Fallout 3 expansions
Encyclopedia
There are five expansion pack
s for the Bethesda action role-playing game
Fallout 3
. Each expansion adds new missions, new locales to visit, and new items for the player to make use of. Bethesda's Todd Howard
first confirmed during E3 2008 that downloadable content
would be prepared for the Xbox 360
and Windows
versions of Fallout 3. Of the five, Broken Steel has the largest effect on the game, altering the ending, increasing the level cap to 30, and allowing the player to continue playing past the end of the main quest line. The Game of The Year edition of Fallout 3 includes the full game and all five expansions.
The downloadable content was originally exclusive to Xbox Live and Games for Windows. Although Bethesda had not offered an official explanation as to why the content was not released for PlayStation 3, Lazard Capital Markets
analyst Colin Sebastian speculated that it may have been the result of a money deal with Bethesda by Sony
's competitor, Microsoft
. When asked if the PlayStation 3 version would receive an update that would enable gameplay beyond the main quest's completion, Todd Howard responded, "Not at this time, no." However, in May 2009, Bethesda announced that the existing DLC packs (Operation: Anchorage, The Pitt and Broken Steel) would be made available for the PlayStation 3; the later two (Point Lookout and Mothership Zeta) were released for all platforms.
, from Chinese forces. The pack contains several new quests, new items, and adds four new achievements. Gameplay within the simulation is different than the main game; health and ammo are replenished by stations in certain areas of the simulation world, items functionally do not suffer from decay (the items actually do decay, but have a health so high that it is virtually impossible to affect performance), and enemy corpses disappear instead of allowing the player to loot them for supplies.
Operation: Anchorage was released in North America and Europe on January 27, 2009 on Xbox Live
and Games for Windows Live. Although the content was scheduled for release on the PlayStation 3 in June 2009, the final week of June's PlayStation Store
updates did not include it. Bethesda released information suggesting that the delay was due to their desire to iron out all of the bugs before release as well as test compatibility between DLCs. Operation: Anchorage, along with The Pitt, were released on October 1, 2009, for PS3.
simulation of one of the greatest battles of the Fallout universe: the liberation of Anchorage, Alaska from invading Red Chinese troops. The Outcasts cannot use the simulation because an external interface device, the player's Pip-Boy, is required. The player is thus recruited to complete the simulation in return for a share of the reward.
In the simulation, the player is tasked with fighting the Chinese in various scenarios, such as clearing out bunkers in a cliff, hitting strategic targets, and finally defeating the Chinese general in single combat. Once the simulation is complete, the player gains access to the armory and the advanced weapons it contains.
. The pack features several new weapons, new armor and clothing items, four achievements and around four to five hours of gameplay. The Pitt was released on March 24, 2009 on Xbox Live and Games for Windows Live, but was quickly removed due to glitches in the gameplay which made the Xbox 360 version of the expansion unplayable. Further investigation was performed by Bethesda and Microsoft, and according to a Bethesda's official Twitter, as of 10:00am PST on March 25, 2009, the expansion was again being uploaded to Xbox Live, and was again made available that afternoon. For those who downloaded it on March 24 in the morning, glitches were still apparent. A new version was available on Xbox Live on April 2, fixing freezing issues many players had encountered with the previous version. A retail disk was released at the end of May 2009 containing this and the Operation: Anchorage expansion packs. It was released for Xbox 360 and Games for Windows. The expansion packs are copied to the hard drive and function as it would had it been downloaded. This pack was released for the PlayStation 3 at the same time as Operation Anchorage on October 1, 2009.
Some 30 years before the events of Fallout 3, Owyn Lyons led the Brotherhood of Steel's expedition to Washington, D.C. through The Pitt. In one night, the Brotherhood swept through and destroyed the original raider force occupying the town and rid the surrounding area of other "scum", killing anything that put up a fight. This event is chronicled as "the Scourge". As they cut through the raiders, the Brotherhood also saved several young children, among them Paladin Kodiak, who had not yet been mutated to the extent of The Pitt's adult inhabitants. All the rescued children were brought into the Brotherhood of Steel as initiates. Paladin Kodiak is the only remaining survivor from that group of rescued children that is still stationed at the Citadel.
The player learns of the Pitt from a man named Wernher, who asks for the player's help in liberating the slaves there. The player has to enter the Pitt as a slave and work their way to freedom. This earns a meeting with the Pitt's leader, Lord Ashur, a former Brotherhood soldier left for dead during the Scourge. The player is given the choice of siding with either Wernher or Ashur. Unlike other decisions in Fallout 3, there is no karmic penalty or reward for choosing either side, as each side has both its good points and bad.
ned and they instead fall into a coma. Two weeks later, the player joins the ranks of the Brotherhood of Steel and helps rid the Capital Wasteland of the Enclave once and for all. The pack also raises the game's level cap from 20 to 30. It includes 3 main quests and 3 side-quests. Three Dog has new dialogue in this expansion, but no new songs are added. The new weapons in Broken Steel, including the Tesla Cannon, are some of the most powerful weapons in Fallout 3.
Broken Steel was released on May 5, 2009 on Xbox Live
and Games for Windows - Live (GFWL). It was quickly removed from GFWL due to bugs which made the PC version of the expansion unplayable, and rereleased two days later. Some Xbox 360 users have reported a bug that prevents them from activating Project Purity, resulting in the plot elements added by the DLC being inaccessible. PC users report that changes caused by Broken Steel and the 1.5 patch adversely affect mods to the game.
This pack was the first released for the PS3 version of the game due to it being the most requested DLC for the game. This is primarily due to the continuation of the story past the game's original ending, and for the raise in the level cap from level 20 to 30, as many complained that the cap could be reached far too quickly in playing the game's main campaign. Bethesda announced on their official website that "The first DLC for PlayStation 3, Broken Steel, [was] made available on September 24 in English territories and will be followed by the release of Operation: Anchorage and The Pitt on October 1, and Point Lookout and Mothership Zeta on October 8."
In those two weeks, the Brotherhood has been using the now-reactivated Liberty Prime to root out the remaining Enclave presence in the Capital Wasteland. The player joins them, only to watch Liberty Prime be destroyed by a devastating orbital strike. Taking out this new threat becomes the top priority. A short side-mission is arranged to equip the player with the powerful Tesla Cannon, after which they move on the Enclave's massive Mobile Crawler base, located outside of the Wasteland at Adams Air Force Base. After fighting through the base personnel, a control station at the top can be used to call an orbital strike on the base itself, destroying it. Alternatively, the Citadel can be destroyed, marking the player a traitor to the Brotherhood of Steel.
wrote "The previous two downloadable expansions are good, but this one's pretty much essential for a Fallout 3 fan". IGN mirrored this view by stating "Lifting the level cap breathes new life into a great game, but shouldn't totally overshadow a new series of quests that is a lot of fun." Edge on the other hand, while commenting that "it's the most you're going to get out of Fallout' s current batch of DLC", it felt "it lacks the scope or density of Oblivion
s The Shivering Isles
." The A.V. Club commented that "After deflating the finality of the original ending, Broken Steel is unsure what to do next, beyond sending you on a few entertaining but hollow missions to snuff out the remnants of the para-military Enclave. Thankfully, the expansion’s B-story is more thoughtful, as it plunges into the chaos and profiteering that result when a limited supply of clean water starts flowing into the Wasteland."
In their end of year awards special, IGN named Broken Steel Best Expansion for the PC.
wasteland. This pack has new enemies called swampfolk, who are inbred hillbillies that openly attack with weapons such as axes, shovels, and double-barreled shotguns. Unlike the previous content packs, which simply added additional landmarks to the main map (Broken Steel also added two very limited maps), Point Lookout has a fully explorable wasteland. Point Lookout was released on June 23, 2009 for the Xbox 360 and the PC and on October 8, 2009 for the PlayStation 3
tome known as the Krivbeknih.
stated "Like a compacted version of its parent game, this is the first DLC that has felt like a genuine expansion, as opposed to a just a few inconsequential missions thrown together." IGN
noted that "[t]he stories and characters here are filled with that trademark Fallout dark humor, elevating these quests to a level that rivals the main game" and that "[t]he major draw to Point Lookout... is its emphasis on exploration." Edge calls it "the best expansion so far and the game at its worst," stating "if you want a microcosm of Fallout 3, equal parts adventuring, grinding, questing and scavenging, you might just think it the best expansion so far." Edge goes on to criticize Point Lookout for using "a lot of what you might call ‘economy content’ in Point Lookout: recycled enemies, text journals, variant weapons, and bogus forks in the storyline."
, specifically the crashed alien spacecraft that can be found in Fallout 3 and the original Fallout.
Once the captain is defeated, the abductees take control of the mothership to battle another hostile alien vessel. The player controls the death ray for this battle. Once the enemy ship is defeated, the player becomes the de facto
captain of the ship and can return at will, though most of the ship is locked down after the battle.
Expansion pack
An expansion pack, expansion set, or supplement is an addition to an existing role-playing game, tabletop game or video game. These add-ons usually add new game areas, weapons, objects, and/or an extended storyline to a complete and already released game...
s for the Bethesda action role-playing game
Action role-playing game
Action role-playing games form a loosely defined sub-genre of role-playing video games that incorporate elements of action or action-adventure games, emphasizing real-time action where the player has direct control over characters, instead of turn-based or menu-based combat...
Fallout 3
Fallout 3
Fallout 3 is an action role-playing game released by Bethesda Game Studios, and the third major installment in the Fallout series. The game was released in North America, Europe and Australia in October 2008, and in Japan in December 2008 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360...
. Each expansion adds new missions, new locales to visit, and new items for the player to make use of. Bethesda's Todd Howard
Todd Howard
Todd Howard is an American designer, director, and producer. He is currently Game Director and Executive Producer for Bethesda Game Studios, where he has led the creation of Fallout 3 and The Elder Scrolls video game series. GamePro magazine named him to the Top 20 Most Influential People in Gaming...
first confirmed during E3 2008 that downloadable content
Downloadable content
Downloadable content is official additional content for a video game distributed through the Internet. Downloadable content can be of several types, ranging from a single in-game outfit to an entirely new, extensive storyline, similarly to an expansion pack. As such, DLC may add new game modes,...
would be prepared for the Xbox 360
Xbox 360
The Xbox 360 is the second video game console produced by Microsoft and the successor to the Xbox. The Xbox 360 competes with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...
and Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
versions of Fallout 3. Of the five, Broken Steel has the largest effect on the game, altering the ending, increasing the level cap to 30, and allowing the player to continue playing past the end of the main quest line. The Game of The Year edition of Fallout 3 includes the full game and all five expansions.
The downloadable content was originally exclusive to Xbox Live and Games for Windows. Although Bethesda had not offered an official explanation as to why the content was not released for PlayStation 3, Lazard Capital Markets
Lazard Capital Markets
Lazard Capital Markets is a New York-based investment bank founded in 2005 in a spin-off from its parent Lazard.Lazard Capital Markets focuses its activities on equity research, sales and trading; fixed-income and convertible bond sales and trading; and securities underwriting...
analyst Colin Sebastian speculated that it may have been the result of a money deal with Bethesda by Sony
Sony
, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
's competitor, Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
. When asked if the PlayStation 3 version would receive an update that would enable gameplay beyond the main quest's completion, Todd Howard responded, "Not at this time, no." However, in May 2009, Bethesda announced that the existing DLC packs (Operation: Anchorage, The Pitt and Broken Steel) would be made available for the PlayStation 3; the later two (Point Lookout and Mothership Zeta) were released for all platforms.
Operation: Anchorage
Operation: Anchorage is the first Fallout 3 downloadable content pack, and takes place as a virtual reality "military simulation" in the main game where the player character is stripped of their equipment and is forced to use the replacements provided. The content focuses on the titular event in the Fallout timeline before the Great War took place, in which the United States Army liberated Anchorage, AlaskaAnchorage, Alaska
Anchorage is a unified home rule municipality in the southcentral part of the U.S. state of Alaska. It is the northernmost major city in the United States...
, from Chinese forces. The pack contains several new quests, new items, and adds four new achievements. Gameplay within the simulation is different than the main game; health and ammo are replenished by stations in certain areas of the simulation world, items functionally do not suffer from decay (the items actually do decay, but have a health so high that it is virtually impossible to affect performance), and enemy corpses disappear instead of allowing the player to loot them for supplies.
Operation: Anchorage was released in North America and Europe on January 27, 2009 on Xbox Live
Xbox Live
Xbox Live is an online multiplayer gaming and digital media delivery service created and operated by Microsoft Corporation. It is currently the only online gaming service on consoles that charges users a fee to play multiplayer gaming. It was first made available to the Xbox system in 2002...
and Games for Windows Live. Although the content was scheduled for release on the PlayStation 3 in June 2009, the final week of June's PlayStation Store
PlayStation Store
The PlayStation Store is an online virtual market available to users of Sony's PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable game consoles via the PlayStation Network. The Store offers a range of downloadable content both for purchase and available free of charge. Available content includes full games,...
updates did not include it. Bethesda released information suggesting that the delay was due to their desire to iron out all of the bugs before release as well as test compatibility between DLCs. Operation: Anchorage, along with The Pitt, were released on October 1, 2009, for PS3.
Plot
The Brotherhood of Steel Outcasts are trying to acquire a stash of pre-war technology in a bunker. However, the armory can only be unlocked with a code, and the code can only be obtained from a virtual realityVirtual reality
Virtual reality , also known as virtuality, is a term that applies to computer-simulated environments that can simulate physical presence in places in the real world, as well as in imaginary worlds...
simulation of one of the greatest battles of the Fallout universe: the liberation of Anchorage, Alaska from invading Red Chinese troops. The Outcasts cannot use the simulation because an external interface device, the player's Pip-Boy, is required. The player is thus recruited to complete the simulation in return for a share of the reward.
In the simulation, the player is tasked with fighting the Chinese in various scenarios, such as clearing out bunkers in a cliff, hitting strategic targets, and finally defeating the Chinese general in single combat. Once the simulation is complete, the player gains access to the armory and the advanced weapons it contains.
Reception
Both the PC and the Xbox 360 version of the Operation: Anchorage DLC have received mixed reviews from critics, averaging a 67 and a 69 respectively at Metacritic. Several reviewers criticized the price of Operation: Anchorage for being too expensive for the content provided. Play.tm's Richard Bright and other reviewers were disappointed overall, with Bright stating "this episode was a little disappointing for me personally." Game Over's Phil Soletsky was particularly critical of the expansion's story, saying "I had been hoping that the liberation of Alaska would be a massive affair involving battalions of soldiers hammering away at each other." IGN's Erik Brudvig gave high praise to the new weapon, the gauss rifle, calling it "freakin' awesome". Reviewers also criticized the shift to a focus on action gameplay (combat) instead of the more varied gameplay that Fallout 3 had.The Pitt
The Pitt is the second downloadable content pack, and allows the player to journey to the industrial raider town known as The Pitt, in the remains of Pittsburgh, PennsylvaniaPittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh is the second-largest city in the US Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Allegheny County. Regionally, it anchors the largest urban area of Appalachia and the Ohio River Valley, and nationally, it is the 22nd-largest urban area in the United States...
. The pack features several new weapons, new armor and clothing items, four achievements and around four to five hours of gameplay. The Pitt was released on March 24, 2009 on Xbox Live and Games for Windows Live, but was quickly removed due to glitches in the gameplay which made the Xbox 360 version of the expansion unplayable. Further investigation was performed by Bethesda and Microsoft, and according to a Bethesda's official Twitter, as of 10:00am PST on March 25, 2009, the expansion was again being uploaded to Xbox Live, and was again made available that afternoon. For those who downloaded it on March 24 in the morning, glitches were still apparent. A new version was available on Xbox Live on April 2, fixing freezing issues many players had encountered with the previous version. A retail disk was released at the end of May 2009 containing this and the Operation: Anchorage expansion packs. It was released for Xbox 360 and Games for Windows. The expansion packs are copied to the hard drive and function as it would had it been downloaded. This pack was released for the PlayStation 3 at the same time as Operation Anchorage on October 1, 2009.
Plot
In addition to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, although not hit directly by atomic bombs during the Great War, the water from the nearby Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio rivers were highly irradiated, resulting in the decay of the region. The inhabitants suffer from extreme radiation poisoning and degenerate into mindless creatures. The entire population are either slaves or overseers.Some 30 years before the events of Fallout 3, Owyn Lyons led the Brotherhood of Steel's expedition to Washington, D.C. through The Pitt. In one night, the Brotherhood swept through and destroyed the original raider force occupying the town and rid the surrounding area of other "scum", killing anything that put up a fight. This event is chronicled as "the Scourge". As they cut through the raiders, the Brotherhood also saved several young children, among them Paladin Kodiak, who had not yet been mutated to the extent of The Pitt's adult inhabitants. All the rescued children were brought into the Brotherhood of Steel as initiates. Paladin Kodiak is the only remaining survivor from that group of rescued children that is still stationed at the Citadel.
The player learns of the Pitt from a man named Wernher, who asks for the player's help in liberating the slaves there. The player has to enter the Pitt as a slave and work their way to freedom. This earns a meeting with the Pitt's leader, Lord Ashur, a former Brotherhood soldier left for dead during the Scourge. The player is given the choice of siding with either Wernher or Ashur. Unlike other decisions in Fallout 3, there is no karmic penalty or reward for choosing either side, as each side has both its good points and bad.
Reception
The Pitt has had a generally positive reception, averaging a score of 77 for the PC version and 76 for the Xbox 360 version. When initially released, the Xbox 360 version had a corrupt file which caused problems and rendered the DLC unplayable. On April 3, 2009, Bethesda Softworks reported that they had uploaded a new version of The Pitt which fixed these problems. The PC version of The Pitt had the same problem, leading modders to create a patch called "The Pitt Crash Fix" which fixes the problems present in the wasteland but not interiors of The Pitt.Broken Steel
Broken Steel is the third and most significant downloadable content pack, altering the original ending of Fallout 3 and allowing the player to continue playing past the end of the main quest line. If the player personally activated Project Purity, the player's subsequent death is retconRetcon
Retroactive continuity is the alteration of previously established facts in a fictional work. Retcons are done for many reasons, including the accommodation of sequels or further derivative works in a series, wherein newer authors or creators want to revise the in-story history to allow a course...
ned and they instead fall into a coma. Two weeks later, the player joins the ranks of the Brotherhood of Steel and helps rid the Capital Wasteland of the Enclave once and for all. The pack also raises the game's level cap from 20 to 30. It includes 3 main quests and 3 side-quests. Three Dog has new dialogue in this expansion, but no new songs are added. The new weapons in Broken Steel, including the Tesla Cannon, are some of the most powerful weapons in Fallout 3.
Broken Steel was released on May 5, 2009 on Xbox Live
Xbox Live
Xbox Live is an online multiplayer gaming and digital media delivery service created and operated by Microsoft Corporation. It is currently the only online gaming service on consoles that charges users a fee to play multiplayer gaming. It was first made available to the Xbox system in 2002...
and Games for Windows - Live (GFWL). It was quickly removed from GFWL due to bugs which made the PC version of the expansion unplayable, and rereleased two days later. Some Xbox 360 users have reported a bug that prevents them from activating Project Purity, resulting in the plot elements added by the DLC being inaccessible. PC users report that changes caused by Broken Steel and the 1.5 patch adversely affect mods to the game.
This pack was the first released for the PS3 version of the game due to it being the most requested DLC for the game. This is primarily due to the continuation of the story past the game's original ending, and for the raise in the level cap from level 20 to 30, as many complained that the cap could be reached far too quickly in playing the game's main campaign. Bethesda announced on their official website that "The first DLC for PlayStation 3, Broken Steel, [was] made available on September 24 in English territories and will be followed by the release of Operation: Anchorage and The Pitt on October 1, and Point Lookout and Mothership Zeta on October 8."
Plot
Broken Steel alters the ending of the original Fallout 3 to allow continued play after the end of the main quest line. When the player reaches the final point of the quest "Take it Back!", new options are given to allow specific followers to enter the reactor, but the original options still remain viable. Regardless of what is chosen, however, the player will wake up two weeks later at the Citadel (unless they allow the Purifier to explode, which is an automatic game over), having been knocked unconscious by an unknown energy spike. Sarah Lyons will also be in a coma, unless she activated the purifier in which case she will have died.In those two weeks, the Brotherhood has been using the now-reactivated Liberty Prime to root out the remaining Enclave presence in the Capital Wasteland. The player joins them, only to watch Liberty Prime be destroyed by a devastating orbital strike. Taking out this new threat becomes the top priority. A short side-mission is arranged to equip the player with the powerful Tesla Cannon, after which they move on the Enclave's massive Mobile Crawler base, located outside of the Wasteland at Adams Air Force Base. After fighting through the base personnel, a control station at the top can be used to call an orbital strike on the base itself, destroying it. Alternatively, the Citadel can be destroyed, marking the player a traitor to the Brotherhood of Steel.
Reception
Broken Steel has had a generally positive reception, averaging an 81 for the PC and an 82 for the Xbox 360. The Sacramento BeeThe Sacramento Bee
The Sacramento Bee is a daily newspaper published in Sacramento, California, in the United States. Since its creation in 1857, the Bee has become Sacramento's largest newspaper, the fifth largest newspaper in California, and the 25th largest paper in the U.S...
wrote "The previous two downloadable expansions are good, but this one's pretty much essential for a Fallout 3 fan". IGN mirrored this view by stating "Lifting the level cap breathes new life into a great game, but shouldn't totally overshadow a new series of quests that is a lot of fun." Edge on the other hand, while commenting that "it's the most you're going to get out of Fallout
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is a single-player action role-playing video game developed by Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks and the Take-Two Interactive subsidiary 2K Games...
s The Shivering Isles
The Elder Scrolls IV: Shivering Isles
The Elder Scrolls IV: Shivering Isles is the largest official expansion pack for the role-playing game The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Announced on January 18, , the expansion was developed, published, and released over the Xbox Live Marketplace by Bethesda Softworks; its retail release was...
." The A.V. Club commented that "After deflating the finality of the original ending, Broken Steel is unsure what to do next, beyond sending you on a few entertaining but hollow missions to snuff out the remnants of the para-military Enclave. Thankfully, the expansion’s B-story is more thoughtful, as it plunges into the chaos and profiteering that result when a limited supply of clean water starts flowing into the Wasteland."
In their end of year awards special, IGN named Broken Steel Best Expansion for the PC.
Point Lookout
Point Lookout is the fourth downloadable content pack, and takes place in Point Lookout State Park in Maryland. Unlike other areas in Fallout, no bombs were dropped on Point Lookout, but it has nonetheless degenerated into a place just as unforgiving as the Capital Wasteland. Humanity has left it behind and it is now described as a large swampSwamp
A swamp is a wetland with some flooding of large areas of land by shallow bodies of water. A swamp generally has a large number of hammocks, or dry-land protrusions, covered by aquatic vegetation, or vegetation that tolerates periodical inundation. The two main types of swamp are "true" or swamp...
wasteland. This pack has new enemies called swampfolk, who are inbred hillbillies that openly attack with weapons such as axes, shovels, and double-barreled shotguns. Unlike the previous content packs, which simply added additional landmarks to the main map (Broken Steel also added two very limited maps), Point Lookout has a fully explorable wasteland. Point Lookout was released on June 23, 2009 for the Xbox 360 and the PC and on October 8, 2009 for the PlayStation 3
Plot
Point Lookout, unlike the other expansion packs, does not have a specific goal. Rather, it adds a large area for the player to explore, with new enemies and items to find. One major quest line focuses on the rivalry between Desmond Lockheart and Professor Calvert, two scientists who have been feuding since before the Great War. Desmond has survived as a ghoul, while Calvert became a living brain in a jar. The feud can be ended by the player in either Desmond's or Calvert's favor. Other quests include following the trail of a long-dead Chinese spy and discovering the mystery of the LovecraftianH. P. Lovecraft
Howard Phillips Lovecraft --often credited as H.P. Lovecraft — was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction, especially the subgenre known as weird fiction....
tome known as the Krivbeknih.
Reception
Point Lookout has had a generally positive reception, averaging a 79 for the PC and an 83 for the Xbox 360. EurogamerEurogamer
Eurogamer is a Brighton-based website focused on video games news, reviews, previews and interviews. It is operated by Eurogamer Network Ltd., which was formed in 1999 by brothers Rupert and Nick Loman. Eurogamer has grown to become one of the most important European-based websites focused on...
stated "Like a compacted version of its parent game, this is the first DLC that has felt like a genuine expansion, as opposed to a just a few inconsequential missions thrown together." IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
noted that "[t]he stories and characters here are filled with that trademark Fallout dark humor, elevating these quests to a level that rivals the main game" and that "[t]he major draw to Point Lookout... is its emphasis on exploration." Edge calls it "the best expansion so far and the game at its worst," stating "if you want a microcosm of Fallout 3, equal parts adventuring, grinding, questing and scavenging, you might just think it the best expansion so far." Edge goes on to criticize Point Lookout for using "a lot of what you might call ‘economy content’ in Point Lookout: recycled enemies, text journals, variant weapons, and bogus forks in the storyline."
Mothership Zeta
Mothership Zeta is the fifth and final downloadable content pack, and follows the main character after being abducted by aliens when going to explore a mysterious radio transmission from the Alien Crash Site. It takes place entirely on an alien spacecraft, is a similar size to Operation: Anchorage, and has a similar emphasis on combat as that DLC had. It was released on August 3, 2009 for the Xbox and PC and on October 8, 2009 for the PlayStation 3 (along with Point Lookout) This expansion is a first for the series, as it explores an easter eggEaster egg (media)
Image:Carl Oswald Rostosky - Zwei Kaninchen und ein Igel 1861.jpg|250px|thumb|right|Example of Easter egg hidden within imagerect 467 383 539 434 desc none...
, specifically the crashed alien spacecraft that can be found in Fallout 3 and the original Fallout.
Plot
The player receives an unintelligible radio transmission which leads them to the alien crash site. Upon approaching the wreckage, they are beamed into an alien mothership, Mothership Zeta, where they will meet other prisoners who have also been abducted over the centuries. The player is then relieved of their equipment and locked in a cell with another abductee named Somah. With the help of Somah, a little girl named Sally, and a few unlikely allies from several different time periods, the player must fight their way to the bridge of the ship and defeat the alien captain.Once the captain is defeated, the abductees take control of the mothership to battle another hostile alien vessel. The player controls the death ray for this battle. Once the enemy ship is defeated, the player becomes the de facto
De facto
De facto is a Latin expression that means "concerning fact." In law, it often means "in practice but not necessarily ordained by law" or "in practice or actuality, but not officially established." It is commonly used in contrast to de jure when referring to matters of law, governance, or...
captain of the ship and can return at will, though most of the ship is locked down after the battle.
Reception
Mothership Zeta has received mixed reactions from critics, averaging a 70 for the PC and a 65 for the Xbox 360. Edge comments that "Mothership Zeta’s greatest asset is its looks" and that "[w]hoever designed such beauty should be pretty peeved at the game around it." Edge also noted that they "encountered a script bug so catastrophic that we couldn’t finish the game - we actually had to clip through a doorway and use console commands to bring everything back on track" and criticize the DLC for locking off most of the ship after completion. Eurogamer states that "the most disappointing factor about Mothership Zeta is how little subtlety is afforded to the details" and sums up the DLC as "repetitive, largely uninspired corridor combat, and boring, linear and samey mission design." Gamedaily praises Zeta for "keep[ing] Fallout's trademark humor intact", its improved graphics and for the new enemies and weapons introduced.External links
- Fallout 3 Official Website
- Fallout 3 at The Vault wiki