It's worth trying to wrap everything up in one go though, purely so that the characters involved get to have their say in the ending sequence - which as ever, offers multiple ways to resolve things, up to and including getting the dreaded finger-wag. Afterwards though, you get a teleporter that will bring you back and forth whenever you like - although not with any of your companions. Once you start, you're not allowed out until you finish it. If you have anti-robot gear, you're going to be at an advantage early on, but it's far from essential. Old World Blues is intended for Level 15 characters and above, and playing through, that seems right. Or you can just blow up the droids before starting the test and amble across in your own sweet time. Sneak through a building without being detected by the droids? You can do that. As with the expansion as a whole, they're often more detailed than they look, with options to redo tests at higher difficulty levels, or simply cheat. Visually, it's completely stock Fallout 3-style architecture for the most part - and by god, do I hope Fallout 4 never reminds me of these buildings - but the little vignettes and mini-stories in each of them are all excellent. It's worth not simply running in, grabbing the disc and running out though, as the design throughout this expansion is excellent. This second one is presented as a scavenger hunt, although really the World/Local maps tell you exactly where to go, and it's more a way of taking you to the locations you wouldn't have found. Essentially though, there are two main questlines in Old World Blues - the main one, in which you try to escape, and a second involving finding the AI components of your new flat, which will give you toys like a new AutoDoc capable of resetting your Traits (as a one-time thing), and a hydroponics machine that sounds like Barry White and demands your seed. Most of the good stuff relies on surprise, so I'm not going to ruin too much of it here. Hell, at one point, as long as you're packing the right Traits, you can seduce a lightswitch. Unlike Portal though, you get full RPG interaction with everyone and everything, letting you fire a few shots back at the arrogant machines - literally or figuratively - and twist them around your little finger - figuratively. Obsidian's obviously been playing a lot of Portal recently, but it comes through in all the right ways - the crazy characters, the hilarious back-and-forths between the squabbling scientists, the snide messages on terminals, and even a few bits where you outright enter test chambers to solve problems and retrieve fancy guns. It knows how silly it is, and it utterly embraces it. What really makes Old World Blues a joy though is its sense of humour. The main one? Cranking up the crazy technology we're used to seeing to full on MAD SCIENCE! levels, to the point that having your brain replaced with a Tesla coil by a Think Tank of disembodied scientists locked in a war against an army of roboscorpions is barely the seventh or so weirdest thing that happens to you. This is the kind of DLC I like to see - not just more of the same, but an interesting spin on Fallout: New Vegas that both fits the universe (unlike, for instance, Mothership Zeta back in original Fallout 3) and tries some new ideas. In reality, it's bursting with new stuff. On the surface, it's a tiny new chunk of the Mojave Wasteland to explore. Purely focusing on the critical path, obeying orders and going from A to B like the good little questbitch you are, you're not likely to be disappointed by either its length or content. I wasn't even going to complain about the length. Old World Blues is the only DLC I've ever played that ticked me off for rushing through it. I went back to the Mojave to pit my brains against the worst that 1950s B-Movie science has to offer. It's the weirdest Fallout: New Vegas DLC yet.
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