Dhruin
SasqWatch
GameBanshee has been able to kick up a review of Old World Blues. They liked it a lot - but the author notes the humour won't suit everyone:
More information.Why do I bring this up? Well, one of New Vegas' most-praised points by the original fanbase was the return to the franchise's roots, casting off much of the absurdity that crept into Fallout 2 and more so into Fallout 3. With that in mind, it's worth saying it straight out: Old World Blues is just plain ridiculous. It's silly, it's hilarious, and often winks at the fourth wall. It grabs hold of those 1950s underpinnings the original series had, and inflates them to the point where Old World Blues feels about as tongue-in-cheek as a game can be. And this, really, is the deciding point on whether you should pick up Old World Blues, because right from the moment you start it, it doesn't let up. As good as it is, I have no problem telling some players that they simply might not like it, because of how close to heart they hold Fallout and how strongly-conceived a vision they may have of it.
At the same time, all the absurdity is handled with a certain amount of class, a degree of intelligence - for every unexpected joke about "hand penises", there's another five or ten obscure references, innuendos, wordplays, etc., and it's all brilliantly well-implemented, tying in with the main characters in a way which brings them well beyond mere comic relief. Upon first visiting the Big Empty, I was a little bewildered at just how off-kilter it all was... but after spending a little longer, I began to realise what a finely-crafted world it really was, the underlying logic behind all the absurdity. By the end, the silliness gave way to a degree of poignancy and reflection, just tragic enough, and it made me appreciate the characters on a level above what I initially took them for. Funny though it may be, Old World Blues' biggest success isn't that it got me to laugh more than any other game in a long time, but that it did so without undermining its own integrity, and did so in a way that was respectful both to me, as a player, and to itself.