I'm sure it's been mentioned before in this thread in the past, but I recently have played through the Dust mod for Fallout: New Vegas:
And I have to say, I was rather disappointed by it. At first glance, it is a very impressive mod, it's the entire Mojave Wasteland redone and changed, each location modified and having different enemies in the locations, with its own lore and different details. I'll admit, it was TK-sMantis' video that had finally got me into playing it, even though I've known this mod's existence since it came out. Personally, I find the mod to have been very underwhelming and honestly not great.
Lore:
The lore of the mod is just bad fanfic once you really look into it. The basic plot is: the Second Battle of Hoover Dam ends in NCR victory, but with either a House or Yes Man ending, so the NCR loses the dam and any hope of getting the Strip. Except, in Dust they get mad and forcibly annex the Strip and dam...just like that (with the Courier fleeing and disappearing). How did they do this? They just got done battling the Legion, being exhausted and suffering casualties and depleting resources, yet they can somehow fight against a massive Securitron army and win? The only way I can see them winning is if the Courier blew up the bunker under Fortification Hill, even then there's still some Securitrons they NCR would have to deal with.
Anyways, they get the Strip and this of course causes unrest in Outer Vegas and Freeside. Then the NCR discover the Sierra Madre, and the Cloud, and begin collecting Cloud samples and Ghost People corpses and bringing them to the Mojave in the new labs they built in the Lucky 38 and Vault 21...why the hell are they making a experimental lab in the middle of the damn Strip? Then it's said that the NCR is all of a sudden being sadistic and unethical with everything they do, including experimenting on people and doing taboo things. Obviously in the base game the NCR is not perfect at all, just like all the factions, and they have plenty of faults, but for them to randomly turn into evil scientists out of nowhere is just too random. They get a report a massive sandstorm will be hitting the Mojave and prepare to evacuate...but apparently doesn't hit, as 5 years later a pissed off jannie sabotages the lab in Vault 21, leaking the Cloud all over the Strip wow
After this insanity happens Vegas suffers from riots and rebellions from the Kings and the general population, helping many evacuate and escape the Wasteland. The NCR lock the gate to the Strip, trapping many civilians inside and some troopers, then going on to dump radioactive waste into the sewers to kill anyone hiding out in there or using them to escape, before the NCR finally leaves the Mojave. Some survived inside the casinos in the Strip (somehow with a finite amount of food) and the Cloud blows west to the NCR, reaching the Boneyard, but randomly dispersing and I guess the NCR ends up fine?
Eventually a radioactive dust storm hits the Mojave, absolutely fucking everything up and causing everyone to either die or leave the place. Some of the effects wind their way up at Zion Valley, which is a interesting area, as there is a massive "Wendigo" that is just a giant Spore Carrier like in Vault 22, which turns out to be Joshua Graham, who has been transformed into the abomination and can't be killed by weapons and can only be scared by fire. Also, just like Avellone wanted, the Tunnelers make their way to the Mojave with the cover of the dust storm and infest the region, killing much of the local fauna.
The mod starts 20 years in total after the Second Battle of Hoover Dam, with you playing as The Survivor, with the sole objective of escaping the Mojave. You get no quest markers or anything, and basically have to figure it out yourself. There are four endings in total, one is to repair a plane at Searchlight Airport and escape, one is to travel to Zion and escape through "The Long Dark" which is basically some long bunker, another is to blow some rubble in a tunnel with C4 and make it to Big MT, and find the teleporter gun to transport you to a safe region, and finally, using a Vertibird at Camp McCarran (which requires going through the Strip to get there) and crashing into the Sierra Madre, at which point you escape into the sewers and end up at the Boneyard (???). Also, despite this being 20 years after things going to shit in the Mojave, there is a lot of human enemies (cannibals, tribals, NCR remnants, etc.) who are somehow surviving and just chilling around, instead of leaving like you try to do.
Gameplay wise: it's supposed to be "hardcore" so you have the vanilla game's hardcore system of having to eat, sleep, and drink to survive. Problem is, you have a dumb mechanic of dying of thirst if you go to sleep at the lowest level of dehydration...somehow. The other biggie is ammo and good guns are scarce, and all weapons have bad condition (makes sense) and you can die pretty fast to bullets, sometimes in only a couple of rounds. Your inventory weight is also dramatically reduced to around 50 something.
I spent around a dozen hours playing it and did escape through the Vertibird ending, and honestly I was very disappointed with the experience. The lore is interesting at first but quickly devolves into horrible fanfic levels, the gameplay is just crouching everywhere and dying to a stray bullet instantly, and not using a guide of where the fuck to go for the endings will be a problem. The story would have been better if it was something like "oh shit a massive dust storm devastated the Mojave right after the Hoover Dam battle and everything got fucked up". The gameplay gets very boring and it's not really that hard, as the mod expects you and is intended for people who have played the base game many times, thus making it much easier since you know where to go in general.
I have since uninstalled Dust and have made a new mod list for the base game, and I'm in the middle of it doing a Cowboi Legion playthrough with Raul and Rex, and it's been very fun. I just thought I'd share my experience with the mod since I don't see it mentioned too much anywhere, and if I do see it, its faults aren't discussed much.
Also when I was installing stuff with Viva New Vegas, I noticed they had mentioned the Dust mod as one to avoid, with this reasoning:
Big oof. Of course, if any of what I said still interests you then go ahead and check out the mod, but I just find it very boring after one short playthrough. (Also don't go into the damn sewers, it's a literal hell to get out)
