First of all, let me start by saying that I really did like Fallout 3. Sure, there's plenty of criticism that I could level at it; the AI is idiotic, the writing hovers somewhere between mediocre and terrible, clipping planes for every object in the world are set about foot out from the actual visual ending often leading to you firing an entire clip into the wall you took cover behind instead of what you were aiming at, and there are some incredibly annoying technical bugs that Bethesda seem to be ignoring in their patches. But, after all this, there's a massive, incredibly detailed world for you to explore, an ultimately satisfying combat system, and real choice about how you complete just about any objective in the game, you know, the way an open world game should work. It's just too bad that Bethesda decided to take all the things that made Fallout 3 good and threw them away in Operation: Anchorage.
Thankfully, I didn't have any of the problems that so many others are having with the Games for Windows Live system that a lot of other users are having. For me, Operation Anchorage downloaded and installed perfectly, and the instructions were clear enough to get me up and going pretty quickly. Do be careful, though, as there have been bug reports ranging from the DLC not installing to the correct area, to Vista's UAC system interfering with installs, to the new DLC pack completely invalidating existing saved games, forcing you to start an entirely new game. Also, don't even get me started on the DLC costing 800 Microsoft points, when they can only be bought in 500 or 1000 point packs.
Once you actually get Operation Anchorage installed and up and running, after a few minutes of loading a game or getting out into the game world, you'll get a message popping up on your screen with directions on how to access it. The mechanics for entering the new content are pretty smooth. Once you get into the new areas, you're given a quick and dirty introduction to your mission objectives by an NPC, and you're set on a track to help liberate Anchorage, Alaska from the occupying Chinese army.
This is the point where Operation: Anchorage really starts to deviate from Fallout 3. Gone is the gigantic open game world where you could go anywhere and do anything you like to fulfill an objective. Instead, you're forced on an incredibly linear path through the 4-5 hours and 3 Quests of gameplay, with the only pretense of choice in the second Quest, where you can choose the order in which you fulfill your objectives. Of course, you can only choose the order of play of two objectives, and it really doesn't matter a bit in what order you choose to play them - either way, you'll face the exact same enemies, in the exact same places, with the exact same weapons. Even if you did want to put aside the main Quest for a while and do some exploring, there's no point - barriers, both visible and invisible abound in Operation Anchorage. There's really nothing to explore.
Also gone in Operation: Anchorage is the choice in play style. If you haven't specialized in Small Guns, you are absolutely out of luck. There's only one melee weapon in the entire area, and it's mostly useless because you're incredibly exposed - you'll almost never get close enough to use it to any great effect without getting well perforated by the enemies. The same goes for unarmed fighters, as there are no unarmed weapons at all in the first third of the DLC. Energy Weapons specialists get a slight reprieve, as there is a very cool new energy weapon available fairly early on, but you get such an aggressively small amount of ammunition for it that if you can't get one-hit kills with every shot, you're going to have to rely on your assault rifle and silenced pistol. Big Guns specialists also get the shaft, as you only get a Big Guns weapon in the second Quest, and again, ammunition is so scarce you'll find yourself falling back on your standard weapons more often than not. Thankfully, there are plenty of explosives to go around in the form of both Grenades and Mines, so you do have at least a little choice in combat.
Another new idea in Operation: Anchorage is that in the second Quest, you have control of a small squad of soldiers. Theoretically, you can issue commands for them to run ahead an attack, stay back, support you, or hold a fortified position. In reality, though, the second any member of your squad spots an enemy combatant they'll immediately run after them, gleefully spraying bullets, forcing you to holster your weapon and run to talk to your squad leader and try and issue new orders. This rarely ever works, unfortunately, so you'll have to accept that your squad will simply get themselves killed on a very regular basis. This really isn't a problem, though, as you can simply order new soldiers at no cost through the NPC squad leader (who's immortal, thankfully) and they'll simply appear at your side in 3-4 seconds. While it was nice at some points to have a squad of redshirts to send ahead of me to help me pick out all the enemy emplacements, it made the entire second Quest far, far too easy.
There are a few new enemies to encounter, including a giant battle tank and some particularly annoying mines that will run up to you and explode, but the most interesting are the Snipers and Crimson Dragoons. Both types of enemies will be wearing stealth suits that add a low-level cloaking field when they're not running at you, meaning charging into any area with these enemies will get you killed pretty fast. Thankfully, again, you can send your squad in to draw all the enemies out of hiding. After that it's pretty easy to use your VATS system to target them one by one and pick them off.
The few remaining major tropes from Fallout 3 are also removed. There are no stimpacks to be found, and enemy bodies disappear into the electronic nether when killed, meaning you can no longer loot them. Replacing these are ammo and health supply stations. Health stations will restore 100% of your health and can be used an infinite number of times, but they can be few and far between, especially later on. Depending on your style of play, this can either make the game too hard or far too easy, especially if you're willing to backtrack a bit to get healed, as enemies do not respawn. Ammunition replenishment stations work in the same way, as you'll automatically be given the maximum amount of Small Guns ammunition for any weapon you happen to be carrying. Again, Big Guns and Energy Weapons users get the shaft here, as ammunition supplies for those weapons are NOT refilled at the dispensers. Instead, there are generally a few pieces of loose ammunition found laying around the dispensers. Armor and weapons no longer degrade with use, either so any players with high Repair skill will find it completely useless as well. You also cannot re-enter the simulation after finishing it, unlike almost every where else in the game.
The rewards you get for completing the content are fairly interesting, with some new weapons (including the fantastic Gauss Gun and a great new sword), and a few nice pieces of armor to add to your collection. I couldn't help but be a little disappointed, though, as a fair amount of new armor models that you see Anchorage aren't available for you to take, including the new combat armor and helmet that you wear for the entirety of the Quests. Actually, this is probably for the best, as that Armor is so incredibly poorly modeled that there are numerous and highly visible "breaks" in the armor models that you can see background textures coming through (like between the gloves and forearms on both arms, allowing you to see the ground when holding a gun). There's one new Perk to be earned, but it's also mostly useless.
Gameplay is fine, textbook, really. With such limited choice in combat style you'll find yourself falling back to the standard FPS route of "spot enemy, take cover, take a potshot or two when said enemy pops up and move on". With a strictly linear path there's really no strategy involved in terms of flanking or simply bypassing enemies, so the best you're going to get is to toss a grenade at an enemy's cover and hope it flushes them out long enough for you to shoot them.
So, non-degrading weapons and armor, limited ammunition, a strictly linear path, very little choice in gameplay styles, and a squad that you can theoretically command for a small amount of time. Bethesda seems to have taken all the things that were good about Fallout 3, stripped them out, and made a very mediocre first-person shooter. My personal opinion, after having played through the new content a few times, is that unless you're absolutely desperate to get the new items is to skip it and wait for the next DLC, which has promised to fix the most glaring issue with Fallout 3 - the asinine ending.
Thankfully, I didn't have any of the problems that so many others are having with the Games for Windows Live system that a lot of other users are having. For me, Operation Anchorage downloaded and installed perfectly, and the instructions were clear enough to get me up and going pretty quickly. Do be careful, though, as there have been bug reports ranging from the DLC not installing to the correct area, to Vista's UAC system interfering with installs, to the new DLC pack completely invalidating existing saved games, forcing you to start an entirely new game. Also, don't even get me started on the DLC costing 800 Microsoft points, when they can only be bought in 500 or 1000 point packs.
Once you actually get Operation Anchorage installed and up and running, after a few minutes of loading a game or getting out into the game world, you'll get a message popping up on your screen with directions on how to access it. The mechanics for entering the new content are pretty smooth. Once you get into the new areas, you're given a quick and dirty introduction to your mission objectives by an NPC, and you're set on a track to help liberate Anchorage, Alaska from the occupying Chinese army.
This is the point where Operation: Anchorage really starts to deviate from Fallout 3. Gone is the gigantic open game world where you could go anywhere and do anything you like to fulfill an objective. Instead, you're forced on an incredibly linear path through the 4-5 hours and 3 Quests of gameplay, with the only pretense of choice in the second Quest, where you can choose the order in which you fulfill your objectives. Of course, you can only choose the order of play of two objectives, and it really doesn't matter a bit in what order you choose to play them - either way, you'll face the exact same enemies, in the exact same places, with the exact same weapons. Even if you did want to put aside the main Quest for a while and do some exploring, there's no point - barriers, both visible and invisible abound in Operation Anchorage. There's really nothing to explore.
Also gone in Operation: Anchorage is the choice in play style. If you haven't specialized in Small Guns, you are absolutely out of luck. There's only one melee weapon in the entire area, and it's mostly useless because you're incredibly exposed - you'll almost never get close enough to use it to any great effect without getting well perforated by the enemies. The same goes for unarmed fighters, as there are no unarmed weapons at all in the first third of the DLC. Energy Weapons specialists get a slight reprieve, as there is a very cool new energy weapon available fairly early on, but you get such an aggressively small amount of ammunition for it that if you can't get one-hit kills with every shot, you're going to have to rely on your assault rifle and silenced pistol. Big Guns specialists also get the shaft, as you only get a Big Guns weapon in the second Quest, and again, ammunition is so scarce you'll find yourself falling back on your standard weapons more often than not. Thankfully, there are plenty of explosives to go around in the form of both Grenades and Mines, so you do have at least a little choice in combat.
Another new idea in Operation: Anchorage is that in the second Quest, you have control of a small squad of soldiers. Theoretically, you can issue commands for them to run ahead an attack, stay back, support you, or hold a fortified position. In reality, though, the second any member of your squad spots an enemy combatant they'll immediately run after them, gleefully spraying bullets, forcing you to holster your weapon and run to talk to your squad leader and try and issue new orders. This rarely ever works, unfortunately, so you'll have to accept that your squad will simply get themselves killed on a very regular basis. This really isn't a problem, though, as you can simply order new soldiers at no cost through the NPC squad leader (who's immortal, thankfully) and they'll simply appear at your side in 3-4 seconds. While it was nice at some points to have a squad of redshirts to send ahead of me to help me pick out all the enemy emplacements, it made the entire second Quest far, far too easy.
There are a few new enemies to encounter, including a giant battle tank and some particularly annoying mines that will run up to you and explode, but the most interesting are the Snipers and Crimson Dragoons. Both types of enemies will be wearing stealth suits that add a low-level cloaking field when they're not running at you, meaning charging into any area with these enemies will get you killed pretty fast. Thankfully, again, you can send your squad in to draw all the enemies out of hiding. After that it's pretty easy to use your VATS system to target them one by one and pick them off.
The few remaining major tropes from Fallout 3 are also removed. There are no stimpacks to be found, and enemy bodies disappear into the electronic nether when killed, meaning you can no longer loot them. Replacing these are ammo and health supply stations. Health stations will restore 100% of your health and can be used an infinite number of times, but they can be few and far between, especially later on. Depending on your style of play, this can either make the game too hard or far too easy, especially if you're willing to backtrack a bit to get healed, as enemies do not respawn. Ammunition replenishment stations work in the same way, as you'll automatically be given the maximum amount of Small Guns ammunition for any weapon you happen to be carrying. Again, Big Guns and Energy Weapons users get the shaft here, as ammunition supplies for those weapons are NOT refilled at the dispensers. Instead, there are generally a few pieces of loose ammunition found laying around the dispensers. Armor and weapons no longer degrade with use, either so any players with high Repair skill will find it completely useless as well. You also cannot re-enter the simulation after finishing it, unlike almost every where else in the game.
The rewards you get for completing the content are fairly interesting, with some new weapons (including the fantastic Gauss Gun and a great new sword), and a few nice pieces of armor to add to your collection. I couldn't help but be a little disappointed, though, as a fair amount of new armor models that you see Anchorage aren't available for you to take, including the new combat armor and helmet that you wear for the entirety of the Quests. Actually, this is probably for the best, as that Armor is so incredibly poorly modeled that there are numerous and highly visible "breaks" in the armor models that you can see background textures coming through (like between the gloves and forearms on both arms, allowing you to see the ground when holding a gun). There's one new Perk to be earned, but it's also mostly useless.
Gameplay is fine, textbook, really. With such limited choice in combat style you'll find yourself falling back to the standard FPS route of "spot enemy, take cover, take a potshot or two when said enemy pops up and move on". With a strictly linear path there's really no strategy involved in terms of flanking or simply bypassing enemies, so the best you're going to get is to toss a grenade at an enemy's cover and hope it flushes them out long enough for you to shoot them.
So, non-degrading weapons and armor, limited ammunition, a strictly linear path, very little choice in gameplay styles, and a squad that you can theoretically command for a small amount of time. Bethesda seems to have taken all the things that were good about Fallout 3, stripped them out, and made a very mediocre first-person shooter. My personal opinion, after having played through the new content a few times, is that unless you're absolutely desperate to get the new items is to skip it and wait for the next DLC, which has promised to fix the most glaring issue with Fallout 3 - the asinine ending.