I forget which DLC it was that added post-conclusion play time, but THAT one was the best for that reason alone. Broken Steel, wasn't it?
Fallout 3: Operation Anchorage
Fallout 3Bethesda is the famous development house behind the infamously overpriced "horse armor" downloadable content for Oblivion. The good news is that with Fallout 3's first content pack for the PC and Xbox 360, you get a lot more than armor: You get an entire mission set in a simulated...

Once you install the add-on, a radio distress signal points you to a group of Brotherhood outcasts that ask you to enter a combat simulator. They need military secrets from the past, and your pip-boy is the key to retrieving it. In true Matrix style, should you die in the simulation, you kick the bucket in real life as well. What is this secret technology the outcasts need? What's up with the sudden, insane events that ensue once you return from the simulation? There are few real answers: it's all an excuse to get you out of apocalyptica and into the snowy environs of Communist-besieged Alaska.
Operation Anchorage's focus on gunplay is obvious right from the beginning, pitting you against Chinese soldiers and granting you use of a sniper rifle, an uninspiring silenced pistol, and the truly awesome gauss rifle, amongst others. The mission is tightly controlled in the manner of a linear shooter, eschewing the stimpacks and corpse looting of Fallout 3 in favor of ammo caches and health dispensers. After you make your way to an Army outpost, you choose from a few pre-determined weapons loadouts, and more interestingly, personalize a squad from a selection of different soldier types, including the ever-popular Mister Gutsy.
Fans of slow-motion V.A.T.S. combat will enjoy the trek, since there are plenty of opportunities to shed blood and shoot off limbs and heads, and some new enemies to take on, like the stealth-enabled Crimson Dragoons and a giant Chimera tank. Your squad can come in handy, but artificial intelligence is not Fallout 3's specialty, a drawback that Operation Anchorage brings into plain view. Squad members frequently stand around and do nothing while bullets rain down on you, or may refuse to follow you; enemies move about with no real purpose; and everything feels a bit slipshod. Thank God for that Gauss rifle, a fine and powerful addition to your loadout as long as you play your cards correctly, and one that you will get to add to your wasteland arsenal when you return to DC.
Ranged combat was never Fallout 3's greatest strength, but in the context of a huge nuclear RPG, the mechanics made good sense. In a downloadable mission that essentially turns the game into a squad-based shooter, they feel a bit more bothersome. Thankfully, you do get some weapons and armor to take back with you into the wasteland, a new perk (if you collect ten briefcases in the simulation), and some new achievement points. You also get some new bugs. We got stuck in the environment, forcing a reload; an inventory item from the wasteland managed to stay in our inventory within the simulation; and enemies simply popped into view as if teleporting in. There are other reported glitches, including one that lets you equip multiple weapon sets.
Any character can access Operation Anchorage at any time, and its difficulty is purely dependent on your current level. This downloadable content is good, but it isn't spectacular, and $10 seems a bit too much to ask for a short combat-focused addon that provides a bit of fun but doesn't espouse the traits that make Fallout 3 such a superb experience.
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Related Game
Fallout 3
- Publisher(s): Bethesda Softworks
- Developer(s): Bethesda Game Studios
- Genre: Role-Playing
- Release:
- ESRB: M






