Fallout New Vegas Old World Blues Review: Bugs Everywhere

Fallout New Vegas’ newest DLC, “Old World Blues” boasts the best combat and array of weapons of any of the previous additions to the series, but the amount of bugs prevalent ruin a more than solid gameplay experience.

Had these glitches not reared their ugly heads, “Old World Blues” could and would go down as one of the best add-ons for any Fallout title.

However, right from the start, the game locks itself in first person mode. This wouldn’t usually be such a big problem, but considering how difficult many of the enemies are in this DLC, you’ll desperately need as much visibility as possible.

In spite of this, it’s impossible to not eventually fall in love with the story [After a lengthy amount of dialogue through the first hour or so,  which sets the tone, but nearly bores the gamer to death.]. Ultimately, the characters are funny and grow on you like fungus. Much like the early missions with the Brotherhood of Steel in the main game, even though you’re being held against your will, you develop a sort of Stockholm syndrome with this bunch of robotic misfits. Intelligent, yet incredibly naïve, it’s a blast to use a high speech skill to your advantage here, earning yourself added ammo and other items. Through this, you’ll quite possibly get more attached to the characters here than any other add-on for the title.

The fact that we’ll learn more about the back-story of the courier who failed to deliver the platinum chip makes this DLC an important one in the history of the series as well.

But again, the bugs come into play. In a weird twist, a few quests fail to register as completed throughout the course of gameplay, which creates an utter disaster for anyone who wants is achievement score hungry or a perfectionist. One mission in particular, which has our courier get files off of a computer in a rundown school, will continue to repeat itself. It will never tell the gamer the mission is completed. While you’ll get the experience points, every time you reset the test, the quest will go back to uncompleted on your pip-boy.

Big problem. Add in a lack of stimpaks and health items on this DLC and many gamers will find themselves frustrated, to the point that they may consider giving up on the DLC all together.

At this point, the novelty of the current generation of Fallout games being amazing, but riddled with bugs like these, has worn out its welcome. In spite of the great story, excellent combat and an additional +5 level cap, the staffs at Obsidian and Bethesda are all out of excuses. It’s time to polish these games and release them when they’re as close to perfect as possible. They’ve gotten away with this for way too long.

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 14230 Articles
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.

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