Fallout 4: Far Harbor

A routine case turns up at Valentine's Detective Agency: a young girl has run away from her family, and they want to track her down. The Sole Survivor and Nick Valentine soon discover that the girl has fled to Far Habor, an island located to the north-east of the Commonwealth. Following in her tracks, they find a community fiercely distrustful of outsiders and divided into three camps: the town of Far Harbour itself, the nuke-worshipping cult known as the Children of the Atom and a band of runaway synths dwelling in the scientific outpost of Arcadia. Tensions are rising between the three groups, which is dangerous when one controls a band of powerful robots that can look human and another has access to nuclear weapons. You have to choose which faction to support, or if there is a way to continue the peace and allow the three sides to exist in harmony.

Bethesda RPGs are such gargantuam, time-destroying games (each easily allowing for over 100 hours of gameplay) that the notion of making them even bigger has always seemed a bit redundant. This is especially the case if you've already completed the base game and are entering the expansions as an all-powerful, high-level demigod of destruction. Bethesda's response in the past has been to go completely nuts in originality and experimentation, with their expansions usually being wilder, better-written and more thoughtful than their base games. The Shivering Isles was a huge improvement over the blander Oblivion, Fallout 3's five mini-expansions were much better than the original game (and fixed its truly appalling original ending) and Dragonborn was an excellent mash-up of Skyrim's arctic stylings with the weirdness of Morrowind (arguably, still Bethesda's finest hour). But the highlight of the Bethesda expansion track record (maybe somewhat embarrassingly, as Obsidian actually made them) is easily New Vegas: not only was the base game the most thoughtful, interesting and well-judged of their big RPGs, but its four expansions together made for a fascinating thematic exploration of the philosophy of RPGs whilst also being extremely funny and wildly varying in tone and atmosphere.

Far Harbor isn't competing remotely on the same level as Obsidian's material, but it's more surprising that it also fails to live up to Bethesda's own past achievements. Bethesda have boasted that it's their biggest expansion to date, and that the world map (based on the real island of Bar Harbor, Maine) is the largest they've created for an expansion (if so, it's not by much). However, in terms of locations to visit on that map and the amount of stuff to do it feels slight compared to Dragonborn or Shivering Isles. In terms of the time I spent playing it, it evened out at around 15 hours, which is less than even Old World Blues or Point Lookout, supposed mini-expansions for Fallout: New Vegas and Fallout 3 respectively. 15 hours of gameplay is nothing to be sneezed at, but considering that some people have put literally hundreds of hours into Fallout 4 itself it's also not going to be presenting players with a huge challenge.

The game is designed around its three factions and their bases: the human settlement of Far Harbor, the synth base of Arcadia (built in an old observatory) and the Children of the Atom's stronghold of Nucleus, an old nuclear submarine base. In each location you have multiple characters to meet and befriend and a lot of quests to do to build up your reputation with each faction. Ultimately you have to decide on the fate of each faction and the entire island: it is possible to wipe out the entire population of the island if you really want and it's also possible to forge a new peace between the three sides. You can also, laudably, create a messier halfway-house stopgap solution which leaves one or more factions destroyed and the rest angry with you for messing everything up.

That's all fine, but surprisingly short and unchallenging. A lot of the quests for each faction fall back on Fallout 4's biggest weakness, its frustrating and dull overreliance on combat. The Fallout series was, once upon a time, the most roleplaying-intensive of all game series, giving you amazing freedom to complete quests through dialogue, wits, cunning, stealth or combat. Fallout 4 has very little truck with allowing you to solve problems through anything other than bloodletting. Far Harbor does allow you some leeway in how to solve the over-arcing storyling peacefully, but most of the individual quests you do along the way involve having to blast your way to a solution. It's an annoying tendency which is often at odds with the expansion's thematic musings on diplomacy, consequences and regrets for past actions (hint: make sure you take Nick Valentine as your companion, as the game expands a lot on his backstory). If you're coming into this expansion having completed the main game and in the Level 40s or 50s, you'll also find it a complete and total cakewalk (a couple of the tougher robots below Arcadia possibly excepted).

On the plus side, the shorter game length and smaller geographic size of the game allows for a tighter focus on the characters, and there seemed to be more memorable characters with better dialogue than the base game. This comes to life in the game's highlight, a dramatic showdown between the leaders of Arcadia and Far Harbor where your past actions in helping or hindering both sides come dramatically into play (slightly frustratingly, this scene only plays if you've already given up on the "best possible" ending, but then there is a consequence for such things).


Another initial highlight is a side-quest called "Brain Dead", which takes you into a vault populated entirely by robots. A murder has taken place, which quickly turns into a Agatha Christie-style mystery. With robots. This was actually original, zany, well-written and funny, the sort of thing Bethesda used to be really good at. Unfortunately, this quest was quite blatantly "borrowed" from a New Vegas fan mod called Autumn Leaves, which Bethesda apparently have not credited to the original creator, which is definitely not a cool thing.

Overall, Far Harbor (***½) isn't terrible. It's fun, it passes away a few hours and it has some strengths in character and moral decision making that are better than the original game. But it's also lacking in original content and is much slighter than Bethesda made out it as going to be. As possibly the only major, story-focused expansion for Fallout 4 we'll get (the rest have all been cosmetic twinges to the settlement system and allowing you to build new robots), it's severely underwhelming. I would only recommend this at full price to hardcore Fallout 4 fans, and would advise that everyone else wait for the complete Ultimate Edition or for the expansion to be heavily discounted.

Fallout 3: DLC Expansions 4-5

Shortly after the release of Fallout 3's three initial downloadable expansions, Bethesda announced that two more were in the planning: Point Lookout and Mothership Zeta. Both games are 'plug-ins'. After installing them you get a new radio message informing you of radio messages that lead you to locations where the new quests begin. Annoyingly (especially so in Point Lookout's case), you can't bring followers with you, so it's a good idea to dump them before beginning the quests.


Point Lookout (****) sees a ship arriving on the Potomac with news of trouble in Point Lookout, Maryland, a swamp community some miles from DC. Arriving at the location, you are drawn into a conflict between two neighbouring communities. There are also a number of different side-quests to undertake, and a significantly large area (one-sixth the size of the gigantic main map from FO3 itself) to explore. Because this expansion replicates the free-roaming nature of FO3, the limitations meaning you can't bring a companion with you is rather inexplicable and annoying. That said, the free-roaming nature of Point Lookout works in its favour, and is truer to the spirit of Fallout than the linear missions of Operation Anchorage and The Pitt. The demented Deliverance-style hillbillies armed with insanely lethal weaponry (at high levels the enemies on this map pose quite a challenge) also make a fine addition to Fallout's arsenal of crazy influences. Overall, this is a very satisfying expansion, but it was also the one I found to be the most unstable, with occasional crashes to desktop and sometimes the screen going totally black, forcing me to quit out.

Mothership Zeta (***½) is the final downloadable episode for the game and is probably the most individual. Investigating an SOS from the Wasteland, you find a crashed alien spaceship. A rescue vessel arrives and you find yourself 'abducted' in the classic X-Files format and have to undergo a 'probing' from first-person viewpoint (luckily you pass out before having to see anything too weird). You learn that the aliens have been abducting people from throughout Earth's history and freezing them, and as you attempt to flee the vessel you amass quite an array of companions, including a cowboy and a samurai (who doesn't understand anything that's going on, but is handy with a katana). You have to make your way through the ship, disabling a 'death ray' which is going to incinerate the Earth along the way, and take out the alien captain before you can return home.

It's very silly and it also has to be said, very linear, possibly even moreso than Operation Anchorage. It is entertaining throughout, however, and you have to respect the work Bethesda put into this one, creating a completely new art style for the alien ship and designing a number of new enemies, NPCs and weapons completely from scratch, with very little reused from the existing Fallout 3 art and technical assets. It is also a little too easy, especially since you regain all of your high-level gear you were stripped of upon abduction within a few minutes of waking up on the alien ship. The puzzles are not particularly challenging, although some of the writing and dialogue is quite strong by Fallout 3 standards (particularly the moments when your various companions learn that the Earth is a burned-out, post-apocalyptic wasteland). You can also revisit the spaceship and your new friends at will once the mission is completed, which is nice but not particularly of value.

Completing Mothership Zeta means the final completion of Fallout 3 itself. Amusingly, the last thing I did before returning to my house in Megaton and hanging up the old gatling laser and power armour for good was randomly bump into Dogmeat (the canine NPC most players meet and recruit about five minutes after leaving the vault at the start of the game, but I'd somehow completely missed and then gone through 90-odd hours of gameplay with never meeting him) and taking him home with me.

The two expansions are available now via Microsoft's Games for Windows Live website or on X-Box Live. They'll be available on the PS3 Network in the next few weeks, and will be included in the Fallout 3 Game of the Year Edition for all three formats due in a few weeks as well. Obsidian Entertainment, including several writers and designers from Fallout and Fallout 2, are currently working on Fallout: New Vegas, a new, stand-alone game using the same engine, for release in late 2010.

Fallout 3: DLC Expansions 1-3

Fallout 3 was an enormous success for Bethesda when it was released last autumn, and Bethesda were quick to confirm they were working on DLC (downloadable content) for the game. Learning from the lukewarm response to DLC for their previous game, Oblivion (shelling out several pounds or dollars to get in-game 'horse armour' was a bit weak), Bethesda decided to make the DLC for Fallout 3 more ambitious, splitting the development team into three to quickly deliver three substantial expansions to the existing game in short order: Operation Anchorage, The Pitt and Broken Steel. This has since expanded to include two further expansions, Point Lookout and Mothership Zeta, which will be released in the coming months.


Operation Anchorage and The Pitt are 'plug-ins' to the existing game and can be played at any time, whether upon emerging from Vault 101 at Level 1 or having completed the original game at Level 20. Broken Steel is a direct sequel to Fallout 3, with new quests expanding the story past the end of the game. It also lifts the experience cap to Level 30. If you finished FO3 and want to carry on earning experience, it makes sense to install Broken Steel before tackling any of the DLC, which makes it a bit odd that they released Broken Steel as third expansion. The two expansions to come are also plug-ins. Assuming you don't do too much random exploring or ruin crawls, the five DLC expansions should just get you to Level 30.

Operation Anchorage (***) opens with a distress signal calling you deep into the Washington, DC ruins, where you find the base of the Brotherhood Outcasts. These individuals were found wandering around the landscape in the original game, but you now get their full story and learn they are trying to get into a vault equipped with some hardcore weaponry and high-level items. The only way to do this is to beat a VR simulation of Operation Anchorage, the US Army's retaking of Alaska after the Chinese invasion in 2077. If you volunteer to undergo the simulation, you enter the battlefield bereft of weapons and have to take the part of a US soldier fighting on the front lines. This is a combat-focused expansion with almost no roleplaying elements at all (save conversations with your commanding officer). Players who liked the VATS-fuelled combat of Fallout 3 will enjoy the battles, the new weapons and in particular the early access to Power Armour (doing Operation Anchorage at Level 1 is eye-opening, as you leave the vault with the best armour in the game). Those who want something more meaty and story-driven may be more disappointed.

The Pitt (***½) also starts with an SOS signal, this time calling you to a train tunnel at the northern edge of the map. Here you meet Wernher, an outcast from 'the Pitt', the enormous rebuilt steel mills of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, who asks your aid in freeing his people from slavery. You agree and have to go incognito as a slave in the Pitt (any NPC allies return to their home and can be re-hired upon your return to DC). Although illogical (at Level 20+ you could go through the Pitt, kill all the slavers and save everyone in about half an hour), being temporarily bereft of all your weapons and armour does reintroduce an element of challenge to the game, and the only weapon allowed to you, the Autoaxe (a mechanical axe with a spinning blade head), is one of the best melee weapons in the game. The Pitt is small, consisting of only a couple of outdoor areas linked by the steel mills and a dungeon-like area called the Scrapyard, but ingeniously designed with maximum use made of vertical space. The story is also solid, with a very morally ambigious climax. Unlike the Anchorage simulation, you can return to the Pitt any time after completing it, but there is very little reason to do so.

Broken Steel (****) is the main attraction of the DLCs and is the best of the three. Your character wakes up two weeks after the end of Fallout 3 (which you may recalled involved a massive water purification project, a face-off between the Brotherhood of Steel and the Enclave and the unleashing of a demented giant weapon of war) to find all-out war raging. The Brotherhood has pushed the Enclave back to the edge of the DC area, but momentum is faltering as the Enclave strike back with powerful new weapons. At the same time, the Brotherhood's attempts to use the Purifier to decontaminate the tidal basin of the Potomac are complicated by the fact that several self-serving groups in the Capital Wasteland are trying to cash in on the new, inexhaustible source of fresh, safe water. The player's job is to investigate these latter problems and put a stop to them, and help the Brotherhood see off the Enclave once and for all.


Broken Steel is an excellent addition to the game, with the raising of the level limit allowing your character to become more skilled and powerful and the addition of some impressive new weapons, such as the Tesla Coil, the only weapon in the game which can shoot down Enclave aircraft. There also seems a lot more to do, with some decent side-quests and a major new area (Edwards Air Force Base) to explore. Also, since Broken Steel takes place on the existing DC map, you can also finish off any random missions you were previously pursuing or explore any buildings you missed the first time around. Finally, unlike FO3 itself, Broken Steel ends with the game world still fully explorable, so you can carry on adventuring or hold out for the next DLC episodes as you please.

The Fallout 3 foray into DLC is mostly a success, adding a decent amount of content to the game for a reasonable price in a reasonable timescale (to have twelve hours or so of content added to the game within six months of its original release is highly impressive). There are some issues, however. Buying the expansions from Games for Windows Live is frustrating experience, notably because the expansions cost 800 points each but you can only buy points in batches of either 500 or 1,000. No matter which way you swing it, you're going to have points left over which you may never use, and thus wasted money. Holding out for the boxed copies is an option, but the fifth one, Mothership Zeta, will only be available online or in the Fallout 3 Game of the Year edition, which isn't due until October. PS3 players have also missed out, with Operation Anchorage not due until next month and the other four at irregular intervals after that. All three DLCs also had some bugs and download issues when they were first released, although these have all now been fixed.

Operation Anchorage, The Pitt and Broken Steel are available to download from Games for Windows for PC and X-Box 360 now, and will hit PS3's Sony Marketplace over the next few months. Boxed omnibus copies of Operation Anchorage/The Pitt and Broken Steel/Point Lookout will be released in the summer on all three formats. Point Lookout will be released on Games for Windows in late June and Mothership Zeta in August. According to strong rumours, Bethesda are not working on a large-scale Fallout 3 expansion and will instead be focusing on The Elder Scrolls V for 2010/2011 release, with Obsidian's Fallout: New Vegas (due in mid-2010) instead filling the gap.