Friday, August 7, 2009

To the stars and back: Fallout 3 and it's last DLC, Mothership Zeta

At long last, we've come to the end of Fallout 3's downloadable content. It's certainly been a long year, and the DLC's gone through it's bumps and hurdles, from the overall satisfaction to Operation: Anchorage to the bugs on the initial launch of The Pitt, but Mothership Zeta certainly feels like things are going out in a bang. Though it's not the best dlc for Fallout by a long shot (Point Lookout was the best, followed by Broken Steel), Zeta certainly has it's selling points that makes it one of my favorite.

Zeta's biggest fault is that it's linear, like Anchorage. Like Anchorage, there's only one main quest line and you can only deviate in the order of the objectives, so there's not a lot to do after or in between the main quest.

Unlike Anchorage however, or even the Pitt, you're free to use whatever weapons you bring along (with the exception to the opening of the mothership, where you make a prison break on nothing but your bare knuckles) and the new items the dlc introduces are an energy weapon enthusiast's dream. Admittedly, I only looked at this dlc at the chance at bringing alien technology back down to the Capital Wasteland, so let's take a look at the weapons and unique variants to find.
(italics are the unique variants to the weapon proceeding it)

Alien Atomizer
- Your basic laser pistol. About as effective as an assault rifle, but nothing compared to what you'll find later on

Atomic Pulverizer
- At first glance, it looks like an Atomizer with slightly more damage. Unknown to casual players, this weapon has twice the chance to crit then the Atomizer (x2 compared to x1) and has the lowest action point cost in the game, tied with the laughably weak ritual knife. This thing can turn packs of enemies into dust when pair with the Grim Reaper's Sprint perk.

Alien Disintegrator
- The alien rifle of your offworld invaders. This weapon is extremely accurate and boasts a nearly non-existant reload time, if it's even considered reloading. You merely tap the rifle and it reloads! This is what you use if you favor V.A.T.S. gameplay.

The Destabilizer
- Say hello to the only fully automatic energy weapon in the game and the base damage for this thing is crazy! But its' calculated for three round bursts, like the assault rifle since it's fully automatic, and yet it only shoots off single rounds in V.A.T.S. so it's pretty weak in there.

Shock Baton
- The first weapon you come across on the mothership. It's base damage is pretty mediocre, but it has added electric damage over time. Not much to say for this one but...

Electro-Suppressor
- This one lacks the electric damage over time and doesn't add much damage, but on critical knocks down your target. Considering players with high luck and crit chances, this weapon can even the playing field quickly on strong melee creatures like deathclaws. Even better, sneak attacks are always criticals, so it'll always induce knockdown.

Drone Cannon
- The heavy weapon introduced in the game, it lacks a certain usability because it fires single shots that don't explode on impact like frag grenades. The explosive radius is pretty big though, so those experienced in using Miss Launcher can get used to using it.

Drone Cannon Ex-B
- This is about the same, but much more useful as it explodes on impact. This combines the best aspects of Miss Launcher's power and the Missile Launcher's explosion on impact.

MPLX Novasurge
- A unique Enclave Plasma Pistol, this pistol is nearly three times as strong as a normal plasma pistol and has a crit multiplier of x3! Not only that, but the extra crit damage is nearly the same as the base damage (before the Better Criticals perk). This thing is pretty much Alien Blaster lite in terms of power and critical without the trouble with repairing it.

Captain's Sidearm
-Pretty much like the Metal Blaster, but of alien origin instead. Uses three ammo to shoot 6 shots though, which makes the damage to ammo ratio a bit steeper then the Metal Blaster.

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