Review: Fallout 3 Mothership Zeta

The old saying goes “In space, nobody can hear you scream” which, if you've been abducted by aliens, could be a bit of a problem. And in ‘Mothership Zeta’, the latest DLC for Fallout 3, that is exactly what has happened.

This is a case for Mulder and Scully

The beginning of the DLC follows a theme similar to most of the previous pieces of content, with a radio transmission being picked up by your Pip-Boy. Going on a bit of a trek across the Wasteland, you'll eventually come across a crash site. Unfortunately, you won't have time to investigate the site, as stepping into the area will trigger a bright beam of light that consumes you, leading you up towards the sky. An episode from the X-Files springs to mind here.

And things get even weirder as the next cut-scene shows our hero having some experiments performed on him, with your very stereotypical little green men standing in front of you, looking menacing and slightly scary. You’ll then awake in a cell with another person, and your quest begins.

Back to the safety of the Capital Wasteland?

As you can probably guess, the whole purpose in Mothership Zeta is to try and escape your abductors and get back to earth, to the relative safety of the Capital Wasteland. Now there’s a sentence I never thought I’d say.

And the reason why I believe the Wasteland to be a safer place than the alien space craft? It’s the relative unknowns you are thrown into. All of your possessions are taken from you, including your clothing. So you have no weaponry and no clothing to protect you at the beginning of your break out attempt. You do manage to get your possessions back, but do make sure you investigate every little part of the ship, otherwise it could be easy to miss the location in which they are stored.

You also have the option of picking up the weapons used by the aliens. And it’s honestly a good thing, as your weapons aren’t the most effective against some of these alien beings. As you’d expect from an advanced species, a lot of the aliens appear to be protected by a shield, which makes killing them that little bit harder.

Unfair advantage

However, this is also where the first real issue in the content raises its head. Most of the aliens you come across will have this shield, but the strength they posses varies from alien to alien. You may find one shot will destroy the alien, or a whole clip might be required. There just appears to be no set value of strength associated with each alien on the ship.
But this isn’t the only issue with the latest DLC. When you do complete the content you are able to travel to and from the ship whenever you please, using the crash site in the Wasteland as a teleportation point.

Despite being able to travel back to the ship, you are unable to travel around it, with only the Bridge being open and available to you. If you like to earn all of the achievements for the game, then this could be a problem for you. One of the four new achievements that can be unlocked with Mothership Zeta asks you to find recordings scattered around the ship. But not being able to travel around the ship once the content is completed, means all of the recordings need to be uncovered before you head to the Bridge.

Computer says no

And it’s a decision taken by Bethesda that I can’t quite understand. There is no real reason given to stop you from travelling around the ship. You’d expect all of the aliens to have been defeated trying to save the ship from being taken over by you. Or at the very least, will have teleported away from the ship in an evacuation. Even if there is still the odd alien on the ship, it’s not a good reason to confine you to the ships Bridge.

It does slightly spoil the content for you as well, as once completed there is no real replay value. I made the mistake of not exploring the ship too much at the beginning of the quest due to the difficulty I was having killing the enemy aliens. I was also expecting to be able to freely explore the ship once I had completed the quest.

But you should say yes

There is no doubt though that once again Bethesda has created an enjoyable piece of content here. Some people probably won’t like the more linear style quest contained in Mothership Zeta, but this alone is not really a reason to not get the game.

There are some very good pieces of weaponry to pick up on the ship that not only work well in the Wasteland, but also have one heck of a sell on rate. You can expect your Bottlecap levels to dramatically rise once you arrive back to Earth.

If you enjoyed the other pieces of content, then there is no doubt you will enjoy Mothership Zeta. It’s a totally original storyline for the Fallout universe, and the environment it puts you in certainly makes you think a bit more than some of the other previous pieces of content might have done. It’s not the best DLC pack released for Fallout 3, but it’s certainly not bad. If however you have to make a choice between this content and the others, I’d have to go with Broken Steel. It’s still the Daddy of them all.