All right everyone, I'm back on earth, safe, and with a backpack full of sweet alien guns. Like Operation Anchorage, Mothership Zeta is abundant with combat and entirely unique art, enemies, and weapons.

Mothership Zeta, (currently) the final expansion pack for Fallout 3, is available for download. Mothership Zeta takes one of the little Easter eggs of Fallout 3, a crashed alien spaceship, and makes a whole mini-story of it. Upon discovering the ship, you find yourself pulled up in a beam of bright light, waking up with nothing but your Pip-Boy and underoos. Fight your way through the Mothership to save the world (again!) and make it back down to Earth.





The alien ship looks like nothing else in the Fallout 3 world. Slick, shiny, and round is the name of the game here. There aren't many sharp edges that aren't attached to an alien probing chair. Bethesda decided to go with a mix of classic alien art and more modern takes on it. On the Mothership, you'll fight the aliens you know and love from all the autopsy and abduction videos, the Greys.

As you make your way through the expansive ship, the little guys attack ruthlessly from every direction, making sure you're always on your toes. Of course, they don't fight with shotguns and knives like the raiders down on the surface. No, they have sweet alien blasters that turn their victims into a spray of brilliant blue sparks. The alien weapons (which are apparently just as adept at repairing as standard pistols) are fast, fun, and powerful. They have a satisfying punch and feel like something you'd want to take into the main game, one of the few things Point Lookout lacked.

Sadly, the weapons are about all you'll walk away with. For most Fallout fans, I think Mothership Zeta will stand out as probably the most disappointing addition to the game. The art, while unique, isn't terribly inspired. It looks like a generic alien ship. Even the Enclave base in the main game was more interesting to move around in (though the Enclave has clearly had contact and made the most of it). What made Point Lookout so strong was that it played on the fun parts of the main game: exploration, goofy-creepy characters, and fun stories.

Zeta has its share of characters, but nothing that can compare to the tough-as-nails ghoul of Lookout or the Super Mutant Fawkes. As for exploration, the experience is so directed that not only is there very little exploring to do, what there is doesn't feel very interesting. Every crate has the same set of items, the enemies have very little variation, and the rooms start to blend after a while. After 20 minutes, you've seen everything the game has to offer. The story is passable, but so straight-forward and predictable that it just ends up boring.





I've dumped literally days of my life into Fallout. It was easily one of my top games of 2008 and one of the best buys any gamer looking to squeeze every last cent out of their discs can buy. The DLC too, has been largely satisfying, adding fun side stories to a genuinely interesting world. It's sad, then, to see the expansions end on such a whimper.