DualWielder Duel: Fallout 3 Expansions

Welcome to our first installment of DualWielder Duels, where we take two or more similar games and pit them against each other in five categories specially picked for those games to find out which is most worth your hard earned money. This time however, instead of a duel it’s more like a Battle Royale since we’re going to be comparing all five of the Fallout 3 downloadable content expansion packs, which consist of: Operation Anchorage, The Pitt, Broken Steel, Point Lookout, and the recently released Mothership Zeta.

The five categories that we’re going to look at for these games are story, gameplay, the quality of the quest rewards that are obtainable through completing everything the expansion has to offer, how much content you will find within each expansion, and of course, which one is overall the best use of your ten bucks. So with that, let’s get this battle royale started.

Story
Note that there will be some spoilers for each of the expansions.
The battle for the best story between these five expansions is easily between The Pitt and Point Lookout. Operation Anchorage fills in some back story of how the wasteland was before the bombs dropped, but the problem is that the whole premise that makes Fallout interesting is the fact that the world is a nuclear wasteland. Taking that aspect away leaves you with a fairly uninteresting story about some mission in Alaska in a war that we don’t really care much about.

Broken Steel actually continues the main story of Fallout 3, which is a cool idea except for the fact that you can still choose to sacrifice yourself at the end and you’ll still wake up two weeks later with no mention of how you survive. It doesn’t make any sense and it seems kind of lazy on behalf of the writers to just make you accept that you somehow managed to survive. Even if you just accept that though, the continuation of the story just involves a linear plot involving the Brotherhood eliminating the last few remnants of the Enclave. There is a twist that comes out of left field towards the end that lets you choose between a good or bad ending, but with no build up to that choice, it just seems kind of thrown in there for the hell of it.

Similarly, Mothership Zeta forces you to accept some pretty farfetched facts for the sake of its story as well. We’re supposed to believe that a 10 year old girl has been able to escape from captivity enough times to know the entire layout of the ship like the back of her hand? And how are we supposed to use a death ray to destroy another alien Mothership when we just destroyed our own death ray not even 5 minutes ago? You could say that there are multiple weapons on the ship, but if that’s the case, why would it even matter if we destroyed the death ray? Again though, even if you were to just blindly accept that, there’s still a lot of wasted potential in the story here. We never find out exactly what the aliens were planning, we never learn about the background of where the aliens came from, nor do we get to see the rumored historical figures that mysteriously went missing from our own history.

Finally we arrive at the two frontrunners of this category, The Pitt and Point Lookout. What sets these two apart from the others is that they provide an interesting and developing episodic storyline that actually contains choices that matter in the development of the plot. In The Pitt, you face several morally gray decisions regarding whether you help out the oppressed slaves, or assist their leaders who make a convincing argument that everything they do is for their protection and future prosperity. In Point Lookout, you’re caught up in the middle of a battle between two brilliant minds, both of whom seem to be pretty evil, and must decide which to side with. Point Lookout is also the only expansion with several side missions that each contain their own story that flesh out the history of Point Lookout, Maryland.

And the winner is… The Pitt

In the end The Pitt wins out in this category due to its emphasis on moral choices, surprising twists involving just who are the real good guys in this situation, and for having the most interesting characters of the bunch.

Gameplay
This may seem like an odd category for comparing these expansions since they spawn from the exact same game, but while they all share the same basic gameplay, every expansion has a different focus.

Right away we can throw out Operation Anchorage from the running because by taking place in a simulator and stripping the player of the ability to pick up and loot items, you take away 75% of what makes Fallout, Fallout. What we were left with in Operation Anchorage was a standard First Person Shooter with the addition of VATS and crappy shooter controls.

While the main focus of The Pitt was the moral choice aspect, there was also a higher emphasis on fear and tension compared to the other expansions. The new enemies that were introduced, the Troggs, frequently came out of nowhere and were some of the fastest and most violent creatures to be found in Fallout 3.

Since Broken Steel was a continuation of the main story of Fallout 3, it makes sense that there wasn’t really any kind of focus placed on the gameplay outside of being “more of the same”. Still, with a game like Fallout 3, sometimes more of the same is just what players want.

Point Lookout was probably the most unique expansion from a gameplay standpoint since it not only took the player out of the capital wasteland, but put them into an entirely new environment that could be fully explored and wasn’t just restricted to a single town and wilderness area.

Like Operation Anchorage, Mothership Zeta was purely focused on combat. There was very little non-linear exploration, no moral choices to make, and the experience felt very much like a fairly standard sci-fi corridor shooter. Still, unlike Operation Anchorage, the game still felt very much like Fallout 3, just a very linear and straightforward version of Fallout 3.

And the winner is… Point Lookout

Point Lookout was easily the most balanced of the five expansions when it came to gameplay. You have a whole new wasteland to explore that is about one fifth the size of the Capital Wasteland, well put together sidequests and mainquests to complete, and a couple of very cool and memorable set piece moments.

Rewards
Finally we come to a category where Operation Anchorage has a chance! The rewards for Operation Anchorage are the biggest reason for playing through it. At the end of the simulation you unlock a vault that contains some cool winterized power armor, a new unique weapon called the Gauss Rifle, a Shock Sword which is one of the most damaging melee weapons to be found in the game, and most importantly, the Chinese Stealth Suit.

While The Pitt is a bit lacking in terms of actual rewards given at the end of the quest, the Auto Axe that you pick up right at the beginning is one of the coolest and most satisfying weapons in Fallout 3. In addition to the Auto-Axe, you also gain access to the Ammo Press, which lets you convert old and outdated ammo into ammo that you actually use.

The Tesla Cannon is enough reason to play through Broken Steel as far as rewards go, but you’ll also obtain a new unique weapon called the Heavy Incinerator, which is like a rapid fire flame thrower machine gun. In addition to just weapons and armor though, Broken Steel raises the level cap to 30, which means that it also provides players with a bevy of new perks that can be obtained by leveling up.

Unfortunately, rewards for Point Lookout are easily the weakest part about the expansion. While a lever action rifle and sawed off shotgun may fit the setting and story of Point Lookout, there’s little reason to use them once you return to the capital wasteland. On the plus side, the Superior Defender perk which provides you with a +5 damage bonus and +10 armor bonus when standing still is definitely a nice addition to have.

Conversely, the rewards from Mothership Zeta are the strongest part about the expansion. All of the new alien weapons that you find are some of the best weapons you’ll find in the game, the new item called Alien Epoxy will almost instantly restore the condition of whatever weapon you have equipped, and there is a ton of ammo for the Alien Blaster.

And the winner is… Mothership Zeta

This was a close one between Mothership Zeta and Broken Steel. On one hand, the Tesla Cannon is probably the most useful new weapon to be found within these expansions with its enormous energy supply (assuming you don’t use Gatling Lasers), splash damage effect, and huge damage output. On the other hand though, Mothership Zeta not only provides you with three cool and useful new weapons, but it also introduces the insanely helpful Alien Epoxies. With a healthy supply of Alien Epoxies, you never have to worry about spending thousands of caps fixing your unique weapons, like the Alien Blaster, ever again. And speaking of the Alien Blaster, you’ll find literally hundreds of energy cells worth of ammo for the thing, ensuring that you’ll almost never run out of ammo; assuming of course that you use it smartly and not on every Mole Rat that looks at you the wrong way.

Content
This one isn’t even a contest. All of the expansions with the exception of Broken Steel have pretty much the same amount of content. However, it’s such an important category that it can’t be ignored.

And the Winner is… Broken Steel

If you go just by quest content, then Broken Steel is about the same length as all of the other expansions. The clincher though, is that Broken Steel raises the level cap from 20 to 30, meaning even after you complete all of the new quests that Broken Steel brings to the table, as long as you’re still playing Fallout 3, you’re still playing the content of Broken Steel. The journey to level 30 is made worth the effort thanks to a variety of new perks that are obtainable as you level up, with the mother of all perks waiting for you at the end: Almost Perfect; a perk that raises all of your S.P.E.C.I.A.L stats to 9.

Overall
In the end, the most important aspect of these expansions is really how much fun and value do you get out of them. Going by that, it’s easy to say at least that the worst of the five is Operation Anchorage. The quests are too linear, the simulation aspect removes a lot of what makes Fallout such a unique and fun game in the first place, and you aren’t even allowed to use any of your own gear throughout the vast majority of the quest. Unless you’re solely looking for cool rewards, Mothership Zeta is out of the running as well for many of the same reasons as Operation Anchorage. Too linear and it doesn’t feel enough like a Fallout quest.
So that leaves us with The Pitt, Broken Steel, and Point Lookout. Which expansion wins this battle royale and the crown of best downloadable content for Fallout 3?

And the winner is… Broken Steel

If all that Broken Steel did was just raise the level cap, then this prize would’ve gone to Point Lookout. However, it’s not just that Broken Steel extended the overall gameplay for Fallout 3, it’s that in addition to extending the gameplay, it also provided several of the best quests and set pieces you’ll find in Fallout 3. From the fall of Liberty Prime, to running for your life in the Feral Ghoul Reaver infested subway systems, all the way to the very climatic battle at Adams Air Force Base, nearly every moment of the main quest of Broken Steel was filled with excitement.

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