Fallout: New Vegas - Old World Blues

2026-10-03
Even if all these DLCs are basically a set of sketches, they are nothing if not fun sketches, and Old World Blues is the one that has the most fun of the bunch. This one threw me off initially with a long-winded cheesy expository cutscene that seemed like it was aiming for serious and going wide of the mark, landing somewhere around the tone of a Saturday morning cartoon. Turns out that's exactly the tone they were going for and they fucking nailed it. As soon as that clicked, my ears adjusted, and it dawned on me that, yes, I was listening to Chet Ubetcha screech at me about my "FULLY-ERECT HAND PENISES" and Liquid Snake drone on about his "dome-shaped...dome in the Forbidden Zone."

This is Obsidian's writers cracking their own hand-penis knuckles and churning out gobs of comedy for you to feast on. It's all infused with BIG BRAIN BIG SCIENCE schlock--I was half expecting Mojo Jojo to turn up. They even got a proto-Disco Elysium moment where your own brain blames you for every problem the two of you face. "You're my brain! You did all of that!" "No, that's all emotions making you want to do good. Glands, it's all glands." Figures Chris Avellone led this one.

Like the others, it's mechanically nothing to write home about. Maybe even weaker because it's longer and you spend a huge amount of time repeating the same trials over and over in dark, cramped, labyrinthine pre-war buildings. Yawn.

Even the colorful cast of characters wears out their welcome largely by just having too fucking many of them. We got the 5 floating brain lads but we also have a fucking Noah's Ark of appliances back at our base, each with a set of upgrades to collect so you can hear them do Voice Acting at us. OK, the Book Chute, whose only purpose is to destroy all books because scientists said "introducing outside thoughts confuses the brain," is funny as hell, but do we really need a toaster who wants to destroy the world or a uhhh seed cloner that talks in a sexy man voice about how it can "clone the shit out of" your seeds?

That's the other thing, this game is horny as hell. Seed Man is creepy as hell, sure, but one of my favorites is actually Dr. Dala the floating brain who is obsessed with the human body in a coy way. There's a whole scene where you can just like "stretch languidly" and listen to her moan. Or she'll wonder aloud how terrible it would be if you were to "surrender to your hormones and commit primal aggression on me... on us... again and again." Lemme tell you, that's a good time when your partner is in the room and you end up feeling like a deviant. Then the whole conversation with the brains about cleaning the gun with "sonic ejaculate" and on and on. I can only wonder what the hell was going on in Obsidian's office when this one was cooked up.

For my money, on writing alone, this is the best of the bunch. Plus there's a Giant Robot Scorpion.