Rate the DLC's

Considering the Enclave are the remains of the Fallout US government, and that they built the Vault Experiments before the lauch of the bombs, they could have lauchned them aswell.
 
No, not remants of the goverment, they are the remnants of a Shadow organziation that had members of the goverment on it.
 
Which npc told you that ?
They got all the militaries, scientist, politicians, the senate and politicians, and even the president.
They had billions before the war to start vault experiments and FEV project.
Their behavior after the war is very consistent with their behavior before the war. (the president pre-war could have been Richardson)
They represent the opposite of the Unity, as they represent the (twisted) old world, while the unity represent (a twisted) evolution.
They represent the opposite of BOS, as they represent the official representatives of US governement that turned genocidial, while BOS represent desertors that turned good.
They became the Enclave when all the wasteland became law-less, out of the US laws. The Enclave is the part of the US, in the borders of the new world that is not the us.

If they suddenly become a little organization in the shadow of the government, it would undermine all the work done with them, or at least the lasting effect of them in the Fallout Universe... (i concede it's been a while since my last Fo2 playthrough...)

PS: Is the country between Canada and Mexico still called USA ? If i am not wrong, it is not anymore a land of 50 states, but a land of a dozen commonwealth...
 
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naossano said:
PS: Is the country between Canada and Mexico still called USA ? If i am not wrong, it is not anymore a land of 50 states, but a land of a dozen commonwealth...
Click to expand...



Hah, that's a pretty good point. Weird nobody considered that.
IIRC it's still called USA, according to some holotapes from FO2/3, maybe even from NV, but I don't recall people calling it "USA" in FO1.
Usually it's just the "Old World" though.
 
I personally felt the DLC's in FO3 were a little better than NV offerings. Here's my take:

1. Operation Anchorage - Not a popular one for a lot of people here, but I liked it. It reminded me a lot of Metal Gear Solid and since I usually play a stealth character, it was the perfect espionage mission. I also liked that I didn't have to deal with any bullshit of worrying about which items are important to pick up and how many caps I had. Just stealth through it and wreck everyone. I will say that it is by far and away the least stable of the DLC's and my game crashes often when I'm in the simulation. Probably due to whatever crappy script Bethesda is using to make everything seem static.

2. Broken Steel - Allowing you to play passed the ending (although I bought GotY so it didn't matter) was great, but also adding the Reavers, Overlords, etc. made it much more challenging on high levels and really added some balance to the combat. Those 2 things alone give it my vote, but I also liked that it had some things that made you revisit some of the earlier places like Megaton and Springvale. It sucked that Liberty Prime was destroyed. I feel like there were other ways they could have used him. I'm not sure what else was involved with BS since I got GotY, but I believe Hellfire armor was added with it? My favorite armor of the game. Just so much better proportion than the BoS armors. The TB-51 armor looks cool in game art and even in the Nuka Break fan fic video, but it didn't translate well into the game model, IMO.

3 & 4. Point lookout and Mothership Zeta - I can't make up my mind on these two. Both had some pluses and minuses for me.

Point Lookout by far had one of the best atmosphere's in the game. But in all honesty there are about 3 major quests in the area and there's a lot of pointless land out there. The same complaint I usually make about NV. The new weapons were cool, but not nearly as effective as the stuff we already had. I also think they took the whole inbreeding thing a bit far. A few families would have been ok, but a whole swamp full of 3 character designs kinda ruined the effect.

Mothership Zeta had a fun concept at first, but it was just too damn much of the same thing. Normally I am a fan of more content, but not when it is so repetitive. Some of the weapons you pickup are the best in the game, and yet you can't go too crazy with them because there is a finite amount of ammo available. The "historic" companions didn't interest me much, but I thought Soma and Sally were good characters (although Sally's voice acting sucked.) I don't get all the hate about the nukes thing. It's never confirmed that the aliens got the launch codes. The tortured noises at the end of the tape could have even meant that they went overboard and killed him by mistake.

5. The Pitt - This one had the potential to be so much higher, but they just dropped the ball. On one hand you have Wernher who tells you there's a cure he needs for his people who are slaves... which turns out to be a complete lie. There is no cure yet and he wants you to steal a baby and then doesn't even seem to have a doctor on hand to help develop the cure. On the other hand you have Ashur who seems to be a highly intelligent person and generally fair except for one little detail... his use of slave labor. Wernher is a complete dick most of the game, while Ashur seems to genuinely respect people and claims that the slaves will be set free once the cure is developed and people can properly reproduce again. It's important to note that a large portion of his guard is former slaves. The Steelyard is one of the best areas in the game. The atmosphere is well done, and the quest for 100 ingots is kinda fun. My general complaints with this one are first and foremost the length of the quest... once you progress beyond the steelyard, the whole DLC flies. I also don't care for the fact that even though the proper choice seems to be Ashur whose only request when you finish is to bring toys for his daughter, there's no denying the fact that the majority of his guard are little better than raiders and they treat you like crap and eventually most of the slaves in the Pitt are killed because they think you're a bad guy and revolt. I really feel like of all the DLC's in the two Bethesda style games that they took your weapons, the Pitt was the one where there was actual potential. I really thought that ok.. I'm a slave, but my job is to free the slaves. I can use my knowledge of schematics to build a weapon and that will give me an edge. It turns out the only workbench isn't available until almost the end, and it's extremely easy to get weapons, just kill the mad men in the Steel yard.
 
I see that most opinions were already spoken for, so I'll try to keep this list original and avoid restating opinions.

Rating it from the order they were released.


Operation: Anchorage

+ The blue sky and tint was most refreshing a scenery to behold.
+ The concept that this being a simulation, therefor operating in a different rule from the in-game 'reality', is made interesting from a certain point of view. Namely the fact that a majority of gameplay mechanics have been removed, such as looting, conversations that leads to unique consequences, karma meter, and free-form quest progression. Replaced instead with limited ammo count, unbreakable armor and weapons, easy to replenish health mechanic and so on. Considering the rise of popularity in FPS in that same period of time, it does seem interesting that the developers would want to make a point on the difference between playing an FPS and Fallout 3. But whether this was a necessary statement to make to begin with is questionable.
+ Introducing the idea that more simulation-related content could be an interesting prospect in further creating content for the Fallout universe, especially after Tranquility Lane's overall success.
+ A continuous lingering sub-motif based on the pursuit of technology; General Chase's redesign of the simulation itself, the Lone Wanderer's PipBoy as the sole mean to access the simulation, and the Outcasts' purpose in extracting technology from the locked armory.

- Underdeveloped plot and characters. General Chase was given a backstory of having twisted the simulation to his own preference, but none of this ever mattered in the big picture. Meanwhile the Brotherhood Outcast is just there. A interesting irony develops in the end as yet another mutiny breaks out within the Outcast as some members didn't appreciate their leader's decision in rewarding a wasteland, echoing the schism that developed with Lyon's Brotherhood and Casdin's Outcasts in the first place. But all of this situation is quickly resolved and Casdin himself could not be informed of the situation whatsoever, nor does it make sense that no Outcast was dispatched to assist the Super Mutants attack to begin with, despite the fact that Fort Independence is located just nearby!
- The T51b power armor is glitched, making it a indestructible and easy to attain armor in game's early hours, clearly not the developer's intentions. Another glitch also impedes you from starting and completing one of Fallout 3's side quest, assuming you hadn't completed it yet.


The Pitt

+ Arguably the most refined of the five DLCs, in terms of location, premise, unique items, and moral guided quest conclusion.
+ An interesting subversion of the main game's karma meter mechanic. More efficient that the previous Tenpenny Tower side quest, which offered similar premise and conclusion.
+ The use of a toddler with the ability to cure a plague as a macguffin makes for an interesting parallel with that the playable character's own origin and subsequent destiny itself. That of confronting the child's parents too.
+ A nice incentive to pursue collectables as it yields players unique armors and weapons, if not somewhat overpowered.

- Also disappointingly the most underdeveloped of the five DLCs.
- Quests are simply too shorts and too simplistic to complete. The Arena fight in particular was a bludgeoning unsatisfying sequence and unnecessary callback to Oblivion's Arena tournament. The third and final quest is lacking in any meaningful playstyle, half of which can be skipped if one decides to not side with Werhner.
- Ashur's headquarter, the Haven tower, is a formidable view from the outside, but a dull interior with rehashed element from previous Capital Wasteland locations. More disappointingly is the lack of a balcony view in Ashur's office, he of all the characters would have benefited from one.
- No possible means of pitching Ashur and Werhner in a dramatic confrontation. Although later on this was more or less achieved with Desmond and Calvert in Point Lookout, to minimal effect.
- Contains a large number of named Raider NPCs, but interactions remains as minimal as it was with the Paradise Falls Slavers, further suggesting that the game developers do not intend on the players to align themselves with such factions.


Broken Steel

+ Interestingly, the meaning behind this DLC's title refers to an event I would never have expected: that of the destruction of Liberty Prime. This is as oppose to the other DLC titles that referred to the location it took place in instead.
+ It is perhaps worth complementing that at least this time around, the three new side quests are all based around the consequences of the purifier, and thus linked to the situation that relates to the main quest, instead of the main game's side quests being one-shot stories, except for the single Trouble on the Homefront side quest. Also the quest giver for these new side quests, Scribe Bigsley, was sort of a welcoming addition to the cast of characters. Though unfortunately it only goes so far.

- The basis of this post-main quest was surprisingly uninspired, and the biggest source of overall missed potentials of the DLCs: after the destruction of Liberty Prime the Brotherhood finds themselves at a massive disadvantage, so how does it plan to continue its struggle against the Enclave? the player is sent to obtain a new device that would just somehow give them the required edge to save the day, and it worked. Fin.
- A new cult has been created, yet the player's interaction with them is once again minimal and near inexistent comparing to the potential one could have in nourishing and creating his or her own cult followers and make a settlement out of it.
- The player can now reach the level cap of 30, further making the player way overpowered and almost as if it was encouraging the player to attain 100% rating in all skills.
- And yet somehow none of the new perks matters anyhow, most of them providing insignificant bonuses that the player wouldn't need by the time it reaches above level 20. Therefor compelling players to horde the older level perks. At least with New Vegas' DLCs, some of the new perks were made available far before player reaches the new level caps, thus encouraging further new playthroughs for new playstyle and perk or trait choices.
- The three new side quests are shorter than the main game's average side quests length, and despite having at least three methods each at completing them, none of the results feels particularly satisfactory, again.
- The player is given the choice to destroy the Citadel at the end of the main quest ... but why? why is it that after having served along the Brotherhood of Steel for all this time, is suddenly the Lone Wanderer going to want to kill them all? Is this meant as an apology for not making the option to join the Enclave available to begin with?
- Indeed, I was very disappointed to see that none of the end game decisions of Fallout 3 mattered with the way Broken Steel plays out. Choosing not to destroy Raven Rock would prompt Liberty Prime to do so off screen, thus Eden is doomed to die regardless. Choosing to spare Colonel Autumn simply results in him leaving the entire game for good, thus might as well kill him to loot his pistol and outfit in the first place. Doctor Madison Li had enough of it all regardless of whether the Lone Wanderer stepped into the purifier or asked somebody else to do it, and leaves for the Commonwealth. And Scribe Rothchild changes voice amidst all this chaos!


Point Lookout

+ I find Desmond Lockheart to be an interesting character compared to all the other quest givers of Fallout 3. He remains generally unimpressed of the player character's abilities and never easily congratulates on the player's successes, yet he is also generally helpful with the player and remains an ally from beginning to end. He is also one if not the only NPC in the whole game that 'teaches' a combat related perk to the player, further emphasizing on his experienced background. I also wonder if there isn't meant to be a parallel between Desmond and the Lone Wanderer, as in, Desmond's seemingly eternal journey in always pursuing the next hunt and the next game is to mirror the very reason why the Lone Wanderer journeys to Point Lookout in the first place, that of the pursuit of the next big treasure and the next great adventure. Desmond Lockheart is also the only NPC in the game that acknowledges at least once that he has a dog, whereas back in the Capital Wasteland the scavenger's dogs just sort of seems to be there. The Lone Wanderer is often portrayed of being accompanied by Dogmeat. And finally Desmond's quest leads him to face his adversary, a brain in a jar protected by a series of robots, and uses transmitting voice to dictate the actions of the Tribals. It does mirror President Eden and the Enclave in some way.

+ This focus on the player character's psychology doesn't seem so far fetched when you consider at least three other elements in the dlc that refers back to the Lone Wanderer's mother. First there is 'Catherine', sharing the same name as the Lone Wanderer's mother, that comes asking for you to look for her daughter, who abandoned her home and went to Point Lookout in search of more eventful life. Then there's the missionary woman encountered during the cult book quest with whom the Lone Wanderer may talk about his mother's favorite bible passage, which is the only time outside of the main game's quest where a mentioning of Revelations 21:6 is made. And finally there's the punga fruit hallucination sequence itself, where the Lone Wanderer seems to maintain a rather gruesome and bleak perception upon his life and the actions he took. In the end though none of these moments mattered much as the rest of Point Lookout neither refers to nor contribute to any of these psychological development, if there was any intentions to begin with. I'm not sure.

- Despite being the generally most favored of the Fallout 3 DLCs, I kind of fail to see why. The main quest follows the Pitt's way of presenting a strong beginning but then misses an entire second half and proceed straight to the end. The five side quests are all generally uneventful side quests, only the safari and the chinese spy shows some originality. Absolutely no meaningful new weapons to use. Same goes for the perks, if not for the one that ends up being bugged and overpowered. The new enemies are just there for us to abuse VATS, and it's worth mentioning that the Swampfolks are completely unrelated to the main quest, and only One side quest ever makes use of them, as if they were intentionally designed as to replace the Capital Wasteland Super Mutants, just to be your new bullet sponge and XP loot. The overall location and exploration is underwhelming and unrewarding.
- I do understand that it was a deliberate move to 'trick' the player as much as the player character to venture into Point Lookout with the promise of untamed riches to find only to disappoint and reveal it was all just a ploy for brain extractions to feed the local cult ... but common, there is neither gameplay nor narrative satisfaction to be have here, even in the exploration of the 'empty handed journey' mantra, it just falls short.
- If anything, the chinese spy side quest makes a stronger narrative point than all the rest of the Point Lookout content combined.


Mothership Zeta

+ The overall production design does seem consistent, i'll give it that much. As it was previously mentioned, the events that occurred, in spite of being a corridor shooter, do occur without being devoid of contextual reasons. Entertaining moments were plentiful, and the finale is also memorable in its own way.
+ Although rather unfocused, I liked the sub-motif regarding this concept of 'going home' from the viewpoints of a cast of characters who do not have a proper home to go back to in the first place. With the exception of the slaver, the other survivors consists of a feudal samurai, a late nineteenth century cowboy, a little girl from the mid fifties, and the medic, youngest of the pre-war specimen. Considering how the medic himself doesn't dare to venture into the Capital Wasteland, there doesn't seem to be much hope for the other surviving characters either, except perhaps for the cowboy who might feel as if nothing much changed, but even then his initial quest for revenge and peace is now utterly unattainable. This can also relate to the player character itself, both from the in-universe standpoint and that of the player himself: as the last of Fallout 3 DLC, by the time players got to experience this they would have probably seen all there is to do in the Capital Wasteland and the previous DLCs, and after completion of Mothership Zeta there isn't any new quests made available to put the new loot of alien weaponry to use, other than to provoke needless mayhem, or start a new game from scratch and play Zeta first in order to use the weapons with a full game ahead. Meanwhile from the in-universe standpoint, the Lone Wanderer never could return to live in the Vault he grew up in, nor could he kept his father alive. At best he would be hailed everlastingly in the scriptures of Lyons' Brotherhood, but he'll still remain an 'alien' entity to the Capital Wasteland itself.

- Kind of curious that it follows the same set-up of Operation: Anchorage, with minimal narrative content, emphasis on shooting, and complete removal of choice and karma mechanics, which had defined the Fallout 3 experience.
- No meaningful aftermath for the new cast of survivors, all but two disappears from the game completely, and those two decides to stay aimlessly in the mothership, which incidentally doesn't unlock any new locations either, instead it just goes on lockdown mode.
- The alien blaster in the original Fallout 3 was the single most powerful weapon in the game, perhaps too powerful, which may explain why all the alien weaponries newly obtained in Mothership Zeta all underperforms in comparison. However even so, it does seem disappointing that no consideration for unique and original alien weaponry was made, instead resorting to the banal melee batons, energy pistols, rifles, and a awkward orb shooting cannon. It's worth saying something that the more interesting relics comes from the 'ancient' survivors instead: the samurai's outfit and the cowboy's six shooter.


Overall none of the DLCs were easy to recommend on its own, not even The Pitt. But pitching it together as one package in the form of the Game of the Year Edition however, made it more interesting to consider as a whole.
Also I've noticed that all five DLCs do share two common themes, making each succeeding follow up a consistent whole. The DLCs all center around the attaining and re-appropriation of technology, and add to that, the concept of the uncertainty in the passing of time.
Anchorage depicts the simulation, and the items locked behind the armory being an object of desire for the Outcasts. The Outcasts themselves are at the brink of their nerves as they wasted too much time already on appropriating the contents of the armory, whereas the simulation is presented as flawed and manipulated historical events.
The Pitt introduces the sole working factory in the vicinity of the Capital Wasteland, and it is used by Ashur not just as a symbol of might and oppression, but as what he believes to be the necessary tool to keep a society at a prosperous working condition. Meanwhile the research for the cure is left at an undetermined pace and progress, regardless of who rules the Pitt, it remains a fragile future to look forward at.
Broken Steel depicts the loss of one technological marvel, Liberty Prime, and the replacement and remaking of another, the Tesla Cannon. Then there's also the water purifier's effect on the inhabitants of the Capital Wasteland, from the little we've seen, it doesn't seem as if mass rejoicing is at large.
Point Lookout features the rivalry between two pre-war scientists and the seemingly never ending progressive conflict this big game hunt consist of. The fact that Desmond and Calvert's duel appears to be inherently indifferent to the actual state of the world itself makes for an unsettling mood, further adding to the somewhat disturbing nature of Point Lookout's denizens, as they all appear to be uncaring, if not even unrelated, to the conditions of the Fallout universe itself.
And as repeated Mothership Zeta pitches a cast of diverse characters lost through the ages and fighting against a technologically superior adversary.

Of course none of this saves any of the DLCs from its flaws, nor does it make for extraordinary compelling merits, but, oh well, I guess it's just 'there'.

If anything, I sometimes do wonder whether or not I preferred the combination of Fallout 3's five DLCs over that of Fallout 3's original content.
Hmm ...
 
The Pitt: 6/10
Point Lookout: 5/10
Operation Anchorage: 3/10
Broken Steel: 2/10
Mothership Zeta: 0/10
 
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