Mothership Zeta

[gsmanners]

Well, now that the topic is back, I have to agree that this DLC seemed a bit repetitive. I wouldn't go so far as to call it crap, though. I would give this a 7 out of 10.

 

Anchorage: 7/10

The Pitt: 8/10

Broken Steel: 8/10

Point Lookout: 9/10

Zeta: 7/10

[FalloutGamer]

Zeta is good in outlook, in my opinion. Only thing that is missing is the linkage from Wasteland to the ship. I mean, when you go back down in the earth, its like nothing ever happened, you cant talk anyone about it, nothing said on gnr. It´s just too seperate from the main game.

 

Anchorage: 8/10, excellent addon, but too much combat, should include more choices of how to complete it.

The Pitt: 8/10, also good addon, but should have an alternative way to complete it than being a slave.

Broken Steel: 9/10, great addon, fits well to the storyline. Nuff said.

Point Lookout: 6/10, good addon, gives a very different feeling on the post-apocalyptic world, but it has too much bugs :/

Zeta: 7/10

[GETbacon]

I liked it but I found that aliens were just too hard for medium that most of the wepons were jam-tastic (maybe due to a bug) but that no going back thing made it point less to go back which made me infiruius that you couldn't go back to get the logs (which I enjoyed) or to get the generals coat and you had no other means of geting the samurai other than kill him and that one chick left also samson going to earth despite it being you know a WASTELAND and all-a-round hell hole, but It was just a modders resource with some entertanment for the non-mod users

[Fairfield]

At the very least, I like to think of MZ as the ultimate remedy for the ridiculous ending of the original game. After having to sacrifice himself for stupidly arbitrary reasons initially, the hero got some justice back in Broken Steel, but that DLC doesn't have much of a climax. Even after the hero infiltrates the satellite platform, the enemies don't stop spawing. Zeta, though, that lifted all of the player's dignity back off the ground--in the old ending, he dies or kills Sarah Lyons, but in MZ, has a fairly epic team showdown with aliens, overthrows their captain, uses the cannon to destroy another ship, and ends up getting to keep the mothership. I was literally screaming at the screen in maniacal joy, "We just won the first @8#$ space battle in the history of mankind, and it was after we got mostly wiped out by nuclear war to boot!"

 

I also love the characters and I love the aliens. Everybody has a good deal of dialogue for what little plot they provide, and in it they bring out a lot more personality than many characters in F3. As to the aliens, they're just amusing in B-movie sort of way, but their ship itself looks cool rather than cheesy. Seeing the aforementioned conclusion when one of the weirdest ragtag starship crews imaginable squares off against the aliens is just loveable on so many levels. Seeing Buttercup the robotic horse was cool as well, even if she didn't work, and they made a good use of enemies from the core game in the alien cryovats and shooting gallery. It's an odd place to take the Fallout series, but it somehow works.

 

How it stacks up against other DLCs, I can't really say, but each has their own problems and strengths:

*OA is a great adaptation of F3 into a Call of Duty sort of game (if there was one problem, it was that some of the kits in the last mission were over- or under-powered), but it also didn't stand out enough from such games to be really memorable on its own. Nonetheless, there is one thing I adore from that DLC, and that's the stealth armor--annoying when it's used against you, but once you have your own it's wonderful for playing ghost-recon in the rest of the game.

*The Pitt--well, eche. On the plus side, I like that they did a morally-gray story correctly, unlike in the infamous Tenpenny Tower quest from the main game (You really have to hand it to Bethesda; they may have done some things wrong in the Fallout series, but they do listen to and address complaints afterwards), and I enjoyed it enough, but if the whole game had been like that, I don't think I would have been able to stand it. Simply-put, it's by far the most macabre experience I think I've ever been through in F3; with nude brutish cannibal men waddling around after you, buzzsaw weapons, and a lot of gore in between the two, I'm almost surprised it didn't get the AO rating. Then, the story is just way too depressing--the core game had its share of depressing scenes, but it also has the Fallout series' dark humor intact. I don't think I found anything funny about The Pitt, save for maybe the pun, "Man Opener."

*Broken Steel, I like, and the Tesla Cannon I love, but frankly it doesn't do that much to separate itself from the core game.

*Point Lookout dissapointed me from a plot perspective. We may have gotten a wonderful new environment with some great fights, but it was unfocused. I really think that the bit based on the Cthulhu Mythos should've been the main story arc, not the petty squabble between Desmond and the Brain, and it doesn't help the plot that there are two crazy cults competing for the spotlight but never really interacting with one another. Having said that, Desmond was hilarious (and obnoxious, but so was his opponent) and so was the bit where you trip out in the grove; plus any game that lets me kill a bunch of smelly phillistine rednecks gets bonus points.

*Bringing us back to Mothership Zeta. Almost opposite The Pitt in many ways; it's entertaining 1950s Scifi cheese with almost nothing offensive. I felt a little sad for the abductees who'd never see their friends and families again, but the family that they became among themselves was fun enough to let that rest. That said, I do wish I could have used some of them as party members in the portions of the game before the boss battle. It got tremendously irritating having to fight my way through all those aliens myself while they just sat loafing around, and I think that's where you could use CoD-style mechanics and really make them unique nonetheless; afterall we've never seen CoD in space with a squad as goofy as the Team Fortress 2 cast.

 

Really, though, for what it is, I adore MZ. It's far from perfect, but just like the movies it's based on, it's a sort of imperfection that has charm.

[Harabec Weathers]

The only thing that bothered me about MZ were the little aliens who had the forcefield thing or whatever it was. Many of the fights turned into me standing there shooting like 5 BAZILLION rounds while hes standing there shooting at me.

 

It was like two people with machine guns blasting eachother within 10 feet for 15 minutes straight. To me that was the only thing that really bothered me.

 

All in all I give it an 8/10

[roquefort]

I'm wondering if this thread should really be in the Spoilers section -- I'll report and let the mods decide ;)

[AlienSlof]

I think you're right, so I've moved it - while trying not to read it, as I haven't played it yet!

 

AS

[Steven917]

Zeta did at least give me some new modding materials to make some more cheesy personal mods for myself...