Posts Tagged ‘Fallout 3 DLC’
Fallout 3 Point Lookout Game Review–They Really Mean It, Folks
I know, it’s something of a non sequitur and a pun all at the same time, but basically, when they say Point Lookout, they mean, look out. Because for some reason, they’ve stuffed some serious baddies in that swampy ground, and it’s not going to be easy to get through.
This time in the greatest first person shooter that man has ever known, you’ll board a riverboat bound for Point Lookout, Maryland (which is, apparently, an actual place, unless I’m being hoaxed. This is possible as I’ve never been to Maryland, but a cursory net search suggests that there really is a Point Lookout) with a goal in mind before you even get off the boat–to find a young woman’s missing daughter. Of course, once you’re actually in Point Lookout, you’ll discover that there’s an incredible opportunity to be had here, as there’s virtually no one in sight when you actually get off the boat. You can loot as you please! And there’s PLENTY of loot to be had here–you’ll walk into a mostly abandoned seaside town / amusement park complex where there’s only one person, and she’s tending a shop. But right away, you’ll notice there’s something very wrong with Point Lookout, and it’s not just the psuedonuclear shambles that every other place in the Capitol Wasteland is. The Point Lookout motel contains scenes of horror even a raider would shrink from. The Pint-Sized Slasher even makes a bit of a reappearance (he’s not just a newspaper blurb any more!) and the secrets, lies, and mysteries contained in that swamp are more than you could ever imagine.
There’s all manner of new equipment to be had here, but most of it is a little on the mundane side. An axe, a shovel, a lever-action rifle that fires 10mm rounds and a double-barrelled shotgun will all make appearances, as will simpler things like workman’s coveralls and a Confederate cap, which is somewhat ironic as Maryland was a border state that leaned heavily toward the Union with only a few dissenters. In fact, a whole LOT of Point Lookout seems to be done in that antebellum style of the Civil War-era South. The huge manor houses, the relentless bayous…a lot of it just screams Louisiana.
Now, just so you know, I didn’t go in there cold. I had recently reset my character to get the full experience back when Broken Steel came out, so I was a bit behind, but I took the riverboat at level fourteen, with the full loadout from the Project Anchorage vault. I had my Chinese stealth armor, I had my Gauss rifle and a laser rifle with plenty of microfusion cells, I even had a Gatling laser, and I was getting chewed up at virtually every turn. I don’t know how these “swamp people” who seem to have no more armor than their overalls are managing to absorb metal pellets fired at near-relativistic speeds when I’m blowing away Enclave troops in powered armor within three hits with the same hardware.
That’s about my only real gripe here–Point Lookout is some amazing fun, even if I do need to bring the equivalent of a light armored division or maybe Liberty Prime itself just to pacify the populace. I love the darker tone and the subtle infusion of horror gameplay, something that game companies should definitely take note of. Imagine this game with ZOMBIES. And I’m not talking ghouls, but actual zombies.
One thing, however, remains crystal clear–Fallout 3, and by extension Point Lookout, is still the best action RPG I’ve ever played.
Interview Gives More Fallout 3 DLC Details
An interview linked to from a Facebook Fallout 3 page gave more details regarding the upcoming Fallout 3 content packs, Point Lookout and Mothership Zeta. Most of the information contained therein is about the first of the two, likely because it’s the more mundane of the two, featuring more commonplace quests in a new location. They’re keeping a little more of a lid on Mothership Zeta because it’s definitely more unusual.
As you may know, Point Lookout is set in the actual area of the same name, though residents of the area will notice that they have taken a generous amount of artistic license with the geography, they also drew inspiration directly from certain features and landmarks. It’s set in a location that’s not accessible by foot from the rest of the Capital Wasteland and though it wasn’t hit by any bombs it’ll still have evidence of the war, likely in the form of mutated residents.
Things there will be pretty low-tech, with new weapons being more like lever action rifles and double barrelled shotguns. The main thrust of the story will revolve around a ghoul named Desmond and a band of tribals, though there will be other quests to undertake and non-quest related areas to discover.
Mothership Zeta sound very nearly the opposite with a more linear quest and of course more advanced technology. They were pretty tight-lipped regarding anything beyond the most basic details, but what they did give is pretty interesting. The aliens are standard Roswell greys, as were the bodies at the crashed ship, though there’ll be various robots to battle against on their ship. You’ll begin simply trying to escape, though after finding out their aliens ultimate goals you’ll have more to do. There’ll also be other abductees you can interact with, and a new rifle called the disintegrator. Both DLC packs will offer some quest-related perks, but no new level-up perks.
Fallout 3 DLC Going Multiplatform, More On The Way
Sure, there have been some major issues with two out of the three downloadable content packs Bethesda has released for Fallout 3, but in spite of that they’ve been selling well. Soon they’ll be selling even better since Microsoft’s exclusivity is coming to an end and more content packs are on the way. All three of the existing DLC packs are going to be available for the PS3 this year. Operation Anchorage releases in June with The Pitt and Broken Steel following after with a four to six week interval between each.
The two new content packs will be released for PS3 eventually, but they’re going to be released for the Xbox 360 first. Point Lookout will bring the player to a new swampy area with new quests based around the real Point Lookout State Park of Maryland. Although the Fallout universe is set in an America where events eventually diverged from our reality, some of the events will draw on the collective past, including the Civil War.
Mothership Zeta continues with the running reference in the Fallout universe to the existence of aliens. In previous games you could get your hands on a powerful albeit short ranged alien blaster if you stumbled upon their crashed ship. In Fallout 3 the same thing happens, but in the DLC pack you’ll find yourself abducted by the alien ship responding to the distress call you can pick up on your Pip Boy.
As with the previous packs there’ll be new quests, characters, items to collect and even some new perks, but at this early stage no details are being discussed about what they might be, though they did say that we can expect a ton of new art for Mothership Zeta. Lookout Point is set for a June release and Mothership Zeta for July.
Broken Steel Game Review–A Perfect End To A Nigh-Perfect Game
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.
Bethesda says more DLC a possibility
Fallout 3 developer/publisher Bethesda says that the recent Broken Steel DLC might not be the last for the post-apocalyptic RPG. Bethesda’s Pete Hines said in an interview with OXM,
“Whether [Broken Steel is] the absolute last one remains to be seen. Because it’s been hugely successful. Operation Anchorage vastly exceeded our expectation. It was like ‘holy shit, we did how many?’ and the Pitt was really successful, after a bit of a false start.”
Of course, if Fallout 3 DLC is so successful — everything indicates that it is — there’s no reason as to why Bethesda wouldn’t release more of it. After all, it’s a lot easier to create some DLC content instead of a whole new game.
Broken Steel Screenshots Give More Content Info
Though Bethesda is already turning their sights onto other projects in the Fallout universe we’re still awaiting the last DLC pack for Fallout 3, Broken Steel. Today some screenshots hit the net which should whet your appetite, especially since the content pack removes the ending of the game, allowing you to resume your questing after you’ve completed the main storyline.
The content pack also adds the ‘Broken Steel’ quest which lets you aid the Brotherhood of Steel in their goal of eradicating the remnants of the Enclave. As you might expect there’s some new content, including a huge energy weapon called the Tesla Cannon and a new mutant enemy called the Overlord who wields a gatling laser. You’ll also be able to walk by the Jefferson Monument and see Project Purity in action and take on the Enclave’s vertibirds.
The Pitt DLC Game Review–Not Quite Self Explanatory
Fresh, hot, and recent– it’s the expansion for Fallout 3 that I’ve been waiting for since it came out: it’s called The Pitt, and it’s easily the most story driven expansion yet.
For those of you not already familiar with Fallout 3, and heaven help you because this is easily one of the best games ever, you are a lone wanderer in a post-apocalyptic war zone doing various things to help the world or help yourself. And in this case, you’ll have that same dichotomy as you venture into the ruins of what used to be Pittsburgh. Yes, I know that’s something of a contradiction in terms because Pittsburgh in its normal state looks something like a ruin anyway, but that’s just me being snarky. Anyway, once you’ve downloaded this particular expansion you’ll receive a radio transmission directing you to head north. Once you reach the designated meeting point, you’ll find a man in the midst of a fight for his life against three raiders. But these are not ordinary raiders—these are subhuman wastes of flesh from a settlement of woe known as The Pitt (see, Pittsburgh? The Pitt? Get it?) who are using large quantities of slave labor to rebuild the city’s steel milling industry and use it to advance their own goals. You of course will have the option of freeing the slaves or siding with the raiders, as is fairly standard for this sort of game.
As I said previously I’ve been waiting for this expansion since the original game came out– I even went so far as to get a fully repaired and fully armed gatling laser, because I had every intention of walking into that town of human filth, cleaning it off the face of the earth in a shower of heavily charged ions . Or possibly protons–physics is not my strong suit. And picking the carcass clean of every scrap I could sell for a bottle cap, of course– I considered that my just reward for killing that many raiders.
So why was I disappointed?
Maybe I built it up too much in my mind in advance. Maybe my visions of frenzy were just too much for any one game to provide. Maybe I was irked by the fact that I’d have to work around slaves; no wandering in and blasting everything in sight, no sir, not for this boy… there might be collateral damage. Maybe I was really irked by the fact that I would temporarily be a slave to get into The Pitt.
By the time I got into that particular expansion, I was carrying enough armament to sink an entire battleship by myself, possibly even sink Rivet City itself. I had my gatling lase, I had the Gauss rifle from the Operation: Anchorage run, I had my alien blaster, and I had maybe fifty raiders to shoot.
And the looting opportunities were not the greatest, either. While I DID get some sweet new guns in the form of the Metal Blaster (which is basically just Protectron’s Gaze for laser rifle, sweet on all counts and blows Biwwy’s freaking Wazer Wifle right off the MAP) and of course, The Mauler (a refined version of something called an “auto axe”, which is basically a sawblade made from a hubcap mounted on a stick with a gas throttle), I found myself downright disappointed that there wasn’t A. more to use these sweet new weapons on and B. more places to loot dry. Half the fun of Fallout 3 was wandering into houses and such and turning them upside down in a quest for bottle caps and such. There just weren’t that many places in The Pitt, aside from the raiders’ quarters and an abandoned apartment building, which irritated me. I’m in PITTSBURGH, for crying out loud. There’s GOT to be more loot than this in PITTSBURGH!
Ah, but then, I’m looking at this the wrong way. The Pitt is merely PART of Fallout 3. It isn’t a new game…it’s just a piece. And as a piece, it adds a definite flavor to Fallout 3 that’s plenty enjoyable. And maybe if you play The Pitt first, you’ll have a lot more to use those fantastic new weapons on. But either way, The Pitt will provide plenty of extra fun to your copy of Fallout 3 for just a few dollars more.