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Honest Hearts presents down to Earth Fallout expansion. Environment is beautiful and proves that developer knows how to make something more than wastelands. It actually introduces rain effects missing into the main game through modding and features simple, but effective story line.

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Game spends effort in setting up this DLC to feel more like an organic part of this world. You are going through Mojave and you hear a radio call, advertising job of convoy guard. You are being accepted, because you have that fancy pip boy on your arm. You converse with people in a cave and can have hilarious dialogue with one show off and how he is trying to ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ you with stories he makes up on a spot. After initial set up, you prepare your luggage as light as it has to be and then you head out. Game loads and you appear at the canyon only to be soon ambushed with your colleagues all dying in an ambush. From there you are met with a local which guides you to their leader. NPC tells you when you are going the wrong way. There are close call with a bear. Eventually you reach Graham and he gives you a short introduction to a situation there.

While Old World Blues were rambling, inconsistent and its humour was forced. Story telling in this one is the opposite. It is down to the point and plot is explained from moment to moment rather than everything being told you at the start. It is a work towards a tangible goal - evacuation which later is changed to war. This is a quick questline with few side quests. Through it you decide the fate of two tribes and decide Graham's fight with his own internal demons.

The Good and the Bad
• I did liked how developers took their time and effort to create believable savage tribes. How only few members knew how to communicate with us. I did missed more characterisation from a rival tribe. What was the whole purpose of our contest. Caesar influence was half-heartedly thrown in as an influence, but it was never developed further. Rival tribes are left unexplored and DLC is light on content as a whole. It had built this amazing map, but if you just do the main quest, you find out that there are only few quests, concentrated in one side of a map to do. You complete it quickly and are on your way just as quickly. Even final battle is left incomplete. You have to move through half of an entire map for no reason when battle is already happening in a canyon. Then you just go through cave to cave with your and enemy tribes mixed from an area to an area. There is rarely active fighting present. It all feels as half finished.
  
  What needed to be done
  
• Outside of pouring more love to this DLC, there isn't much that could be done. It is a short addition to the main story. Nature of DLC prevents from it being a properly developed experience. You could create more side quests. Original idea of drug induced hallucinations was first seen here and later done again in Far Cry series. However, there is an distinct lack of such side quests. Nor there are any efforts to try and to know your enemy through quests or to give player an option. Imagine how cool it would had been if Legion affiliated player could kill Graham, bring back his head to Caesar and him being unable to reward you, but being very grateful and in your debt for it. Just like Graham said it would be. That would be simply a genius writing. Sadly, that is not to be. We have amazing environment. We have amazing character. We have amazing setting. We have amazing technology. We have amazing story. Yet, we sadly cannot stay there for longer and do more.

What had amazed me in this DLC is map itself. It is lively with vegetation. It has plenty of fresh water. There is wild life. It actually feels like a place where a small community could live in. This is in direct contrast to all the other Fallout New Vegas maps which feel as unnatural and unbelievable. There is a contrast in colours. Warm yellow and green overtaking red rock. As a whole map is placed in a canyon, you often can observe map from up hill. It is a long and narrow map with river flowing through much of it. As you explore map, you discover new life from the vaults taking root there and being commented by a locals as it being unnatural. You notice that it once was a national park, you find local stores, discover last conversations of people living there. There are even notes of survivors who logged events after an apocalypse until first vault dwellers re-emerging to the surface.

Another surprise to me was rain. A simple effect on player's camera, but it gives so much to a game. Yes, it could be done better, but for such an old game, it was still impressive to see. DLC for this game tend to push game technologically in one or other area. It is just sad that developers themselves did not add these effects to a base game. However, modders had copied the code and put the exact same thing as their own work to the main game.


I think that the Honest Hearts is the best DLC done for Fallout New Vegas. It is a part of a main story. A burned man is featured heavily as a legend in a Mojave and it feels great to see the living legend in action. I enjoyed characters, story. I found out new map to be the best in entire New Vegas series. DLC could be longer, it could feature more dialogue and options. As it stands now, it is a sweet, but short adventure beyond Mojave desert into world beyond.

This DLC stands as a proof that masses do not have much taste. Where something is well done, they ignore it, because it does not inflate the game. It does not make story more epic, you are not fighting dinosaurs while nukes fall all around you. Thus, they are not interested in story. It does not give you broken weapons which makes game trivial. Thus masses are not interested in loot. Its story adds and explains a huge part of a main story, a legend of the burned man. This is why people are not interested in it. It is serious, it adds to game quality. They prefer easy to digest trash like in the Old World Blues. It is a little bit sad, but I guess I knew this all along. The higher I soar, the less and less I can relate with the commoners.