Fallout 3: Operation Anchorage
Fallout of Duty
1/29/2009 8:50 PM | 5 Comments | Page 2 of 3
From a gameplay perspective,
Anchorage does more to play into criticisms of
Fallout 3 than to prove them wrong. The quest -- little more than a dash from one checkpoint to the next, in expectation of the weapon cache waiting at the end -- feels terribly bare, with no sidelines to explore. The uniform ammo dumps, whether motivated by the "simulation" aspect of the story, feel like placeholders.
Ten pieces of hidden intel will yield a new Perk if collected. Strangely, however, completing an objective magically transports you from one part of the sim to another, and if you've missed a piece of intel you might suspect it's because you weren't given the chance to find it.
That's the new Power Armor. White. Pretty.
Granted, the rewards are pretty good: a new variety of Power Armor, a Chinese stealth suit and the highlight: the Gauss Rifle, a bad-ass, high-powered, energy-based rifle that can snipe with the best of 'em. You'll face a new vehicle called the Chimera that has a cool design, though there is no opportunity to drive one. Blowing 'em up will have to do.
During half the expansion you're given the (optional) opportunity to command a strike team. You can choose the team's makeup, which is a nice trick. With five "markers" to spend, you can choose from infantry and grenadiers (one marker each), missile troops and snipers (two), Mr. Gutsy (three) and a Sentry Bot (four). Reinforcements can be called in when one trooper falls, and you have a few basic options for giving orders. I used two grenadiers and missile soldier, and they made a couple objectives easier.
From a story perspective,
Anchorage feels like a missed opportunity. It's played very straight and safe, in ugly contrast to the wild and weird exploits that are such an integral part of
Fallout 3. There is very little surprise here, and almost no intrigue. Those with high Speech skills may be able to add a little twist to the ending, but otherwise there's only a slight wrinkle to look forward to once you're out of the sim pod.
Those who poke around the Outcast Outpost after exiting the pod will find a terminal that suggests the sim experience could have been far stranger than it is. Doing that intensified my sense that
Operation Anchorage wasn't really going all out.
General Chase points out the many ways in which he is rather lame.
This is very evidently an action enterprise, but what kept my attention in
Fallout 3 were the unexpected sights and bizarre characters. The people in
Operation Anchorage are unmemorable to the extreme. Take the tough but fair General Chase and the "stock black dude" Lieutenant Morgan. The latter is ripped out of a hundred movies -- he's quippy and helpful, and so, so bland.
For much of the game you'll work alongside Lieutenant Morgan, a sleepy-eyed '50s banker type. He might deliver a rousing little pep talk, but that's it. Late in the game I proceeded without him, and went 30 minutes without noticing. If Fawkes wandered off for a minute in
Fallout 3, I scrambled like a dad whose kid just disappeared in the hardware store. He's a guy you wanted around, because he made the game more interesting. Morgan needs to go back to selling mortgages.
