Screenshots :.
Fallout 3: Mothership Zeta
360
Matt
10-09-2009
"Stop wasting electricity!"
"Big Daddy?"
If Bethesda are to be believed, Mothership Zeta is the last time we’ll be getting and downloadable content for Fallout 3. Think about that for a jot. All of us hardy adventurers, battle weary but still unbeaten from our trek through the wasteland from our initial fallout vault are near the end of our journey at long last. Everything we’ve discovered or destroyed, every person and beast we’ve saved or slain… it’s been a long trip. There was only ever one place that the developers could have taken us for an epic finale to top all the previous shenanigans, and that is space.
Except, someone somewhere seems to have dropped the ball slightly. See, the prospect of a final salvo up above earth with the entire planet at risk sounds great on paper, but when it comes to playing through the thing you end up feeling somewhat unfulfilled once the final objective has been ticked off. After the excellent value of Broken Steel and Point Lookout, Mothership Zeta can’t help but feel somewhat lacking.
In one way, traipsing around the alien spaceship that you are sucked into whilst investigating a strange radio signal was never going to allow for much in the way of open-world questing and so you can accept that it wasn’t going to play to Fallout 3’s strengths quite as much as previous packs, but the way in which you are funnelled along from one objective to the next through something curiously lacking in atmosphere and story makes it a rather uninspiring voyage.
Rather obviously given the circumstances, there are a clutch of new enemies and a selection of new weapons to be found. The aliens which you face off against are pleasingly fitted into the whole 1950’s vision of the strange and paranormal design that the main game is, with big green heads and goggly eyes. A little later in proceedings you come across the rather more primal greys, which run at you whilst making some sort of horrible gurgling noise. Fun times!
The new weapons are all massively powerful, as any of you who managed to find the alien blaster cunningly hidden in the main game would expect. One particular effort fires sizzling balls of energy at enemies that explode and cause MASSIVE DAMAGE, whilst the Disintegrator is as useful a rifle as you’re going to find anywhere in the game. At least this part of the pack is up to snuff, eh?
There’s also plenty of tongue-in-cheek humour lodged into various pieces of the game, such as the moment you find yourself in a moving trash disposal unit that opens to present you with some aliens herding cows down a corridor amongst other kinds of silliness. It’s nice to know that coupled with all the gloriously bonkers aliens and technology that Bethesda remembered that some folks like a wry smile now and again too.
Yet, it just doesn’t feel as enjoyable as it should. It’s effectively a corridor shooter with a dash of choice added by being able to undertake a few of them in whatever order about midway through. Problem is, a corridor shooter needs some kind of compelling story or sense of purpose to drive the player onward, and at no point does Mothership Zeta ever really provide that. Also disappointing is that the developers could have given you THE ULTIMATE in moral choices to make at the end, but with all the ingredients and tools there to set you up you are never allowed to make that choice. Shame.
Hence it is that Fallout 3 leaves us with a whimper and not a bang, which is a shame. It’s been a pretty marvellous journey for the most part of course, and we can but wait with baited breath until the fourth game heads our way at some point in the distant future. Until then, unless you’re a total completion whore then perhaps it is best that you leave Mothership Zeta floating in orbit on Xbox Live, if only to save you being left with a slightly bitter taste in your mouth.
Except, someone somewhere seems to have dropped the ball slightly. See, the prospect of a final salvo up above earth with the entire planet at risk sounds great on paper, but when it comes to playing through the thing you end up feeling somewhat unfulfilled once the final objective has been ticked off. After the excellent value of Broken Steel and Point Lookout, Mothership Zeta can’t help but feel somewhat lacking.
In one way, traipsing around the alien spaceship that you are sucked into whilst investigating a strange radio signal was never going to allow for much in the way of open-world questing and so you can accept that it wasn’t going to play to Fallout 3’s strengths quite as much as previous packs, but the way in which you are funnelled along from one objective to the next through something curiously lacking in atmosphere and story makes it a rather uninspiring voyage.
Rather obviously given the circumstances, there are a clutch of new enemies and a selection of new weapons to be found. The aliens which you face off against are pleasingly fitted into the whole 1950’s vision of the strange and paranormal design that the main game is, with big green heads and goggly eyes. A little later in proceedings you come across the rather more primal greys, which run at you whilst making some sort of horrible gurgling noise. Fun times!
The new weapons are all massively powerful, as any of you who managed to find the alien blaster cunningly hidden in the main game would expect. One particular effort fires sizzling balls of energy at enemies that explode and cause MASSIVE DAMAGE, whilst the Disintegrator is as useful a rifle as you’re going to find anywhere in the game. At least this part of the pack is up to snuff, eh?
There’s also plenty of tongue-in-cheek humour lodged into various pieces of the game, such as the moment you find yourself in a moving trash disposal unit that opens to present you with some aliens herding cows down a corridor amongst other kinds of silliness. It’s nice to know that coupled with all the gloriously bonkers aliens and technology that Bethesda remembered that some folks like a wry smile now and again too.
Yet, it just doesn’t feel as enjoyable as it should. It’s effectively a corridor shooter with a dash of choice added by being able to undertake a few of them in whatever order about midway through. Problem is, a corridor shooter needs some kind of compelling story or sense of purpose to drive the player onward, and at no point does Mothership Zeta ever really provide that. Also disappointing is that the developers could have given you THE ULTIMATE in moral choices to make at the end, but with all the ingredients and tools there to set you up you are never allowed to make that choice. Shame.
Hence it is that Fallout 3 leaves us with a whimper and not a bang, which is a shame. It’s been a pretty marvellous journey for the most part of course, and we can but wait with baited breath until the fourth game heads our way at some point in the distant future. Until then, unless you’re a total completion whore then perhaps it is best that you leave Mothership Zeta floating in orbit on Xbox Live, if only to save you being left with a slightly bitter taste in your mouth.
5/10
