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And so, the last addition to the Fallout downloadable content block has emerged, and amazingly, it will change the way you play Fallout 3 forever.  It’s called Broken Steel, and what it’ll do to the game is create a series of changes that are vast and downright unnerving.

This time around, you’ll be able to resolve one of the most frustrating problems with Fallout 3—what happened AFTER you retake Project Purity.  You’ve just made the Capitol Wasteland a better place to live, and quite possibly killed yourself in the process.  Only now, even IF you were the one to take the poison pill yourself, you’ll manage to survive it and carry on the good fight, as our old buddy Three Dog would say.  And now, you’ll be assisting the Brotherhood of Steel (and not those Outcast putzes either—they got their chance in Operation: Anchorage and did they EVER screw it up!)  in three important overarching concepts.

1.    Help get the newly cleaned water out to the various ports and settlements of the Capitol Wasteland.

2.    Blast the godless heathen savage Super Mutants into insensate smoking oblivion, once and for all.

3.    While you’re at it, put paid to those miserable soulless heartless Fascisistic thugs known as The Enclave.

Sound like a plan to anyone else?  Oh yes.  Yes it does.

Considering how many times I’ve railed against first person shooters in these pages, you might well wonder how I live with the hypocrisy of loving Fallout 3, which is a first person shooter itself.  And if you were to ask me that, I’d look at you sorrowfully, shake my head with regret and tell you that Fallout 3 isn’t JUST a first person shooter.  It’s a first person ADVENTURE.  Most first person shooters like to focus on that last word at the cost of everything else, but it’s the rare ones like Fallout 3 that open up a world to you and let you run riot therein.  You can be a hero or a criminal in these games, and the sheer variety of things to do holds my interest with every step.

And indeed, Broken Steel will, as I’ve said, change the way you play Fallout 3.  One, the level cap has been lifted from level 20 to level 30.  Of course, there will also be a collection of new items for you to lay hands on, and you’ll have several new plot elements to tangle with as well.  The already deep, rich story of Fallout 3 gets nothing but enhancement from Broken Steel.

However, as good as this is—there are still some problems here. For those of you thinking the broken level cap will be an opportunity to catch up on those skills you missed, think again.  For some strange reason, the game will give you new skills and perks when you reach a new level.  I’m not terribly pleased about this, but I guess it could be worse.  And there are many folks who will discover, seemingly randomly, that they’re unable to even play the game in the first place—but for those people, it’s not even that much of a problem.  While you’ll miss out on the new items and new plot challenges, from what I understand the level cap will remain broken, allowing you to try out the new features.

As fond as I am of Fallout 3, I’m of the mind that the downloadable content so far has added spice to the original as opposed to really opening up game experiences.  Broken Steel, meanwhile, has done a solid job of opening the world up even further.  All I can say is, after six months of fantastic gaming, great work, Bethesda…and see you in Vegas.