Knights of the Cardboard Castle

The second Fallout: New Vegas DLC takes place entirely outdoors. It’s set in Zion National Park which in the Fallout universe was largely untouched by the nuclear exchange that destroyed most of civilization. This makes it a sunshine and rainbow paradise with clean water and plentiful food, so exploring it is a very different experience from wandering the Mojave Wasteland. My thoughts:

• Playing through Honest Hearts took me much less time than Dead Money. This is mainly because it doesn’t have the environmental hazards introduced in the first DLC so it’s much less challenging. I found the enemies, mainly tribals, fairly easy as well. They may have decent weapons but their almost complete lack of armor makes it easy to kill large numbers of them in short order.

• On the other hand, I quite enjoyed exploring the valley itself and learning about its history. The story of the survivalist Randall Clark is particularly engaged and I felt compelled to retrace his steps through the valley from the notes he left behind. Sometimes you just need a break from the unrelenting bleakness of the wasteland.

• One disappointment is that the lead-in to the content, about organizing a caravan expedition from the Mojave Wasteland to Zion Valley, turned out to just be a way to transport your character to the valley and strand him there. I actually thought you had to assemble and work with the full caravan team and that the DLC would add new trading mechanics or something. Nope.
• Another disappointment is that despite the coolness of the main plot, to help a tribe escape from the valley or destroy its enemies, the scripted events in the DLC don’t manage to support that illusion. The final quests were particularly underwhelming. You’re supposed to see large numbers of tribals fighting and fleeing all over the valley, but most of it remains empty with only a token few tribals popping up here and there. I remember that both Oblivion and Fallout 3 managed to more or less successfully fake large-scale engagements with an older version of the same game engine, so why couldn’t they pull it off here?
• Finally the white man’s burden aspect of the story leaves me a little queasy. Seriously, one quest is actually named “Civilized Man’s Burden”. I thought that western fiction had long since moved past the need to depict primitive cultures who need a civilized leader to lead them to greatness and prosperity? That the civilized leaders in this case are also active religious proselytizers is doubly insulting. I know it’s just a game but still, I expected something less cliched and more intelligent.

Overall another mediocre DLC that doesn’t feel meaty enough to stand on its own. It makes for a nice change of scenery but offers not much more than that.