for traded materials no matter what the remaining balance is. In my case the sink has over 68,000 caps available but refuses to pay any.
After a month of delays, it’s obvious why “Old World Blues,” Fallout New Vegas’ newest DLC never hit the 360 in June.
Nice review, I knew there would be tons of bugs. They had some big update as well at the same time that definitely stabilized regular gameplay (as Im playing through my second time and havent even touched the dlc’s) but I knew the dlc would have bugs. Hopefully fallout 4 will be bug minimal.
The biggest bug I came across is the ‘caps limit’ where “the sink” simply stops giving caps for traded materials no matter what the remaining balance is. In my case the sink has over 68,000 caps available but refuses to pay any.