Operation: Anchorage After Action Report
A long while back I posted about how much I love the game "Fallout 3". Well I'd stopped playing it until recently, mainly due to other distractions. Last week I picked up the controller again, quickly became reoriented to the controls, and soon my friend Joshua (my PC) and I were roaming the Capital Wastelands once again.
I completed an oft-delayed quest to retrieve the actual Declaration of Independence from the National Archives, then completed the Wasteland Survival Guide quest by clearing out the Arlington Library where I came across my first suit of powered armor. But I didn't have the skill to use it! And the only folks who could teach me were being dicks (The Brotherhood of Steel) about it.
I should note that at this point I had not consulted any strategy guide or anything. I was playing the game organically - more or less picking what sounded interesting at the time and not really trying to maximize anything about Joshua. And I'd gotten to level 11, so I was doing pretty good.
Anyway, I was beginning to despair of ever getting far enough in the game to have a reason to buy any of the DLC.
Broken Steel just raises the level cap from 20 to 30. The Pitt and Point Lookout are new areas, but I haven't exhausted the Capital Wastes yet. And Mothership Zeta is the final chapter, and I'm no where near ready for that.
That left Operation: Anchroage. This is a VR simulation of the Chinese invasion of Alaska in 2066 (I wish it had included a reference to Caribou Barbie, but it's about 3 years too old for that). It sounded interesting, but I didn't really think it was going to help with my overall progress in the game that much. Then I found out that one of the rewards for completing the simulation was the Powered Armor skill (and a suit of powered armor)! $9.99? Sign me up!
Well, I played through the whole thing in about six hours (not including restarts, getting killed, etc). No spoilers here. BTW I so totally enjoy turning opponents into a fine, red, mist (the Bloody Mess perk may not be the most efficient selection, but it's so much fun). In all it was well worth the $9.99. The Game of the Year edition is out not and it includes all the DLC, so I'd get that if you haven't.
I have a couple of comments.
1. It's a little annoying that the well documented glitches that have been there since the PC version are still there in the PC version. This is especially noticeable a couple of places in O:A. Several times, half my controller went dead. The d-pad and left thumb stick just stopped doing what they were supposed to do. I know it's not a problem with my controller, because when I went out to the XBMC interface on the PS3, everything worked fine. Saving and reloading the saved game didn't fix it. Exiting to the Main Menu then reloading the save, that fixed it.
The most egregious glitch came right at the end of the DLC. Without giving too much away, you go through a door (even though the NPCs standing at the door tell you they're going to open it, they don't) and confront the "boss". As you watch an animated sequence, the current game objectives are supposed to appear on the left side of the screen. The first time through, they do. If you fail to kill the boss, you are respawned at the beginning of the animated sequence. Only this, and every subsequent time, the objectives do no appear and the boss does not give his short soliloquy... and you cannnot move. The only controls that work are the one that pivots your point of view, and the one that toggles first person/third person. That's it. I had to save just before opening that final door, and then every time I failed to kill the boss I had to reload that save point or I'd be stuck after respawning.
2. As I said, these glitches are well documented. And as complex a game as F3 is, I can understand why they might exist. The problem is that in the original PC version, there was a 'console' you could bring up to issue commands directly to the game engine. The developer's entire reason for leaving it in the final product was to address some of these glitches. Well the console doesn't exist in the PS3 version, so when you encounter these glitches, you're stuck.
Other than that I can still say that Fallout 3 has been the best bang for the buck game I've ever bought with the possible exception of Rock Band 2.
Peace. Out.
I completed an oft-delayed quest to retrieve the actual Declaration of Independence from the National Archives, then completed the Wasteland Survival Guide quest by clearing out the Arlington Library where I came across my first suit of powered armor. But I didn't have the skill to use it! And the only folks who could teach me were being dicks (The Brotherhood of Steel) about it.
I should note that at this point I had not consulted any strategy guide or anything. I was playing the game organically - more or less picking what sounded interesting at the time and not really trying to maximize anything about Joshua. And I'd gotten to level 11, so I was doing pretty good.
Anyway, I was beginning to despair of ever getting far enough in the game to have a reason to buy any of the DLC.
Broken Steel just raises the level cap from 20 to 30. The Pitt and Point Lookout are new areas, but I haven't exhausted the Capital Wastes yet. And Mothership Zeta is the final chapter, and I'm no where near ready for that.
That left Operation: Anchroage. This is a VR simulation of the Chinese invasion of Alaska in 2066 (I wish it had included a reference to Caribou Barbie, but it's about 3 years too old for that). It sounded interesting, but I didn't really think it was going to help with my overall progress in the game that much. Then I found out that one of the rewards for completing the simulation was the Powered Armor skill (and a suit of powered armor)! $9.99? Sign me up!
Well, I played through the whole thing in about six hours (not including restarts, getting killed, etc). No spoilers here. BTW I so totally enjoy turning opponents into a fine, red, mist (the Bloody Mess perk may not be the most efficient selection, but it's so much fun). In all it was well worth the $9.99. The Game of the Year edition is out not and it includes all the DLC, so I'd get that if you haven't.
I have a couple of comments.
1. It's a little annoying that the well documented glitches that have been there since the PC version are still there in the PC version. This is especially noticeable a couple of places in O:A. Several times, half my controller went dead. The d-pad and left thumb stick just stopped doing what they were supposed to do. I know it's not a problem with my controller, because when I went out to the XBMC interface on the PS3, everything worked fine. Saving and reloading the saved game didn't fix it. Exiting to the Main Menu then reloading the save, that fixed it.
The most egregious glitch came right at the end of the DLC. Without giving too much away, you go through a door (even though the NPCs standing at the door tell you they're going to open it, they don't) and confront the "boss". As you watch an animated sequence, the current game objectives are supposed to appear on the left side of the screen. The first time through, they do. If you fail to kill the boss, you are respawned at the beginning of the animated sequence. Only this, and every subsequent time, the objectives do no appear and the boss does not give his short soliloquy... and you cannnot move. The only controls that work are the one that pivots your point of view, and the one that toggles first person/third person. That's it. I had to save just before opening that final door, and then every time I failed to kill the boss I had to reload that save point or I'd be stuck after respawning.
2. As I said, these glitches are well documented. And as complex a game as F3 is, I can understand why they might exist. The problem is that in the original PC version, there was a 'console' you could bring up to issue commands directly to the game engine. The developer's entire reason for leaving it in the final product was to address some of these glitches. Well the console doesn't exist in the PS3 version, so when you encounter these glitches, you're stuck.
Other than that I can still say that Fallout 3 has been the best bang for the buck game I've ever bought with the possible exception of Rock Band 2.
Peace. Out.