My take on Mothership Zeta

[Starch]

I haven't finish it.

 

The only glitches and/or problems with this DLC was some graphic problems where the screen would get blurring or blank out and that only when I'm need the force fields. Mothership Zeta feels more of The Pitt. Linear and control areas unlike Point Lookout. The enemies are easily defeat on Normal difficulty at Level 9. Though I recommend that you have 50+ science when doing this one.

 

What are your thoughts?

[Monolithic0117]

It's great. Have only played for a dozen minutes or so, but so far, so good. I like the brand new environments most of all.

[theWOODman]

I guess it was "OK". The spacewalk was a bit of a let down. The puzzle was way too easy to solve, the area was too confined and had next to nothing to explore. The atmosphere was so dark that you couldn't see anything. I know in real life you probably couldn't see much either, but it's a game after all. It would have been far more interesting to be able to explore more of the outside of the ship. Maybe even jump higher and float around a bit......something, anything.

 

There was only 4 humans to find in the stasis pods and speak to. It would have been nice to be able to free and interact with more ( other than the little girl and wastelander ), possibly even to lead a large rebellion against the aliens. For such a vast ship and thousands of stasis pods, it seemed lacking. At least it would have been interesting to be able to see through the glass of different pods to look at the different people or even other alien types that could have been captured from other planets.

 

All in all it just seemed very large and empty. It's like the developers just threw in a bunch of corridors and rooms just to make it seem like there was a lot more there so with all the lengthy running around you had to do to complete objectives, the game wouldn't end too quickly.

 

It was nice in general to see the aliens animated and interacting. After discovering the crashed alien ship in the wasteland, I've thought how cool it would be if the developers did something with them to work them into some kind of story in the wasteland ( this was long before the release of Mothership Zeta ).

 

At the same time after meeting up with the aliens, that too became a bit of a let down. There really wasn't that many aliens to encounter on such a huge ship and they were much too easy to kill, which seems very strange considering how advanced they're supposed to be, and as well how much more powerful enemies were in the last DLC addons - Broken Steel and Point Lookout.

 

The weapons were just "OK" as well. The only weapon I thought might be worth keeping was the cannon. It is different and powerful. The rest just seemed like modified versions of the plasma pistol and plasma rifle.

 

It was still fun to play, but considering the last two addons, this one was just "Meh".

[pugdoggsolid]

Quick Impressions:

 

It was fun, the aliens, characters, environment, atmosphere- everything rendered beautifully. However Storyline isn't up to par with what I expect from Bethesda; and Fallout 3 ultimately.

 

Pros- Great Weapons, Great Visuals

Cons- Hardly any armor to collect, poor and lacking storyline with very little replay value.

 

Lasting Appeal

 

I truly believed Fallout's Final DLC would end with a 'boom', but this just leaves you asking for more content and replay value.

 

My second favorite DLC overall.

[Sheralynn]

I agree with theWOODman

 

It reminded me of an old shooter where you had to run trough a endless maze of rooms and corridors. Clean out one room or corridor and move on to the next. Complete with the classic "looking for the switch", the initially closed door and the ever present turrets. I really expected a bit more creativity from Bethsoft.

 

Of course its on a spaceship so that places some limits, still with all the effort they've obviously put into it there should have been much more to be had.

 

Another let down was lack of plot. The aliens abduct, experiment, create hybrids and do all the stuff aliens are supposed to do but the question why is never answered. Like an X-files movie that promises that "everything will become clear" and two hours later leaves you with no answers but even more questions. Become clear my astrolabe!

 

So basically there was no story. And also no story to get into. Yes trying to get to upper deck and kill the captain. I shot him out from his chair with one sneak headshot. Yay...

 

No in retrospect Betsoft should have put all this time and effort into a expansion of the wasteland instead.

[TSO09]

Yeah, I'm with Sheralynn. After stuff like Broken Steel and Point Lookout, Zeta is a letdown.

[kgb5097]

Ignoring the glaring bugs that nearly made this DLC unplayable for me, I did enjoy it. I might actually rank this my favorite or second favorite non-essential (Read: Not Broken Steel which IMO should've been part of the game from the beginning... I mean come on, you can't play past the main quest? Give us a break Beth!) DLC, perhaps a hair behind Point Lookout....

 

Pros: cool enemies, cool weapons, cool new armors (SAMURAIIIIIIIIII!!!!111), got to meet people from the past, got to pretend to be Captain Picard at the end there....

 

Cons: Not enough of said cool stuff, quite linear, freaking doors lock behind you making most of the ship a one-shot deal...

 

As stated above, of the thousands of people abducted over the centuries you're telling me you get to meet like 6 or 7 of them? Only one isn't an American? Such a cool chance to add lots of really wild & unique items was wasted IMO, as was a way to expand what we know about the post-war world through either speaking with other abductees from around the globe or simply being able to see more than just a low res earth from the windows...

 

Also, since Star Trek was clearly a source of inspiration for some of this DLC, why didn't I see a HOLODECK!? SO many possibilities could've been explored with the inclusion of some sort of advanced alien simulation room... *sigh*

[WrathOfDeadguy]

I found MZ overall to be quite entertaining. The final battle was, for me, much better than any of the others up til now even though the enemies involved in it died pretty easily. I played through at level 30, so a bit of run-and-gun was just what the doctor ordered... and I think that MZ, even though it can be played at lower levels, was designed with higher levels in mind; characters which have a lot of different abilities and players who want to make use of them.

 

There's nothing wrong with that if it's done properly- and it was. The path is mostly linear, but you're not just forced into a series of fights and expected to simply duke it out. There's room for almost any type of play after you get your gear back, except for the few skills that are well and truly worthless on the alien ship (like lockpicking, for one; I think science might affect some things but there sure aren't any hackable computers). There are several opportunities to kill the aliens or distract them with other enemies, the entire ship is perfectly built for laying traps, there are more than enough alternate routes leading to the same destinations as to allow stealth play despite the cramped quarters... and so on.

 

The tactical depth is much greater than in any of the other expansions so far- which IMHO makes up for the lack of open-ended exploration. Yes, there's a lot more that could have been done, but I think Mothership Zeta provides a nice counterbalance to the utter lack of linear questing that came with Point Lookout (which was great for precisely that reason). Variety is the spice of life, and the more different environments and situations we get dropped into, the more replayability is added to the game as a whole. And, all things considered, the environments within the ship do vary a bit- about as much as you'd expect them to, given that it's all on the same ship. Cryo has a look and feel that is different from that of the robot factory, or the engineering section, or the labs... and that's enough for a short, linear experience like MZ. It doesn't feel thrown together, and it doesn't feel bland or uninteresting, so it succeeds where it was intended to.

 

That said, I was a bit let down by how few meet-and-greetable abductees there were. I was at least expecting, after finding out that several of the audio logs came from people I did meet, that I'd be finding more allies further along. Some of the people in the logs sounded really fun, too. More backstory would have been great, but how much were we really expecting from an expansion pack?

 

Also, MZ has more "traditional" Fallout humor in it than the rest of the expansions and the vanilla game put together. Planet-bursting death ray? Check. Anal probes? Strongly suggested. Cow (brahmin) abductions? There's a whole lab for 'em. Giant blue abduction beam? Check. Grabby claws to haul folks off for experimentation? Check. Hell, the succession of reactors that you destroy by turning off their cooling systems might just qualify as a running gag on the way pop culture is obsessed with "the reactor's going critical!" and other such cliches. Among other things. You don't even need to look very hard to see most of it.

 

If the entire game were like this, it'd be nothing less than an epic fail... but it's not. It's just an expansion- part of a greater whole. For the price, I'd say it's a great addition.

[Z3R0B4NG]

All in All it felt more like a FPS then an RPG... there is no good or bad way to do this, only gun and run.

 

i was a bit dissapointed how fast you get your gear back, i would have expected to get an Alien Armor so that i had to use the alien stuff all the time....

i dont think it was to easy, played it on hard with a ~lvl25 char and only had one Armor with me that had 25 Damage Reduction so i recieved enough damage and the aliens did eat enough ammo for my taste.

 

plot: I expected the Girl to be one of the Aliens because she just knew TOO MUCH about the Ship... she was constantly leading the way and telling you what to do (that was extremely anoying because it is pretty much all very obvious), i just expected the whole thing to be a Simulation by the Aliens to test my abilities and then sent me back or something, but no.

 

There is no way to get the cool new Armors from the Samurai, the Cowboy or the Anchorage medic... besides killing them (or cheating) and i dont want to do that, not even with my evil Char so i see not much use of them besides that you SEE something new for a change.

 

Technical:

I only had one Crash and one Texture Bug bothe were gone after restarting the Game. Overall i had a little low FPS which i think is strange because there is not much stuff to see in the corridors and i have a OK System, i think. Same with Operation Anchorage...

 

 

Overall it was OK and i am going to play it again if some MODs arrive for it or i am at the point with another char but i think it has a low replay value.

 

 

...oh did someone besides me shoot that Laserbeam at Earth by mistake? The Shockwaves Looked nice but no Consequence for the Storyline... no one even mentions it... not even some Bad Karma gain.

 

 

I hope there will be some mods that turn this DLC into something better. Like placing the Eqipment Box inside the Captains Quarters at the end and place some better Armor inside the Ship, maybe reballance the Aliens?

Remove that annoying Child and maybe make the "Outside of the Ship"-Sequence a little more intresting. come on! not even low gravity??? No Spaceship flying by? No Sputnik? No ISS?... and only 3 buttons to push? Dont ask me why but i knew that there were THREE Buttons as soon as i've seen the first one! Why allways 3 ? BOORING... at least they could have made it so that the Spacesuit had a leak so you had limited time to find the 3 buttons... some blur effects to that and it would have been a lot more intense.

[Talon111]

Does anyone know of a solution for the quest completion bugs that pop up after the spacewalk? I simply cannot finish this as the death ray and reaching the bridge quest bugs keep popping up as completed and I cannot get past them.