Unless you're a fan of the over the top design and humour of it, avoid Bingles Melee. They're not exactly balanced. It was fun crafting them though.

You're probably better of with one of the weapon mod expansions that include melee weapon upgrades. Even with Bingles installed, I ended up using an upgraded chainsaw.

This is the only melee mod I endorse for FO3

FOOK and Project Nevada both add a bunch of weapons. Project Nevada adds 8 melee weapons. Don't know about FOOK, as there's no full list of what it adds, but it adds 60 weapons so there's probably something in there. Project Nevada is awesome in any case, so you should install it. :P

It's an area they need to improve for the next FO game. It was kind of a cruel joke encouraging players to hoard stuff to sell and make it so hard to separate out the junk to sell from the quest items that couldn't be sold or removed.

Not to mention the limited ability to get rid of things other than to toss them into a bottomless locker. The least they could do is let us smash them for wads.

It's not that Dead Money isn't any good (which it is), or that the characters or story would be badly written (which they aren't). It's that the DLC basically turns the game into a different kind of game entirely, a survival horror sneaky thing kind of game.

And I hate that kind of games. So DM was a very unpleasant experience, to me.

*Spoiler Alert*

So I decided to go with the NCR, and was really liking it until I was asked to kill the Brotherhood. They were the first faction in a Fallout game (Fo3,NV) that actually asked me to join. My character really believed in their principles, and I saw no justification for killing them. I tried to reason with the NCR chick to form a treaty, and she would have none of it. I visited Elder Cardin, and saw no dialogue options relating to it, so I decided I had to go a different route.

I decided that siding with an NCR genocide was as bad as the POTENTIAL genocide Yes Man would unleash against both the NCR and the Legion. I liked that the choice allowed me to kick the NCR out without destroying them, though the insolent general at the end got tossed over the dam for his shitty attitude ;)

I was very pleased with how things wrapped up, and I feel that the Yes Man route is a "good" ending. I think Obsidian did a surprisingly god job of allowing the player to form real relationships with the various groups, though I wish the Boomers, Khans, and Gun Runners had more prominent roles. I am not sure if a game with so many paths to the ending involving group dynamics has been mad before NV, so for a first try, I think it was great.

One thing I found odd was my completion time: Just around 80 hours including a long play through of Dead Money. I also didn't like that after the ending, I had to re-load a previous save to continue to the DLCs. I was a little surprised, as FO3 took me well into 160 hours. I will see how long the other 3 expansions take me.

This is down to how you did the Brotherhood faction quests. You can broker a truce between these two factions if you play your cards right.

I was sad I couldn't with Mr. House. Something that was cut, I gather.

I liked a lot of what Mr. House represented, but I had built up such a good relationship with the NCR that from a roleplaying POV, it made no sense to squander it all. The NCR's refusal to see reason regarding the Brotherhood, essentially demanding ethnic cleansing of a minority was not something I could get behind.

I am pleased with the ending, and I can just reload saves to see the others if I like!

Aye.

*Spoiler*






If you keep McNamara as Elder in Still In The Dark you can broker peace between the BOS and NCR. I've done that on my Indie playthrough actually, as I'm making a point of staying buddies with the NCR.






*End spoiler*
To be fair, the BOS are basically reclusive technology hoarders slowly dying out and not really doing anyone any good. And, er, ethnic?

The Brotherhood can be seen as an ethnic minority, an offshoot of the pre-war US national character that is distinct from the NCR, who seem to represent conservative american culture.

In effect, the Brotherhood and NCR are two limbs of the same tree, yet the NCR would only allow me to move forward with them if I became party to the genocide of their entire culture. I personally could not justify that, though others might have interpreted the lore differently than I.

Nope, Mr. House is just smart. His empire relies entirely on technological superiority. Leaving a bunker full of heavily armed, well trained, openly hostile, EMP wielding goons beneath your backyard isn't a sound notion.

Not really. And they just fought a costly battle over Helios One.

Is the Utah expansion any good? No spoilers please, I am playing through it now, it seems great! I enjoyed Dead Money, I feel is was very analogous to The Pitt from FO3.
Well, that's your interpretation. Similar cultures never fought a war? Israel/Palestine, Serbs/Croatians, Canada/US/Britain 1812, etc.

Yes, I think it's my favourite of them all. Just finished The Pitt too.