Game fans, let us all release a unanimous sigh of apprehension and angst for that most deplorable ancillary product of our culture. No, I’m not talking about cosplay, but downloadable content, “dee-el-see,” if you will.
Today sees the release of “Mass Effect 3,” along with its almost-mandatory DLC “From Ashes,” the pairing of which has drawn flak from gamers and the gaming industry alike, chalking up BioWare’s moneygrab to yet another insidious ploy from parent company Electronic Arts to maximize profit by gypping loyal fans of an admitted stellar franchise.
But we have not come here to bury BioWare in a mountain of their own filthy cash, but to talk about the company who wrote the book on aftermarket content, Bethesda Softworks. Though the expansions to “Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion” were hardly the first of their kind, some of the choices (lest we forget the $4.99 horse armor, which did nothing to improve your mount’s armor class) indicated a company milking its fans. However, that is not to say that “Shivering Isles” or “Knights of the Nine” contained any subpar, afterthought unkept promises of continuing the epic adventuring in the beautiful climes of Cyrodiil.
Some five years later Bethesda began publishing the downloadables for “Fallout: New Vegas,” the third party entry to their “Fallout” franchise built by many of the former Black Isle Studios team who built the first two “Fallout” games for Interplay, now organized as Obsidian Entertainment (ironically, frequent collaborators with BioWare). After fan and critical lambasting of the initial secondary release “Broken Steel” for “Fallout 3,” which essentially reverses the poignant altruistic ending of the game, in addition to the somewhat misconceived alien abduction escape yarn “Mothership Zeta,” expectations for “New Vegas” expansions were understandably cautious.
After the nearly simultaneous release of “New Vegas” and add-on “Dead Money” in October 2010 and December 2010, respectively, Obsidian released the remaining three story expansions plus the item upgrade expansions “Courier’s Stash” and “Gun Runners Arsenal” over last summer, to surprised positivity by many critics. The story continuations follow the tradition of the early “Fallout” games, in which rather than traveling an open map the player travels from city to city, with random encounters possible along the way. Though the player isn’t able to encounter an exploded whale and pot of petunias, or a Guardian portal that travels back in time to assure the continuity of the series, the geographical separation of the various locales allows for an episodic, digestible experience averaging roughly ten hours apiece. In February Bethesda published “Fallout: New Vegas Ultimate Edition,” collecting the core game with all of its add-ons for a reasonable $50, losing out on the Game of the Year status shared by its predecessor and all of Bethesda’s “Elder Scrolls” titles since 2002’s “Morrowind” to titles such as “Mass Effect 2” and “Red Dead Redemption.”
When approaching “New Vegas” it’s important to remember the source. While “Fallout 3” revolutionized and rejuvenated a series whose last official release features a shoot ‘em up style and a soundtrack by such luminaries as SlipKnot and Killswitch Engage, the jump to an East Coast setting and canon-challenging inclusion of the Enclave as a major threat despite their destruction at the conclusion of “Fallout 2” divided fans whose hopes of a core sequel were dangled and dashed since 1998. Given Obsidian’s gathering of the design staff from the game’s Interplay days sparked ideas of a “best of both worlds” scenario.
Critics, however, saw the game as a iron-striking tie-in to “Fallout 3” whose crucial bugs and file-erasing tendencies on release were both maddening and distancing when approaching an 80-hour game. But Obsidian’s diligent patching and the game’s rapid price drops allowed for widespread accessibility, and paid off in mass dividends on the promise of the early games’ general atmosphere and sense of humor with the improved mechanics of Bethesda’s third entry. Down to the factional choice incumbent on the player to progress the storyline, “New Vegas” made Karma choice relevant and integrated in to NPC interactions in a more holistic manner than “Fallout 3.”
The downloadable content, in a similar manner to “Fallout 3,” blends genre conventions of horror, Western films and ’50s sci-fi with the general post-apocalyptic manner of the series. “Dead Money” is a spin on the “haunted” casino in which teamplay with NPCs allows for immersive roleplay value, down to the utter importance of one off-hand comment to a teammate’s decision to aid you or to employ holograms to ice you. Another team member’s complicated relationship with one of the player character’s companions from the vanilla game enhances the drama of that side story, a situation of love over distance and circumstance which in a nonchalant manner challenges anti-gay bigotry even after the destruction of society.
The second installment, “Honest Hearts,” plays like your typical unassuming hero quest, where the player’s Pip-Boy, the essential wristwatch/personal computer accessory of the Fallout ‘verse, buys passage on a trade caravan east in to Utah, where a key supporting player has established peace between a Mormon enclave and a tribe of Native Americans spared by the nuclear holocaust thanks to the Mojave Desert’s lack of bombardment. Again certain prejudices are dispelled, as faithful Mormon missionary Daniel speaks freely of his faith but never comes off as any of the manifold stereotypes often hurled at LDS Mormons. It’s a bit off-putting that the missionaries have converted many Natives from their tertiary faith to Christianity, but once again it plays on the genre staple of old Western, and Western American history, for that matter, wherein well-meaning individuals can cause rifts in the societies they strive to uplift.
Given the positive momentum of the first two add-ons, “New Vegas” already carries a better track record than “Fallout 3” for player value. Check back tomorrow for more brain-splicing, radiation poisoning and run and gun glee from the scorched Mojave wastes featured in “Fallout: New Vegas Ultimate Edition,” available now.
