Fallout 3

[Nolan]

I save about every 5-10 minutes

[dwarf]

I do for the DLC (The Pitt) because it's terribly unreliable, fails to load and freezes all the time.

I never seem to bother with followers. Whilst it's nice extra storage space, they give you away and being a true lone wanderer just feels more badass.

[Nolan]

I do for all games not just Fallout. Well all gmaes that let me.

[dwarf]

Coming near to the end of my most complete playthrough of Fallout 3. Obviously there's still a bunch of places and things I haven't done, but that said there isn't much of the map I haven't covered.

 

1/3 of the way through of Mothership Zeta, it was a pleasant surprise to see that the frame-rate is fine and there has only been one minor glitch.

It is slightly annoying that I'm playing the last few DLCs with no XP incentive, it just feels wrong. Out of the add-ons, Zeta and Anchorage and Steel have been tolerable in terms of faults. Point Lookout & The Pitt glitched so much though, really pissed me off. Even Steel had its problems.

 

Once I've finished everything I'll give you the lowdown on the extra contentery.

[Cube]

You should have seen the Pitt on the day of release. Over half of the level was missing.

[dwarf]

Hello there, this is Zechs..Mer..Quise. Ahhhaaaa!!! Just kidding, this is Dwarf G, bow-wow! You're voice in the darkness

 

Okay, overall I thought the DLC was disappointing. The aforementioned bugs really didn't help, but also it felt like minimal effort was put into them to make them fun.

 

Operation Anchorage:

 

This for me was the best DLC. Whilst I may have been more inclined to like it because I was still getting XP and it was my first dip into the extra content, it was the most different, had a cool environment and was generally varied. Like every add-on the primary focus was shooting a lot of stuff, but this was made fun by choosing recruits, and being able to choose load-outs for yourself to tackle the missions. The best thing about it for me was the Gauss Rifle, which is just awesome basically. Obtaining that and the chinese stealth armor at the end was very agreeable - the armor made the rest of my playtime pretty damn cool, especially having the sneak skill at 100.

7/10

 

Broken Steel

It seemed Bethesda did make a fair effort on this one. Leading up to the big base is a pretty cool thing to do when you're packing the Tesla cannon they give you mid-way through. The first section was pants, just clearing out a generic building full of enclave soldiers made me think I was going to be in for a boring time but it progressively improved beyond that point. Obviously the level cap is a key part of it, especially seeing as it adds Supermutant Overlords/Albino Radscorpions to the wasteland and even other DLC. This pack also had the best ending.

 

7/10

 

The Pitt

This was one buggy bastard, all but ruined my experience. Without bugs it would've still remained average. The setting was a nice idea, and the focus on weird enemies and melee items was good, but the feeling of threat disappeared too quickly. The arena fights were piss, nothing special. The amount of enemies at the end was impressive, and collecting the ingots was actually enjoyable, as was the ascent of the tower thing.

 

5/10

 

Point Lookout

I thought this thing would be much be a bit better than the others because it was more of an open world Fallout style affair, but really for me it didn't make much difference. On the whole the side quests were boring and offered little reward. As for the main one...I thought the tough enemies were great, but the places that held the bulk of the action were dire, with the whole DLC feeling a bit chore-like by the middle.

 

5/10

 

Mothership Zeta

Very few bugs to speak of, which is nice. Virtually no enemy variety though, absolutely shocking. The aliens were just annoying to fight. There were tons of copy and pasted sections, no really outstanding locations on the ship. Bar a cool climactic explosion, it was just dull, and the NPCs were boring, whilst other DLC characters had an interesting personality of sorts.

 

3/10

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You've been listening to Dwarf G, AROOOOO!!!! Bringing you reviews, no matter how bad it hurts.

Edited January 27, 2010 by dwarf

[Emasher]

Ok, so, I think I may have encountered the same glitch as someone here was having with that one bridge area. Everything changed colour for a few seconds. It was in a different place though, the detention camp in point lookout, so its probably just a glitch and has nothing to do with that one area.

 

So, as I hinted in the last paragraph, I played through Point Lookout. Best DLC yet, although, I haven't played Mothership Zeta, or the Broken Steel missions. The highlight for me was following in the footsteps of the war era chinese spy, in that one side-quest. The challenge was great too, coming back to the wasteland, I felt like a complete badass, as it was so much easier to kill people. The new weapons were alright, with my personal favorite being the back-water rifle (I think you get it in the bunker after finishing the chinese spy sidequest), which is basically the leaver-action rifle without loosing HP when you use it. I didn't bother discovering all locations for the trophy, I think I'll go back when I reach level 30 and do that, so the enemies aren't as much of a problem.

[dwarf]

Ok, so, I think I may have encountered the same glitch as someone here was having with that one bridge area. Everything changed colour for a few seconds. It was in a different place though, the detention camp in point lookout, so its probably just a glitch and has nothing to do with that one area.

 

So, as I hinted in the last paragraph, I played through Point Lookout. Best DLC yet, although, I haven't played Mothership Zeta, or the Broken Steel missions. The highlight for me was following in the footsteps of the war era chinese spy, in that one side-quest. The challenge was great too, coming back to the wasteland, I felt like a complete badass, as it was so much easier to kill people. The new weapons were alright, with my personal favorite being the back-water rifle (I think you get it in the bunker after finishing the chinese spy sidequest), which is basically the leaver-action rifle without loosing HP when you use it. I didn't bother discovering all locations for the trophy, I think I'll go back when I reach level 30 and do that, so the enemies aren't as much of a problem.

But with that glitch did you hear a sort of gong-like noise before the colours inverted?

 

And I'd be wary about discovering all of those locations, I did and no trophy was given to me (as mentioned).

I thought Point Lookout was one of the weaker add-ons.

[Emasher]

There was some sort of noise. At first I thought someone shot a mini-nuke at me, but the colours were wrong.

 

I'd rather do it and have a chance of getting the trophy, then not do it at all TBH.

[dwarf]

It was just the sky that went all weird yeah? No enemies were around?

[Emasher]

There were a few sentry bots, a few ghouls, and a few turrets actually. It happened rather quickly though, and I wasn't looking at any of them at the time. I think it was just the sky though.

[dwarf]

Hmmm strange. Did you happen to make a save file just before it happened? If you did you could test to see if it happened again.

[Emasher]

No, I don't have a save file from anywhere around there.

[dwarf]

Ah well. I'm not alone at least Yet still no information about it can be obtained through Google.

[flameboy]

ok so yeah this is a big bump...however Point Lookout, Mothership Zeta and Operation Anchorage have all been added as free downloads for Playstation Plus subscribers, which is great news, I'm so glad I never got round to downloading them!

[dwarf]

The Pitt and Broken Steel are also coming next week I read.

 

Do not bother with Mothership Zeta unless you've got special weapons that are in desperate need of repair (or want moar ammo for the Alien Blaster mwahaha).

 

Anchorage is the best add-on by far, and even it is slightly lame. The end reward armor mkes it all the more worth playing.

[flameboy]

The Pitt and Broken Steel are also coming next week I read.

 

Do not bother with Mothership Zeta unless you've got special weapons that are in desperate need of repair (or want moar ammo for the Alien Blaster mwahaha).

 

Anchorage is the best add-on by far, and even it is slightly lame. The end reward armor mkes it all the more worth playing.

 

Well its given me something to play through on extralife at some point. I will likely play it all.

[dwarf]

You're going to be leading a pretty monotonous extra life.

[flameboy]

You're going to be leading a pretty monotonous extra life.

 

I'm not gonna play through all of them. I will end up playing much more...whats the play time on each of the freebies released today?

[dwarf]

Anchorage is probably 3 hours, Point Lookout potentially 5-6, depending on how much you care about exploring everything. Mothership Zeta is 3-4 hours of pure shite.

[Cube]

Anchorage is short and really dull, Point Lookout is rather big and is great for exploring. Mothership Zeta is awesome but fairly short.

[flameboy]

oooooh conflicting views...

[dwarf]

Basically, Cube is wrong.

[Cookyman]

A nice addition to playstation plus - I'm glad I never bought these either.

 

Haven't played Fallout in ages so this is a pleasant surprise.

[dwarf]

Obviously nothing will stop you from playing them, (though in 40% of cases, users of the DLC have caught AIDS of the visual kind) but I actually think Fallout 3 is a game best played without any other add-on packs.

 

Even having the positive level-cap increase with Broken Steel compromises the ending, which I thought was fitting (if somewhat annoying that you couldn't carry on beyond the finish).

This is because none of the dlc actually encapsulates what made the whole game so great. It wasn't meant to be a grind, a shooting fest, a linear stroll with boring characters, yet these are all the things the extra content provide.