Yeah, it's bad. Who'd've seen that coming, right?
Arguably even more of a theme park ride than Operation Anchorage, in part because it doesn't even pretend you need to have leveled skills for it.
Weapon skills too low? Don't worry, the DLC has its own ammo type which you get thousands of and the weapons given to you deal so much damage. Just shoot away!
Medicine too low? Don't worry, Alien Biogel is everywhere and regenerates a load of health - you can even beg the local twunk to upgrade it!
Repair too low? Don't worry, Alien Epoxy is found by the bucketload and it'll repair your weapon for you!
Need money? No you don't! But just in case there's a ton of Alien Crystals lying around for you to sell in the Wasteland!
The other DLCs are badly designed, I hesitate to even imply this one is designed at all.
It's so very nakedly a cynical loot dump, the closest you'll get to a cheat DLC. It reminds me of XCOM: Enemy Unknown's much-maligned Slingshot DLC.
There isn't much substance on display here. Fallout 3 is already a dim and unwieldy corridor shooter but here it's doubling down on the corridor bits. Even the other DLCs let you use stealth sometimes but here? All combat, all the time.
You'd think that with the vast array of pulp fiction influences in Fallout they'd dig a bit deeper to make their alien mothership look cool but it's mostly just colour-coded hallways and doo-dads. There's not a lot of visual consistency either; the main aesthetic is something you'd find in a PS3 FPS game that nobody remembers, the weapons are distinctly 50's sci-fi, the drones look like they're from XCOM, and there's a bunch of 70s sci-fi stuff thrown in for good measure. It's a very uncoordinated and bland mess of stuff that makes me wonder if the devs gave up towards the end so they could go work on Skyrim.
Also, this isn't a Mothership Zeta exclusive issue, but it did exacerbate it:
I think I'm starting to suffer from Murder Fatigue in my RPGs.
It's really prominent in base Fallout 3 due to its relative lack of settlements and overabundance of trash mobs/shooting galleries, but it's also alarming to me that it's the sole method of engaging with the DLCs.
There's just not much going on here besides killing, and more tools to do more killing. Fallout 4 at least innovated on it by trying to make it enjoyable, but here in Fallout 3? Handles like ass, so the endless violence is even more of a slog.
I must be getting old.
Arguably even more of a theme park ride than Operation Anchorage, in part because it doesn't even pretend you need to have leveled skills for it.
Weapon skills too low? Don't worry, the DLC has its own ammo type which you get thousands of and the weapons given to you deal so much damage. Just shoot away!
Medicine too low? Don't worry, Alien Biogel is everywhere and regenerates a load of health - you can even beg the local twunk to upgrade it!
Repair too low? Don't worry, Alien Epoxy is found by the bucketload and it'll repair your weapon for you!
Need money? No you don't! But just in case there's a ton of Alien Crystals lying around for you to sell in the Wasteland!
The other DLCs are badly designed, I hesitate to even imply this one is designed at all.
It's so very nakedly a cynical loot dump, the closest you'll get to a cheat DLC. It reminds me of XCOM: Enemy Unknown's much-maligned Slingshot DLC.
There isn't much substance on display here. Fallout 3 is already a dim and unwieldy corridor shooter but here it's doubling down on the corridor bits. Even the other DLCs let you use stealth sometimes but here? All combat, all the time.
You'd think that with the vast array of pulp fiction influences in Fallout they'd dig a bit deeper to make their alien mothership look cool but it's mostly just colour-coded hallways and doo-dads. There's not a lot of visual consistency either; the main aesthetic is something you'd find in a PS3 FPS game that nobody remembers, the weapons are distinctly 50's sci-fi, the drones look like they're from XCOM, and there's a bunch of 70s sci-fi stuff thrown in for good measure. It's a very uncoordinated and bland mess of stuff that makes me wonder if the devs gave up towards the end so they could go work on Skyrim.
Also, this isn't a Mothership Zeta exclusive issue, but it did exacerbate it:
I think I'm starting to suffer from Murder Fatigue in my RPGs.
It's really prominent in base Fallout 3 due to its relative lack of settlements and overabundance of trash mobs/shooting galleries, but it's also alarming to me that it's the sole method of engaging with the DLCs.
There's just not much going on here besides killing, and more tools to do more killing. Fallout 4 at least innovated on it by trying to make it enjoyable, but here in Fallout 3? Handles like ass, so the endless violence is even more of a slog.
I must be getting old.
Pretty poor DLC; extremely repetitive. They somehow found a way to make aliens boring, not does it feel like Fallout. That being said, extra star for the Japanese Samurai alone. Great characters, poor, poor execution.
The weakest of the Fallout 3 DLC selection. Despite Fallout 3 being Bethesda's weird, trailblazing journey into the 3D universe, Mothership Zeta struggles to find its place in the Fallout world; it has very little to do with Fallout in the first place, and has no lasting impact after the fact. Thankfully, it is a relatively quick experience, but you find yourself trapped in repetitive, corridor laden environment until you complete the DLC storyline. If you're playing the game outside of the Game Of The Year edition, you can afford to skip this.
Cool idea with some funny characters but the level design is trash like the rest of the dlc's
This entire DLC is two hours of you killing aliens while walking through a bunch of different hallways that all look the same LOL
That is pretty much all I have to say about it, there's like two different enemies which are aliens and the abominations near the end and that's it pretty much besides some poorly written interactions between other people that are captive.
Alien spaceship aesthetic is cool and novel at first but it gets nauseating fast as you see the same hallways that all look the same over and over again with nothing but the sounds of blaster shots and buzzing noises because this DLC also has no music.
That is pretty much all I have to say about it, there's like two different enemies which are aliens and the abominations near the end and that's it pretty much besides some poorly written interactions between other people that are captive.
Alien spaceship aesthetic is cool and novel at first but it gets nauseating fast as you see the same hallways that all look the same over and over again with nothing but the sounds of blaster shots and buzzing noises because this DLC also has no music.
i was gonna jokingly rate this 5 stars because it marked me finally being done with the single worst video game i've ever played but couldnt bring myself to it. not good.
Probably the most frustrating piece of content for Fallout 3. You'd think "alien abduction escape" would be prime fodder for the developers to play around with, but the whole thing is woefully underwritten and mostly focused on providing an unexpectedly difficult combat encounters to give the players a handful of new weapons. Very half-baked, even by Bethesda standards.
Interesting departure from the Capital Wasteland but the novelty wears off quickly. The lack of environments and enemy variety makes this a chore to play through. The handful of somewhat useful weapons is the only saving grace.
Have you ever wanted to play a corridor shooter instead of an RPG? Or maybe play a game with no story at all and just random set dressing? If so this DLC is for you!
I love killing everything not made in god's image
So... uh... hope you weren't a small guns user.
I skipped this dlc (and only this one) on my first playthrough of this game when I heard it was bad. Now, all these years later, I figured I'd try it since I had it in the GOTY collection and wow, it's bad. Super unfun, bad enemy variety mixed with clunky weapons even by F3 standards, the only redeeming factor is how quick it's over. Maybe if you received an unlimited supply of the alien repair gel at the end then there would be some incentive to play this, in fact I expected that. But no, you really don't get anything of any value.
No puedo odiar algo que me da la oportunidad de rolear que soy el asesino de la katana
A Fallout 3 DLC focusing on Fallout 3's weakest element, the already poor gunplay. With combat being the myopic focus of the expansion while adding nothing to improve the glaring existing issues this package was dead on arrival.
fuck you
Look, a lot of people say this is garbage; and yes, it does have its fair share of issues and problems. However, this is a super fun idea, and a quest I absolutely loved.
Those Canadians deserved getting lasered
So they made a alien abduction DLC. A lot of people feel it doesn't really fit into the FO universe, and they're probably right. However, I found killing aliens fun and Zeta is fairly long for a DLC. There's also some great loot to be found.
seriously what the fuck is going on here
aliens are cool. was fun and i thought the story was pretty cool
Games I Like That Everybody Else Dislikes
Unpopular but I prefer this to Point Lookout. Just good-ole-fashioned, unpretentious alien-blasting fun. Yes it's low-framey, yes there isn't a single theme to be found in it, yes it's still only like two dull colors, and yes that spaceship 'battle' at the end is pretty shit. But these big-headed, green Propaganda-era-B-movie aliens are a perfect fit for the retrofuturist Fallout universe - not sure why the series purists have gotten in such a tizzy over this, extraterrestrials really aren't such a far fetch considering all the other preposterous leaps taken in this franchise. So satisfying nailing crits with the sci-fi weaponry and watching these things crackle into a pile of ash. Sally is better than most of the characters in the base game. Kind of awesome.
Unpopular but I prefer this to Point Lookout. Just good-ole-fashioned, unpretentious alien-blasting fun. Yes it's low-framey, yes there isn't a single theme to be found in it, yes it's still only like two dull colors, and yes that spaceship 'battle' at the end is pretty shit. But these big-headed, green Propaganda-era-B-movie aliens are a perfect fit for the retrofuturist Fallout universe - not sure why the series purists have gotten in such a tizzy over this, extraterrestrials really aren't such a far fetch considering all the other preposterous leaps taken in this franchise. So satisfying nailing crits with the sci-fi weaponry and watching these things crackle into a pile of ash. Sally is better than most of the characters in the base game. Kind of awesome.
Brave idea! Funny expansion
With the fourth (and hopefully not final) Fallout 3 DLC we are once again almost as disappointed as the first DLC outing Operation Anchorage where Bethesda mistakenly takes you out of the Capital Wasteland and into a redundant dead world of an alien spaceship. When you get the signal from the downed ship in the Capital Wasteland you get beamed up and stuck in an alien prison cell where you must, throughout this adventure, fight your way off the ship with a woman and a little girl (who causes more trouble than wanted) to a final standoff with the captain of the mothership and finally an epic space battle.
Most of the DLC has you running around places blowing up these “cores” that will shut certain parts of the ship down so you can get to the bridge. While this sounds repetitive nothing is as more as the ship looks. With lots of 50’s cheesy alien sci-fi looking infrastructure, it all looks copied and pasted throughout the entire thing so after about thirty minutes you’ve seen it all. There are three new weapons in this DLC, the shock baton, the atomizer, and the atomizer rifle. While these sound powerful they are, but the aliens are some tough meat if you haven’t downloaded the Broken Steel add-on so you can level up to around 25-30. With me being at 28 I still had a hard time fighting off the various droids, and aliens since some have this invisible looking armor that is a pain to break through.
While there are a few epic moments in the game such as when you get to shoot a death ray to Earth and see a huge mushroom cloud appear…it makes you feel powerful. While not spoiling them all I’ll move into items you can find and these are probably worth more than anything in the Wasteland. Most of the items are alien crystals varying in size, along with some alien food, alien bio gels, and various odds and ends that are worth tons back on Earth. You actually end up with so much that you can’t find enough people with the caps to purchase it all.
Once you do get back to the Wasteland you’ll quickly forget what happened since there isn’t much narrative except for the hidden audio journals scattered throughout the ship. This really isn’t a way to progress dialog in Fallout 3 since most are interactive. After everything is over within the 2-3 hours it takes to beat this DLC you’ll feel like you were ripped off about $5 and want a refund. Mothership Zeta is skip-able, but hardcore fans should really take it for a spin.
Most of the DLC has you running around places blowing up these “cores” that will shut certain parts of the ship down so you can get to the bridge. While this sounds repetitive nothing is as more as the ship looks. With lots of 50’s cheesy alien sci-fi looking infrastructure, it all looks copied and pasted throughout the entire thing so after about thirty minutes you’ve seen it all. There are three new weapons in this DLC, the shock baton, the atomizer, and the atomizer rifle. While these sound powerful they are, but the aliens are some tough meat if you haven’t downloaded the Broken Steel add-on so you can level up to around 25-30. With me being at 28 I still had a hard time fighting off the various droids, and aliens since some have this invisible looking armor that is a pain to break through.
While there are a few epic moments in the game such as when you get to shoot a death ray to Earth and see a huge mushroom cloud appear…it makes you feel powerful. While not spoiling them all I’ll move into items you can find and these are probably worth more than anything in the Wasteland. Most of the items are alien crystals varying in size, along with some alien food, alien bio gels, and various odds and ends that are worth tons back on Earth. You actually end up with so much that you can’t find enough people with the caps to purchase it all.
Once you do get back to the Wasteland you’ll quickly forget what happened since there isn’t much narrative except for the hidden audio journals scattered throughout the ship. This really isn’t a way to progress dialog in Fallout 3 since most are interactive. After everything is over within the 2-3 hours it takes to beat this DLC you’ll feel like you were ripped off about $5 and want a refund. Mothership Zeta is skip-able, but hardcore fans should really take it for a spin.
Zeta is actually the last of the Fallout 3 DLC (there are three others for us to get to?! But that's so many DLC to count in our 52 game challenge! Almost like I planned this...) however we have done it second...? Because that's the order we found them in! There I was, minding my business on my way to Vault 93 to find an old lady a violin, when we picked up a strange frequency on the pipboy. I took myself to high ground and looked about until I found a crashed space ship. Heading over I was sucked up to the sky... poor Dogmeat watched me fly off lol.
Similar to Anchorage I do have memory of playing this DLC on whenever my last FO3 playthrough was - I remember not being too fond of it then and I have pretty much confirmed that opinion now. After being abducted by aliens you quickly get to work escaping from their clutches (and find your gear very quickly, thankfully) and then make your way through hallway after hallway and hangar after hangar of little green aliens until you blow up another ship and head back to good ol' Earth. Who would even want to go back honestly... But we're playing a lady looking for her errant father so that's what we're going to do. Now it might seem like my criticisms of this should be the same as Anchorage, 99% combat 99% of the time, but I quite liked Anchorage. What's the difference here? To put it simply - variety. The Alien ship is VERY samey and I even had to turn back on the dreaded Quest Markers to find my way around because I so regularly got turned around in the metallic hallways and droid bays. The enemies are pretty boring to fight (regular aliens with blasters and turrets make up 85% or so of the enemies, and only a handful are a real threat) and the new weapons are neat but don't feel like something I would keep in my long-term arsenal. Compared to the rewards of Anchorage (fuckin' sweet stealth suit, winter armor, Gauss rifle) the alien 'gear' feels a bit too goofy?
There are some new characters here to talk with who are all people taken from Earth's history at various points leading us to confirm that the Aliens have been watching us for quite some time. There's a Japanese Samuarai who of course only speaks Japanese, a cowboy, an army medic from just before the bombs dropped, and a little girl from just AFTER the bombs dropped. Our main contact though is a woman who is also from the wastes - who we eventually learn worked with slavers... there could very easily be an interesting bit of ethical quagmire here with just how far you're willing to tolerate someone's past if it means to get out of an emergency but.... but nah, they didn't bother. The girl even has a subplot about her missing sister - as far as I can tell it is never even resolved.
While Mothership Zeta has an interesting premise to it, the payoff is just too little and doesn't fit too well into FO3 as it is. There are a few cool setpieces like walking out in space (but with regular physics..), a monster shooting range and unfreezing all of the other people on board but it is far too little to buoy the slog of walking through a spaceships samey hallways for two whole hours and then to walk out with... a kinda cool side blaster?
Similar to Anchorage I do have memory of playing this DLC on whenever my last FO3 playthrough was - I remember not being too fond of it then and I have pretty much confirmed that opinion now. After being abducted by aliens you quickly get to work escaping from their clutches (and find your gear very quickly, thankfully) and then make your way through hallway after hallway and hangar after hangar of little green aliens until you blow up another ship and head back to good ol' Earth. Who would even want to go back honestly... But we're playing a lady looking for her errant father so that's what we're going to do. Now it might seem like my criticisms of this should be the same as Anchorage, 99% combat 99% of the time, but I quite liked Anchorage. What's the difference here? To put it simply - variety. The Alien ship is VERY samey and I even had to turn back on the dreaded Quest Markers to find my way around because I so regularly got turned around in the metallic hallways and droid bays. The enemies are pretty boring to fight (regular aliens with blasters and turrets make up 85% or so of the enemies, and only a handful are a real threat) and the new weapons are neat but don't feel like something I would keep in my long-term arsenal. Compared to the rewards of Anchorage (fuckin' sweet stealth suit, winter armor, Gauss rifle) the alien 'gear' feels a bit too goofy?
There are some new characters here to talk with who are all people taken from Earth's history at various points leading us to confirm that the Aliens have been watching us for quite some time. There's a Japanese Samuarai who of course only speaks Japanese, a cowboy, an army medic from just before the bombs dropped, and a little girl from just AFTER the bombs dropped. Our main contact though is a woman who is also from the wastes - who we eventually learn worked with slavers... there could very easily be an interesting bit of ethical quagmire here with just how far you're willing to tolerate someone's past if it means to get out of an emergency but.... but nah, they didn't bother. The girl even has a subplot about her missing sister - as far as I can tell it is never even resolved.
While Mothership Zeta has an interesting premise to it, the payoff is just too little and doesn't fit too well into FO3 as it is. There are a few cool setpieces like walking out in space (but with regular physics..), a monster shooting range and unfreezing all of the other people on board but it is far too little to buoy the slog of walking through a spaceships samey hallways for two whole hours and then to walk out with... a kinda cool side blaster?
Somehow even worse than Broken Steel. When I originally played it, it took me six tries to start the DLC without the game glitching or crashing, with four more freezes coming up later during gameplay.
Was it worth it? Of course not. The setting might have been interesting, but as it its, you're stuck in a loop of kill aliens -> find an inconspicuous switch somewhere -> kill aliens, and said aliens are very resilient to damage and take a while to go down. The sequence drags a bunch, as well. Awful.
Was it worth it? Of course not. The setting might have been interesting, but as it its, you're stuck in a loop of kill aliens -> find an inconspicuous switch somewhere -> kill aliens, and said aliens are very resilient to damage and take a while to go down. The sequence drags a bunch, as well. Awful.
This DLC is super overhated. Sure, it's not that good, but I think that it was pretty fun, and you get pretty powerful guns. You meet pretty interesting characters and there are some references to the older DLCs. As I said, could be better, but I recommend it. It's not as bad as some people over here say it is, lol.
I hope that Bethesda make a better version of this DLC in the future, because aliens in Fallout sounds like a pretty good idea to me.
I hope that Bethesda make a better version of this DLC in the future, because aliens in Fallout sounds like a pretty good idea to me.
id fucking raaather put my dick into the vaccum cum of space then play this piece of shit GRAAAAHHHH
bruuuh probably the best dlc in the game
laughed MY ASS OFF with that Japanese guy
the whole idea of putting together people from different time periods to solve a common problem fucking slaps
the weapons are a nice addition, and the enemies are cool
getting to see the space in a fallout game is cool, and so is the ship itself, but I couldn't get to actually enjoy exploring it for extended time periods.
the level design of the ship is again, kinda confusing. in a different way than the pitt, but still confusing.
laughed MY ASS OFF with that Japanese guy
the whole idea of putting together people from different time periods to solve a common problem fucking slaps
the weapons are a nice addition, and the enemies are cool
getting to see the space in a fallout game is cool, and so is the ship itself, but I couldn't get to actually enjoy exploring it for extended time periods.
the level design of the ship is again, kinda confusing. in a different way than the pitt, but still confusing.
the best part of this dlc is canada getting nuked
Repetitive, but cool as fuck. Has great characters too