DLC Dead Money Review, warning fair few spelling errors

Dead Money

On steam in england is £7.50

Warning story spoilers are at a low but one or two exsist and a lot of gameplay spoilers
New Vegas 1st DLC and my god is it awsome

Dead Money is set at the Sierra Madre casino a mysterious casino whats fully intact with the surrounding areas slowly falling a part. The player is kidnapped by the former brotherhood head Elijah who has now gone insane in collecting old world technology. The player is kidnapped and forced to work with 3 others losing all there equipment till the end.

Dog/God a Nightkin with a diffrent degree of madness from the other mutants with 2 complety seperate personalities.

Dean Domino a prewar ghoul with old ties to the casino

Christine a member of the brotherhood of steel was tasked to hunt down Elijah and had some unhappy experiances with him before and has fell in to his trap again.

Each NPC has there own uniqueness to them and I found them just fun to talk to often seeing if they have any new dialouge thoughout the DLC with some interesting turnouts.

While the DLC is trying to break in to the casino vault and finding Elijah its how the other NPCs play there role and interact with, with some choices on how to deal with them. It even comes with tis own ending slides simuler to NV ending but half of that goes to teasing about future DLC settings and plots.


The DLC tries to be like a survial horror in gameplay(though dont expect a full big survial horror) with rare to find ammo and limited weapons with killer envioments where health will slowly go down the more the player is outside(it wont kill the player as stops till around 25% health), walking in to corrosive clouds and since the player is carrying a slave collor on them if they get close to radio signals after certain amout of time the player will die. Though this has led to slow gameplay at times but for me thats a good thing sometimes its good just to look at the envioment or abit where the player needs to think alittle.
They also added in its own econemy system in to it where the player finds casino chips across the place and can be exchanged in to vending mechcines for items namely health and few speical items. The chips can found in many places but the vending mechcines can be quite costly at the start and a reckless player will quickly run out of chips (though later in the game and bit of exploring chips wont be a worry).

Weapons are limited mostly to the DLC weapons which are quite verstile for all players. DLC comes with 1 energry weapon (Holo Rifle), 2 normal guns (Automatic rifle, Police revolver), 2 explosives (gas bomb,demolition charge), 1 unarmed (bear trap fist) and melee (Cosmic knife, clean cosmic knife, heated cosmic knife, knife spear and throwing version).
There all quite interesting to use with some being buildable and nice to see them varied (FO3 dlc pretty much focused entirely on energry weapons or just small guns).


The settings start with a ghostly town filled with ghost people, mysterous tribals with a special connection to the place that when killed and isnt missing a limb they will come back to live, they move slowly but can become abit livily, while them not permentaly dying was used to try make players reluetent to fight as of wasting ammo but sadly its to easy to cripple and destroy there limbs espeually when there down and helpless till they revie themselves.

Around half way to three quaters of the DLC the player then moves in to the casino whole new tileset and a new enemy Holograms, pretty much unkillable things and really need to hide away from them(even with low sneak fairly easy to sneak past but they can take the player by surpise and there attacks are deadly) or find and destroy there holograpic emitters.

The DLC rewards exploring the areas though speical armour, specs for the vending mechcines to sell specal items like repair kits, chems, weapon mods for the new weapons(though sadly when applyed to the weapon doesnt add to it) and history on the casino and NPCs. Aswell as a special 2000 chip bonus and soviner what goes to the lucky 38.

The only problem I really have with this DLC, is once finshed the plot while the player is taken back to the start of the DLC incase they want to explore again but they then choose to go to the mojave again and cant go back to the casino and so the player cant find the weapon mods or chem codes for vending mechcines aswell recollect things like the bear trap fist or automatic rifle aswell fight the ghost people. So once done the player cant return to gain DLC items or thigns what can be gained from there. Which was one of my main gripes with FO3 DLC where there is no reason to go back or cant head back.

While the player cant return they are reward a house pretty much a small bunker with now a vending mechcine and chips arriving every 3 days from the casino (which can be cheaper then any vendor so can make profit or great way to get hard to find things like repair kits). but really this is the DLCs end game reward while perhaps little underwealming then what could of been its real reward is what is gained though exploring and DLC its self (heck talking to NPCs in a manner they like they can give you speical reciples or hints for the ghost people.


Personally I loved this DLC for its fun dark chracters and nice simple survial horror(though once inside the casino it more or less turns to bit of a stealth game. It was able to get a good balence between going back and forth, unlocking new areas, ammo limits and putting story and personailty. Like i said my only real problem was not being able to go back. but though constant exploring i was able to get 7-8 hours out of this plus has some replayablty in some choices with the other NPCs.
For me a great buy but if you are expecting a full blown action DLC you will be disapointed if looking for a nice blend of RPG and survial horror its a nice find though dont expect full hardcore survial horror.
Oh to make the most out of this play on hardcore mode.

I've only browsed the review since I haven't played the DLC yet. It seems you've enjoyed playing it and that is a good sign. I'll comment more after playing it myself.

There is one thing that I've found stupid and annoying and that's the fact that the DLC was restricted to the Xbox for something like two months. Do big companies really expect people to buy a game on several platforms just to play a DLC sooner? That is so stupid... Especially when considering that PC players have been enjoying some cool and free mods in the meantime.