Written by: Ian

 

 

 

When The Pitt first popped up for download, it was somewhat of a shambles. Missing textures, crashes and bugs were the least of people’s worries.

 

However, now it’s back up and working, does it measure up to the majesty of the main game?

 

 

Like with Operation Anchorage, Pitt takes us out of the wasteland, and into the industrial heartland of Pittsburgh via an old railway tunnel. The story is far better than in Anchorage for several reasons.

 

Firstly, you need to enter the complex as a slave, which forces you to rely on your wits far more. Additionally, nearer the end of the expansion, you get to make some pretty cool, and also very tough moral choices. You really have to think about them, because whichever way you go, it blurs the lines between what is really good and what is really bad.

 

 

Obviously, the gameplay is as you would expect from Fallout 3. However, more of an effort has been made in order to mix things up a little bit here. As mentioned, you enter as a slave, so that means your fancy power armour and plasma rifle are down the drain.

 

 

As a result, combat is mainly melee focused. And that’s no bad thing when you see the weapon that you get pretty early on. It’s called the auto-axe, and it totally rocks. It’s a huge yellow motorised axe that literally chops dudes into bits in a matter of seconds. It’s an incredibly satisfying weapon to use, and one that I’ve continued to use when I can once I returned to the Wasteland.

 

The other quests will include some moral choices as mentioned, which are great, a little bit of stealth, and also some arena based combat. It’s a really good mix, and combined with the fantastic story and RPG elements, you may be thinking this sounds like a perfect DLC. Not quite.

 

All 3 quests will only take about 2 hours, making this really poor value. You could take longer if you want to find all 100 steel ingots, which will net you 20 gamerscore and also a few rare items.

 

However, it’s an improbably dull (and really hard, due to how small the items are) fetch quest that left me frustrated and annoyed.

 

 

Therefore, I just left it at the minimum, and reactions on forums seem to suggest most other people have followed this approach too. It’s a shame, because with some more proper quests, this would have been an AMAZING downloadable.

 

 

The graphical style of The Pitt is truly excellent. The upgraded effects patched in with Anchorage make the Areas look fantastic. The new Areas and creatures have a brilliantly dirty, industrial feel that suits the storyline and backstory perfectly. There’s some great lighting effects too with some of the huge forges that you see working away in the background.

 

The sound is equally impressive, with far more new speech and music than is found in Anchorage. The speech is delivered very well, although you do occasionally hear the same voice actor playing more than one character.

 

 

N/A

 

 

'Fallout 3' second downloadable content, "The Pitt" could have been superb, but at roughly 2 hours (unless you really, really want to find all the steel, which isn’t worth it), it’s unacceptably short for the price.

 

The new setting, monsters and characters are all excellent, but you’d have to be a big fan for this to be truly worth a purchase.

 

 

 

 

+ Graphical style
+ New characters are excellent
+ Moral choices