Ironically the lonesome road is not that lonesome at all. The very first thing you do is in fact get a companion. And a very noisy companion at that who constantly makes noises and forces you into conversations to remind you that you are in fact not alone.
Well one thing that sets this DLC apart from the others is that you're actually allowed to leave the lonesome road at any time. the other DLCs have various contrived reasons of locking you into them; the bomb collar in Dead Money (this one makes the most sense since Elijah was using you for slave labor), the lack of help on how to leave until you assist Grahm in Honest Hearts (Why the fuck do I need his help anyway? I'm the player character, I don't need anyone's help!), and the whole thing about needing you brain to pass the force field in Old World Blues (But you can actually leave your brain in Big Mt. if you want to and still leave provided you leave your brain at the proper place because of reasons). This DLC is sensible, you walk into it, and there's not a fucking thing preventing you from throwing up your middle fingers, turning 360 degrees, and moon walking the fuck away..... and a sensible person would do just that. But more on that later.
The set up for this DLC actually involves the main story of the game itself. If you dig a little you can find out that originally there was a different courier who was slotted to carry the platinum chip but that upon seeing you were next in line backed away from the job saying it should be given to you. That original courier is a man named Ulysses. Ulysses has lured you to "the divide" to have some big showdown with you.
So then lonesome road really thinks it's got the big boy pants on and isn't pulling punches cause it recommends you be at least level 25 and reminds you that if things get to hard you're allowed to tuck your tail between your legs and run away crying. You bitch. I did actually use the ability to leave once though to take a pile of loot back to my house. I didn't think LR was that tough but in fairness I was about level 35 when I started it and my badass revolver would one shot almost all of the marked men who primarily inhabit the area. There were minor issues with the tunnelers, who came from underground, cause they hit fairly hard. I did run into some larger issues when the deathclaws showed up. Because, much like the honey badger, deathclaw don't give a fuck. I had about 35 DT and would still be insta-gibbed by a deathclaw if I wasn't high as a kite on chems. The only difference between fighting a deathclaw now, and at level one is that now I have the capacity to kill the deathclaw before it gets to me. If it does get to me the result is pretty much the same as if I was a naked toddler.
One thing I complained about in the Honest Hearts review was that HH didn't feel like it's own thing. LR doesn't have quite as different a tone as Dead Money and Old World Blues, but it does at least have a different feeling from the Mojave. The marked men are a unique enemy and I appreciate that their existence is explained. The occasional tunnelers are also very different though there backstory is, in my opinion, a bit lame. I quite enjoyed the side objective of finding the 30 undetonated warheads and blowing them all up to reveal the hidden paths and secret caches (and of course the achievement).
I found the majority of this DLC actually well done and enjoyed going through almost all of. The enemy design is cool. There was some side areas to explore and the aforementioned explosive Easter egg hunt. I got a ballin new set of armor and a pile of upgrades for ED-E, one of my favorite companions. I made quite a good amount of caps pawning off the armor and weapons from all the marked men. Unfortunately, there was one thing that happened, that does really grate on me. You may recall that I said earlier that a sensible person would walk away from this DLC. Why? Let me explain.
There is a point in the quest line where you have to go through a particular door. This door is locked by default. The only way to unlock this door is to do something really really fucking stupid. Really really colossally fucking moronic. Alternatively you could do it not for being the stupidest man who has ever lived, but instead as a result of being a homicidal maniac who loves nothing more than chaos and has severe suicidal tendencies. So you either have to do something that you know you really shouldn't fucking do, or not be able to finish the DLC. I did it cause I wanted to be able to finish the DLC and, as a reasonable fucking person would, Ulysses berated me for being so foolish as to do so. The game yelled at me for doing the thing it made me do. I understand the idea behind why this scene exists, I'm sure someone was like "ya know what would be cool?" and then this happened. Possibly a good idea, very much so fucked up execution, and while it doesn't ruin the entire DLC for me, it is a significant black mark on the record.
I will say that my hatred of the event is slightly lessened by the fact that doing it not only allows you to progress, but unlocks a special area. And holy fucking shit that special area. The area is not very large and has about 8 deathclaws and also a well sized orgy's worth of marked men all of who are regenerating health like mad due to the IMMENSE amount of radiation in the area. Even at the cap of 85% rad resistance I was getting 2 and 3 rads a second. The wiki says that some spots in the area have upwards of 25 rads a second. For reference, that could kill you in under a minute if you started from zero radiation. So with the constant warm glow of radiation trying to kill me, the fuckton of deathclaws, and the orgy I interrupted, there was a very significant risk of death here. I spent the entire time here not so much kissing the sky as bending it over and pounding away at it's backside. Kudos if you got that reference.
The story here is kinda weak. Ulysses lured you here to have a showdown with you because of something you did in the past. Cause you're somehow related to the history of the divide, cause you walked that road before. And he's mad about what you did.... or he's not mad. He says things about having learned from your actions... so maybe he thinks he's some kind of successor to you some how. He also constantly rants about the NCR and the legion calling them the bull and the bears after their symbols. Symbols are a very important thing to him for some reason. Maybe I should have paid more attention to his dialogue, or tried to get him to say more, though I continued every talk till the game forced me out of the conversation. But as things were his motives and his goal were at best fuzzy. He was gonna bomb the NCR and the legion cause... he thought he could do better and that sending one bomb at a relatively small portion of each of the forces would some how entirely undermine them both while simultaneously ensuring his total superiority over everyone. Things work like that right? Spoilers: no. And it turns out that basically fucking everything is his fault. Ulysses used to be part of the legion, and was the first among it's ranks to see the hoover dam, when he told Ceaser about it, and the flag with the two headed bear, the legion came to fight their new adversary. Good job numbnuts.
So on the whole this gets a thumbs up, through not for the fucking story, and I am still irritated by being forced to make such a stupid fucking choice, and then being yelled at for having done so. I DIDN'T WANT TO DO IT YOU MADE ME SO DON'T BE YELLING AT ME YOU FUCK!
Gameplay: 7.5 out of 10
Story: 3.5 out of 10
Visuals: 6.5 out of 10
Audio: 6 out of 10
Overall: 6.5 stupid fucking choices out of 10
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