Unlike the title might suggest, in Fallout New Vegas' newest piece of downloadable content, you're hardly ever alone. Lonesome Road picks up right after Old World Blues, where you discovered that you are not the only Courier in the Mojave desert. Courier Six, the first person approached with the task of delivering the Platinum Chip and who refused to do so, is hot on your trail for mysterious reasons.
It all begins after you get transmission from Six and are sent to the depths of the Divide through a conveniently placed entranced in the middle of the wasteland. Much like previous DLC, you're not allowed to take any of your party members along. The trip is hardly solitary though, since as soon as you get to the first area of the Divide, you meet an eyebot named ED-E, that much to your surprise, acts a lot like another ED-E you might have met during your journey through the Mojave.
Much of Lonesome Road revolves around discovering the reason why you've been brought there. You come in contact with Courier Six rather early on and he hardly gives any clue about why you're there, let alone how to find him. You do, however, run into a crap ton of active nuclear warheads, Deathclaws and irradiated mutants who must all perish in the name of Six.
This DLC goes so far as to give you a special gun that activates those warheads in order to clear the path through all the rubble in the Divide, along with a few new pieces of gear to don and fashion on your way back to the Wasteland. Red Glare is a new type of rocket launcher that has the added bonus of being upgradeable. ED-E can also receive updates if you're thorough in your exploration and can manage to find his fallen eyebot friends scattered around. The best part about upgrading the little flying hunk of metal is that it all transfers to your original ED-E party member once you travel back to the main game.
The best part of Lonesome Road that I found to be extremely rewarding, besides the smartly written story and dialogue, that are not as heavy in delivery as Old World Blues, is how your actions in Divide play a pivotal role in the main New Vegas campaign. None of the previous downloadable packs provoked consequences in the Mojave, aside from giving you exclusive pieces of gear, but depending on your choices in particular parts of your visit to the Divide, your main Mojave quest might be deeply influenced.
I'm talking extermination here - things that can create ripples in your New Vegas experience. This is an awesome part of Lonesome Road that makes it worth playing through and to put an end to a four part story that began way back in Dead Money, where I for one hardly thought they would reconnect story-wise in any way. I will go so far to suggest that you give this a go right in the middle of your main New Vegas experience in order to see how the hell these consequences play out in the story. You also run into recordings made by Six as he explored the areas covered in the previous DLCs that tie into and help carve out a personality for this enigma of a character.
If you enjoyed New Vegas, there's no reason not to give any of the four DLC packs a try. As a combined experience, New Vegas' pieces of downloadable content managed to deliver a much more solid overall story than say Fallout 3's, and that's saying a lot, considering how much I liked those back then. |8
