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GamesRelay Score
Good
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Name: Fallout 3: Operation Anchorage
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The Operation Anchorage DLC for Fallout 3 is certainly a novelty; it's an interactive history lesson about one of the Greatest Wars fought in the Fallout Universe; the Anchorage Reclamation, where the Alaskan town of Anchorage was liberated from the Chinese Communists in the war between June 2076 and January 2077. But how does all of this occur? Well read on and find out.
Your Pip-Boy will pick up a request for help from the Brotherhood of Steel Outcasts, meant for the members of the Outcasts in the Wasteland, their base at Bailey's Crossroads is under attack from the Super Mutants and they require backup, a new quest is automatically given to you and a waypoint placed on your map. Once you've made your to Bailey's Crossroads you'll meet Defender Morrill who'll take any help he can get in eliminating the Super Mutant threat, including from an outsider such as yourself. Once the Super Mutants have been defeated you'll be taken inside to meet up with the leader of the base, Protector McGraw who'll notice you have a Pip-Boy and request your help in gaining access to a secret weapons cache at the base. They believe that the secret to gaining access to the weapons can be found by playing through a simulation of the war at Anchorage and by someone with access to a Pip-Boy. He begrudgingly requests your help in learning these secrets and asks if you'd be interested in going into the simulation if given the chance to acquire some of the weaponry yourself.
And thus you find yourself entering into a simulation pod (just like the one used in the Tranquility Lane quest) and sent back in a virtual way to the year 2076 when the T-51b Power Armour was first introduced. Like many of the other DLC packs for Fallout you're stripped of your main weapons, obviously this is a simulation and you can't take them with you, and you're back to your trusty 10mm gun and a few other rudimentary survival tools. You're introduced to Sergeant Benjamin Montgomery who accompanies you throughout the simulation, the character is a Ghost character that can not be killed, obviously he is one of the survivors of the war.
The four new quests themselves are very linear in nature, you don't get much chance to wander off and explore, and when you do there isn't a lot you can do, with this being a simulation then you can't pick up many objects and carry them with you. Your weapons are given to you at strategic points on the way to complete your missions, as is your health, no stimpaks are used in these quests as your health is restored virtually and your ammo is placed almost always placed near these seem points, shimmering red as though to indicate that they are part of the simulation you should pay attention to. It's an interesting device and a great touch. Likewise when you kill a Chinese soldier, they explode just like they would normally but there bodies are absorbed back into the simulation and so you never get the chance to raid them for what weapons or ammunition they might be carrying.
With new download content comes brand new weapons for you to play with, you'll get to play with the new weapons during the simulation and they'll be unlocked for rest of the game when you've completed the quests. Some of the weapons you'll know already or variations of, such as the trench knife, but there's also a new weapon called the Gauss Rifle which acts like a super powered shotgun. You'll also be up against some new enemies as well as standard Chinese Soldiers, you'll also come across Chinese Inferno Units (equipped with Flamers), Chinese Missile Launchers, Chinese Snipers and the feared Crimson Dragoons who employ stealth technology in their armour and can be heady opponents because of this.
You're looking at a good few hours of game play with this content, and the opportunity to play through one of the most famous wars of the Fallout universe is not to be missed and a brilliant thought by the developers. It's also good to play in the Fallout universe in a blue sky and with different scenery when you're in Alaska, it stands out because you're no longer in the dark drab world of the Capital Wastelands.
Unfortunately it's not all great news, the DLC pack suffers from pretty frequent game freeze moments and the frame rate can at times drop to slideshow quality, this is especially annoying when you're using the VATS system to attack your enemies. There's no excuse for this really and it usually involves restarting the game. There was also an occasion when raiding a Chinese base where the companion character told me an area was "clear" whilst being shot repeatedly in the head by a Chinese Solider, pretty funny to witness admittedly but still a massive let down that it should not be happening.
Overall the content is another welcome addition to the game for many of the reasons listed above, you get to take part in a war and get some new weapons to play with and explore some brand new locations (to a degree). There's far worse things that you could waste your money on and if you're looking to get a taste of some Fallout History then you can do no better than to pick this DLC up now.
The download pack is available now for the PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 and is also set for inclusion on the upcoming Game of The Year Edition of the game. Xbox 360 and PC owners can also pick up a disc based version which is packaged with The Pitt as part of a special release.
