Honest Hearts, the second downloadable add-on for Fallout: New Vegas, is a title I’m still having a little trouble fully making my mind up about, as it finds itself disappointing in some respects but excelling in others. On the one hand, it offers up a sizeable new area to explore with dozens of locations, a totally unique aesthetic style, some surprisingly fleshed-out lore, and characters that are both interesting in terms of backstory and gripping as far as their personalities go, but on the other, the overall structure and storyline are lacking much of the drama, intensity and focus that it hints so promisingly at early on.
It starts off well enough. As is standard for the Fallout DLCs thus far, the player receives a notice regarding a new opportunity for adventure immediately upon loading up a save file. The Happy Trails Trading Company is looking for help on a dangerous trading expedition to New Canaan, a Mormon city and trade capital to the north of New Vegas. Since the Courier is one of the few people in the Mojave with a functional Pip-boy, its mapping features make for an obvious aid to the caravan. and of course, having another gun to depend on never hurts. Once the player has ditched all but the most essential of equipment for the long journey no doubt a compromise to avoid high level-players from unbalancing the game, without stripping all their gear entirely it’s off on the expedition through post-apocalyptic Zion National Park, and on to Canaan.
It’s a pretty standard start, to be sure, and the relatively middling pay offered for the task may not seem so attractive for players who are no doubt rolling in thousands of by now, but the slight discontinuity is eased by some well-done opening dialogue with a couple of characters, including Jed Masterson, the expedition’s leader. Featuring some extensive backstory to inquire about, this sequence, simple thought it may be, serves to set up the story and its characters convincingly, and there’s even some skill checks and dialogue that’s dependent on progress made in the story that’s appropriate to Jed’s character (he thanked me for taking out Crimson Caravan near Vegas, as it allowed his own company to improve its business). Unfortunately, the high expectations this sets for reactivity and non-combat skills never actually come to fruition.
Upon arriving at Zion, the expedition quickly comes under attack by some tribal warriors in possession of powerful automatic weapons. Predictably, the entire caravan is slaughtered, save for the Courier, who soon meets up with a scout from the friendlier Dead Horses tribe, Follows-Chalk, who serves as the Courier’s companion through the first half of the story (who bears a superficial resemblance to Sulik from Fallout 2). Led by Follows-Chalk’s instructions, the Courier soon finds him or herself in the presence of Joshua Graham, otherwise known as the Burned Man, a New Canaanite missionary, and former second to Caesar (of Caesar’s Legion, of course). Graham informs the Courier that New Canaan has been destroyed by the White Legs tribe, who were offered the chance to join Caesar’s Legion if they were successful in wiping the Canaanites out, along with their other rival tribes. The Canaanites fled to Zion, and in doing so brought the White Legs’ wrath upon several other tribes, including the Dead Horses and the Sorrows, who are now the only ones that remain. While Graham and his more reserved missionary partner, Daniel, both want to help the tribes they have unintentionally drawn into their conflict, Daniel wishes to do so peacefully, by evacuating the area, while Graham wishes to exact his own brand of (divine justice) on the White Legs.
From here, it’s fairly standard New Vegas gameplay: the player is left to explore Zion National Park at his or her leisure, Follows-Chalk (and later a female tribal, Waking Cloud) in tow, and is given a series of fetch and collection quests to perform in order to advance the story, with a smattering of side-quests as well; these feel neither forced nor irrelevant, and tie in well with the existing characters and companions. While the individual quests themselves aren’t particularly interesting (a vision quest to kill a giant ghost bear being one of the standouts), they do a good job at giving the Courier to explore just about every inch of Zion, and are logical and appropriate given the story.
Honest Hearts’ biggest problem, I think, is one of structure, both in narrative and gameplay. While there’s nothing wrong with it on the surface,
Honest Hearts’ story focuses much more heavily on the (tribal politics) than one might expect, with significant amounts of time dedicated to setting up the situation, the cultures of the tribes, and so forth, but very little spent on actually giving the player much to do save for the aforementioned fetch/collect/kill quests. The story is short, almost cripplingly so, not out of a lack of content in the game world, but because there simply isn’t that much meat to it. There’s a huge amount of exposition to go over, but when it comes time to actually play, there’s not much left to do as far as the story’s concerned walk around, deliver this, murder that, and then you get to choose which ending you want. It’s disappointing, to say the least, and also confusing given the high standard set by the backstory and characters.
Speaking of, the characters themselves are mostly excellent it’s just that they’re used poorly. Joshua Graham makes a strong appearance, though he’s far different from the Hanged Man initially planned for Van Buren, coming across less as a violent psychopath and more as a repentant, but still brutally efficient man who does not shy away from violence if it serves his ends. He is complex and fleshed-out, but given the colossal hype that’s been given to his character, not just in New Vegas, but as hinted by Van Buren as well, perhaps it was a given that he’d come across as just a little bit of a let-down. Daniel, meanwhile, is an intelligent, younger and more sympathetic character, one who serves as a constructive, peaceful leader for the tribes he serves as missionary to, but finds himself mired in doubt over those pacifist ways as he stands in Graham’s shadow. Daniel’s somewhat naïve, idealistic and uncertain ways serve as a great counterpart and contrast to the resolute, yet subtly violent personality of Graham. It’s a shame that the story built around them is so anemic, as one gets the sense Graham especially is much too big a character to be confined as he is to such a short and middling story.
Then there’s the issue of linearity, which finds itself at odds with the open-world structure. While the Courier is free to explore the world at his or her leisure, and to pick and choose the order some quests are performed in, there’s no choice or consequence whatsoever beyond the ending and a couple of interactions with the companions (which open up mini-quests that are over practically before they begin); even with multiple endings, and some choice within those two end sequences, the options still feel unsatisfying. It’s simply puzzling, for instance, why diplomacy with the White Legs isn’t available, and pitting two tribes led by two men with very different ideals against each other would have been a far stronger setup; instead, they’re reduced to mindless raiders, and when given the choice between exterminating them or running away, it’s very hard to see why anyone would shy away from simply slaughtering them like the monsters they are. Proper interaction and diplomacy with the White Legs would have truly let the two characters of Graham and Daniel to shine, and would have allowed for a much greater degree of moral ambiguity. and coming from Obsidian, it’s quite surprising that the add-on didn’t take such a route.
The odd thing, after all this, then, is that Honest Hearts still manages to be enjoyable. While its story presents possibly the biggest of missed opportunities seen in all of New Vegas yet, its world has been crafted with a lot of attention to detail and care. The new artwork made for the environments errs towards the stylized rather than realistic, but it stands out from the bleakness of the Mojave rather well. Gameplay-wise, it places an increased emphasis on verticality you’ll spend a significant amount of time climbing mountains and crossing natural rock bridges over perilous canyons, scampering down cliffsides, and will probably break your limbs far more often than normal as you navigate the hazardous terrain. Some of the vistas are quite stunning, even discounting the dated game engine, and there are a good 30+ locations to find, most with some sort of loot, a building or cave to explore, or some other object of interest. There’s even a compelling non-journal quest involving the diaries left by a post-war survivor stranded in the park, and this ends up being far more emotionally gripping and poignant than the main story hopes to be. For all its other issues, Honest Hearts does an excellent job with exploration, and for many this will be the primary draw. Like Fallout 3‘s Point Lookout, Zion represents a different, more dangerous change of pace from the main game setting, and in this respect there can be few complaints about the quantity and quality of content available.
Conclusions, then? Honest Hearts feels like a missed opportunity that nevertheless manages to be somewhat memorable and worthwhile. While there are undeniable flaws with its story and quest design, the quality of the lore and characters are as good as they’ve ever been in New Vegas, and Zion is a sturdy addition to the Fallout canon. Add to that the requisite new monsters and enemies to fight (the stand-out being giant, acid-spitting green geckos), new weapons and armours (a Tommy Gun? Yes, please!), level cap increase (in case your character wasn’t stupidly powerful enough already), new perks and crafting recipes that integrate well into the rest of the game, and you’ve got a package that still manages to be more or less worth its asking price, despite all the flaws. While I can’t recommend Honest Hearts to players who are solely looking for a strong narrative experience, for those who are more concerned with exploration and discovery, Honest Hearts should provide anywhere from 2-5 hours of additional play-time. Zion may not be a promised land, but it’s certainly worth visiting on your post-nuclear tour.
