Fallout 3 DLC: Operation Anchorage

BY Matthew Theroux  //  January 31, 2009

Highly recommended.

O

n Tuesday, the first of the DLC for Fallout 3 came out. Entitled Operation Anchorage, it recreates one of the more prolific moments in the background history of the Fallout universe. Covering four missions, the DLC adds about 3-4 hours, depending on your play style, to the already gargantuan Fallout experience.



Visit beautiful Alaska, care of
a full-contact simulation.
The new content starts when you stumble upon an Outcast distress signal. Upon tracking down the source you'll find a group of Brotherhood Outcasts fending off an attack by Super Mutants. After killing off the muties you'll quickly discover that the Outcasts are in need of some help. They've found a massive weapon cache — the only problem is that it's currently locked up. Seems that the only way to open the blast door to the cache is to finish this training simulation. The Outcasts don't know what it's about since they don't have the technology to interface with it. But hey, you've got a Pipboy there; you shouldn't have any problems getting inside. You're handed a neural interface suit and told that because of the extreme nature of the simulation, if you die in there, you die for good.

Entering the simulation you find that any items that you had on you are gone. The simulation gives you some starting equipment and some limited ammo. This is both a good and bad thing: bad because you won't have access to any healing items and good in that it gives players a new way to approach the game. Throughout the simulation the ammo capacity is severely limited, forcing you to use weapons that they may have long since been left by the wayside — so health and ammo dispensers make your experience more survivable. This answers the simulation's catch, which is that you can't loot killed enemies or pick up random items. Things that can be picked up have a red glow around them, letting you know that you can — and should — pick them up.



Better dead than red:
that's what the man said.
I won't spoil the details of the missions, but I will say that the path to them is pretty much linear. There is one point where you have options, but you'll have to deal with both choices to progress forward, making the decision rather moot. You'll also come across two new enemy types. Once you finally manage to finish off the last mission you'll get access to the weapons cache. Inside is a complete set of T-51b Power Armor for those who haven't found it yet, along with some new and interesting toys that you'll come across in the simulation.

Aside from the linear aspect of your path options that only other problem that I had was that it seemed just a tad too easy. This is mostly because the health locations are plentiful and don't run out. I didn't run into any situations that caused me any problems or made me stop to think about how I was going to progress.

If you're still getting a lot of enjoyment out of Fallout 3 I would highly recommend giving this a download. It's an excellent start to the DLC series, and I can't wait to see what the rest is going to be like.

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