Bethesda has now released their “final” piece of downloadable content for their post-apocalyptic role playing game Fallout 3. The last four pieces have all been great and added much to the game extending its already long life to what can only be described as an epic continuation of your characters journey. Fallout 3 Mothership Zeta abducts the player and brings them to an alien ship high above in Earth’s orbit. You will no longer be running around the Capital Wasteland fighting mutants but now you will be fighting Aliens, their robot sentries and their diabolical created abominations as you attempt to escape the ship and return home.

Much like the other downloadable content expansions Mothership Zeta introduces you to a few new characters which will help you or hinder you along the way. It is important to listen to them because they do provide key hints on where to go and what to do on your journey. While they will not provide any combat support you will find a medic who can create bio-gel health packs which are great even with their side effects and a tinkerer who can repair your armor and items for a fee.


Graphically the game looks just as good as always with the ship offering plenty of levels and viewpoints to see the stars and even planet Earth. The level design is your average “dungeon” type of design we have come to expect in a Bethesda game with plenty of hallways, rooms and stairs leading you to new levels and areas. The aliens all look close to the same but you can tell which ones you should shoot and what ones you should miss depending on your karma, but this is not a problem if you are evil. So evil is GOOD and kill everything is more fun.

The audio is well done as always, the voice work is above par and the music as always is good. But did we expect anything else from Bethesda? No, they are one of those companies who always seem to keep a certain level of quality in their games in terms of audio, gameplay and graphics.


Gameplay wise the overall experience is great as it is more of a first person shooter this time rather than a quest driven role playing action game. You will love the new weapons the aliens have and once you get your grubby hands on a few of them you will be blowing everyone apart. I was very happy with what I had and even left with around 4000 caps of weapons to sell to add to my bonus.

Quest wise Mothership Zeta offers just a few quests but they require a bit of problem solving and if you saw Alien you will instantly know how to beat almost all of the quests. One of the interesting quests has you donning a spacesuit and running on the outside of the ship to fix some things so a transporter will work, it is nothing special but it is a bit of a twist on things.


Overall I have to say this is not the best expansion but it is plenty fun and a good distraction if the quest side of Fallout 3 gets a bit old. The weapons you will find make it more than a worthwhile piece of content to buy and of course you can always pick up a few extra power cells for your Alien Blaster.

Bottom Line this is, once again, a must buy for Fallout 3 fans.

Final Score of 9/10


Pros
+ Totally new area to play in
+ Faster action than most of the DLC and the original game offered
+ New weapons
+ Aliens are fun to kill
+ Reminds me of a 1950’s Alien movie
+ Some nice tie-ins with the original Fallout 3 game

Cons
- Action might not appeal to all Fallout 3 fans