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Lonesome Road finishes New Vegas story

I know for most of you out there, the release of the fourth DLC for “Fallout: New Vegas” was not the biggest title to drop on Tuesday.  Don’t fret; we’ll take a look at “Gears of War 3” next week after I’ve had time to log enough hours to give the game a fair shake.

In the meantime, “Lonesome Road” completes the story of New Vegas from the view of the Courier.  Finding a new location in the Mojave, another courier, named Ulysses beckons you forth to explore a weapon ravaged, storm swept location known as The Divide.

With promises of explaining the ambiguous history between you two, the Courier plunges into The Divide after the courier bearing the Old World flag.

While exploring the new area, the Courier encounters several new enemies including, The Marked Men.  Turned red by the radiation, the player finds members of both the New California Republic and Caesar’s Legion banded together in an effort of survival.  As you traverse further into the radioactive wasteland, other mutated horrors await, including everyone’s favorite: deathclaws.

During his travels on his lonesome road, the Courier learns more about the region and the specific role it plays in the Fallout universe.  At the end of the campaign, the player finds that the ghosts of the Old World remain active and has a momentous decision to make.

As a huge geek of the Fallout series, I have spent hours upon hours at night reading developer journals and publications trying to learn every idiosyncrasy of the game universe.  So when the offer of discovering the mysterious past of Ulysses, I jumped at the chance.

The plot of the expansion is solid throughout the experience, though as with all Fallout games, the player decides how much he learns via the amount of exploration you are willing to do.  By looking a bit off the beaten path, the content pack shares plenty of information that makes exploration as satisfying endeavor.

Straying too far off the path is best done with ready weapons, however, as new enemies, such as the Marked Men and Tunnelers, wait for you to drop your guard.  The new slew of enemies offer a tough challenge as well as the final showdown with Ulysses, should you choose to fight him.

The world is engrossing and well designed, giving the player a truly unique experience.  Although “Lonesome Road” is for the most part excellent, a few problems plague the Courier in The Divide.

The overall length of the experience is a bit short.  Exploring thoroughly the new area, I logged about five hours before the final showdown.  I understand not bloating the experience with unnecessary junk, but at the $9.99 price point, the expansion needs a bit more content.

In addition, a reoccurring problem with the title, another problem was the number of bugs and glitches I found.  Nothing was earth shattering, but having to reload the game is always annoying.

“Lonesome Road” is not going to make any new fans of the series.  However, the expansion, problems aside, offers a fitting conclusion to the Courier’s tale before the climatic end of the game.  Raising the level cap and bringing new perks to the table is always nice even though you still can’t play past the Second Battle of Hoover Dam.

I recommend the DLC if you’re a fan of the series, if you’re not, you might want to hold off on purchasing or maybe wait until the ludicrous Steam sales in November.