Fallout 3 was the sort of game for me where I sometimes have trouble knowing if I liked it or not. You know those games, they seem to sit on the seesaw of your mind and while you could say you liked this aspect of it, there might be something else that you despise. The thing I liked about Fallout 3 was that the world was varied and every time you went somewhere new you could find a new story or sub-plot. The oasis was one of my favourite instances of this, partly because it presents a real moral dilemma but mostly because that choice can affect the world of Fallout 3? even if you never actually see what affect it has.
Indeed, that was what I disliked about Fallout 3, no matter what you did there didn?t seem to be any sort of repercussion from your actions. Sure there were some, like blowing up megaton, but it?s not like that caused other cities to despise you, all it seemed to do was cut out all the quests you could get from megaton. Then there was the ending? I?m sure by now most people who have played understand how unfulfilling that ending was, not to mention Bethesda studios made a statement before launch that it would feature around 200 endings? how I didn?t take this statement with a truck load of salt I have no idea. Fact is, it had only about a dozen endings which are just slight variations of each other. Rock on Bethesda.
Bethesda has acknowledged this and plan to get rid of the permanent ending with a update in march, but for now, all we have is an extra quest and about 1 new original gun and armor piece.
Operation Anchorage features a new quest involving your character going into a virtual simulation for the Outcasts. The simulation is about the liberation of Alaska from the Chinese and only once this simulation is finished will the armory door open? although the point of this is pretty confusing. What loon cooked this up? In fact even a character you talk to before you enter the simulation points out how retarded it is to go through this for a weapons cache. But enough descriptions and let?s get on to the actual point of this review and see how it plays out.
One thing that stuck out to me while I played through this expansion was how detached it was from the usual game play of Fallout 3. You don?t scout out every square inch looking for ammo, you don?t pick up every insignificant object you find to turn it into a gun and you don?t worry about how many stimpacks you have because you never actually get any. Instead, the small amount of guns you find glow bright red, you don?t need to find ammo because you just click on an ammo dispenser which fills all your guns and pockets with bullets and health becomes a bigger issue because there are only a hand full of health dispensers around each given mission.
The whole point behind this is to make it feel more like a simulation, in that this sort of thing doesn?t happen in real life. But I had already accepted that most things in Fallout 3 don?t happen in real life when I was making nuclear grenades from soda drinks. When it comes to the new armor pieces and gun they feel pretty uninspired. Sure the Chinese stealth suit is plain sexy but isn?t an expansion meant to include more than that? All in all, the full simulation will take you about 2 hours to beat, probably less, so whether or not this is worth the massive download required is purely up to you.
Call me ungrateful but I found this to be an unnecessary addition to Fallout 3 and instead just wish they could have delivered on removing the permanent ending and actually continue the story, which sadly isn?t available until March. Also, I feel I should mention this, when you do finally get into the armory, you receive your own T-51b armor set since the only other way to get this armor isn?t actually mentioned until the guy has already run off with it to live happily ever after. But here?s a warning readers, apparently some of the Outcasts had other plans in mind besides letting you walk off with all this stuff and will start shooting you and other notable Outcast leaders once you?ve helped yourself. At first I thought this was a bug since I was given no notice of this happening and it wouldn?t be the first time something random like this has occurred. So don?t do what I did and reload 4 times thinking it?s a very persistent bug, it was meant to happen.
Note: Constructive criticism appreciated. This review was based solely on the Xbox 360 version of Fallout 3.
Indeed, that was what I disliked about Fallout 3, no matter what you did there didn?t seem to be any sort of repercussion from your actions. Sure there were some, like blowing up megaton, but it?s not like that caused other cities to despise you, all it seemed to do was cut out all the quests you could get from megaton. Then there was the ending? I?m sure by now most people who have played understand how unfulfilling that ending was, not to mention Bethesda studios made a statement before launch that it would feature around 200 endings? how I didn?t take this statement with a truck load of salt I have no idea. Fact is, it had only about a dozen endings which are just slight variations of each other. Rock on Bethesda.
Bethesda has acknowledged this and plan to get rid of the permanent ending with a update in march, but for now, all we have is an extra quest and about 1 new original gun and armor piece.
Operation Anchorage features a new quest involving your character going into a virtual simulation for the Outcasts. The simulation is about the liberation of Alaska from the Chinese and only once this simulation is finished will the armory door open? although the point of this is pretty confusing. What loon cooked this up? In fact even a character you talk to before you enter the simulation points out how retarded it is to go through this for a weapons cache. But enough descriptions and let?s get on to the actual point of this review and see how it plays out.
One thing that stuck out to me while I played through this expansion was how detached it was from the usual game play of Fallout 3. You don?t scout out every square inch looking for ammo, you don?t pick up every insignificant object you find to turn it into a gun and you don?t worry about how many stimpacks you have because you never actually get any. Instead, the small amount of guns you find glow bright red, you don?t need to find ammo because you just click on an ammo dispenser which fills all your guns and pockets with bullets and health becomes a bigger issue because there are only a hand full of health dispensers around each given mission.
The whole point behind this is to make it feel more like a simulation, in that this sort of thing doesn?t happen in real life. But I had already accepted that most things in Fallout 3 don?t happen in real life when I was making nuclear grenades from soda drinks. When it comes to the new armor pieces and gun they feel pretty uninspired. Sure the Chinese stealth suit is plain sexy but isn?t an expansion meant to include more than that? All in all, the full simulation will take you about 2 hours to beat, probably less, so whether or not this is worth the massive download required is purely up to you.
Call me ungrateful but I found this to be an unnecessary addition to Fallout 3 and instead just wish they could have delivered on removing the permanent ending and actually continue the story, which sadly isn?t available until March. Also, I feel I should mention this, when you do finally get into the armory, you receive your own T-51b armor set since the only other way to get this armor isn?t actually mentioned until the guy has already run off with it to live happily ever after. But here?s a warning readers, apparently some of the Outcasts had other plans in mind besides letting you walk off with all this stuff and will start shooting you and other notable Outcast leaders once you?ve helped yourself. At first I thought this was a bug since I was given no notice of this happening and it wouldn?t be the first time something random like this has occurred. So don?t do what I did and reload 4 times thinking it?s a very persistent bug, it was meant to happen.
Note: Constructive criticism appreciated. This review was based solely on the Xbox 360 version of Fallout 3.
