Fallout: New Vegas Honest Hearts DLC Reviews

We have another batch of reviews for the second piece of downloadable content for Obsidian’s Fallout: New Vegas, although the mixed reception hasn’t really changed so far and seems unlikely to change with every new batch of reviews.

Dealspwn urges you to avoid it, 5/10

Where Honest Hearts excels is its willingness to cater for Survival and Melee-centric characters. The handful of new guns isn’t particularly inspiring, but melee characters will enjoy a powerful selection of animal gauntlets to batter enemies to death with. What’s more, stimpacks and traditional aid are in short supply but the national park is full of ingredients, food and resources to craft your own healing items with. Liberally-spaced campfires mean that you’re never too far away from cooking up a recipe, and some new survival-oriented perks mean that this underused skill becomes significantly more powerful.

There’s a caveat to this review, which I’ll admit is fairly damning up to this point. Whilst Honest Hearts is a bit limp, Fallout’s addictive core of exploration and character building is still present. and increasing the level cap by five is an attractive prospect that carries over to the main game. Fans will enjoy the experience, but taken by itself, Honest Hearts is probably not worth the download for most gamers.

Blistered Thumbs has the opposite opinion and thinks it’s worth the price, 8/10

From a presentation standpoint, Honest Hearts uses the assets of New Vegas (and by association Fallout 3) very well. Similar to Point Lookout, this particular slice of paradise is a wholly unique area separate from the main wasteland. Once you enter, there are no restrictions on where you go (though there will be some nudging via a companion). Visually, it’s a beautiful area. The textures look good, though you may get pop in once or twice. The lighting is good at keeping the mood as well, on top of giving the player plenty of times to get a great look at the view the Zion National Park presents. In fact, one point where the lighting is highlighted is in the endgame, where the tint of the sky hints at exactly what’s going to come at the end of this particular road.

NowGamer has a short piece, score is 7.0/10

Like Dead Money, Honest Hearts takes place on an enclosed map, completely separate from the main game, but unlike Dead Money sticks to pretty much the same formula as the main game. You get caught up in a conflict between various factions and the main quest thread sees you helping to resolve it in return for help returning to the Mojave Wasteland.

Along the way there are choices to be made whether to do the optional side-quests or not, whether to do the optional objectives within quests or not, and what to say to various characters about various things.

Some of the above will then affect the epilogue plot summary you get at the end. This formula works for the main game because it’s so huge and so complex and because you have so much freedom. On a smaller map with a much shorter main quest at about four hours, there’s no room for freedom or complexity and you just feel like you’re going through the motions.