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Broken Steel
Written by: Grant Hatchimonji
The well-known "Fallout 3" has received multiple doses of downloadable content since its release back in October of 2008 and the third installment, "Broken Steel," has now been released—and it appears a bit rushed. The game is chock full of bugs and crashes, which is quite a shame since there is a lot of greatness to be found in "Broken Steel."
The visuals are still stunning; the dilapidated ruins of Washington, D.C., are dark and drab, and they create the perfect atmosphere of a post-apocalyptic world. The only issue with this is that these are the exact same environments that were used in "Fallout 3." What was so great about the first two DLCs, "Operation: Anchorage" and "The Pitt," was that they introduced completely new regions with their own unique atmospheres: the former, a snowy Alaskan landscape, the latter, the polluted, grimy city of post-apocalyptic Pittsburgh. With "Broken Steel," you're traversing many of the same areas that you did in "Fallout 3" and even the new locales—such as Adams Air Force Base, the base of operations for antagonists the Enclave—are done in the exact same style. So while the graphics look great, the environments are nothing we haven't seen before.
The new content is definitely the greatest part about "Broken Steel," in both quantity and quality. Myriad weapons and armor are now available, including Enclave Hellfire Armor (a heavy set of armor that offers bonuses to fire resistance), the heavy incinerator (a long range flamethrower that shoots fireballs at your enemies) and the incredibly fun Tesla Cannon. (Ever wanted to shoot bolts of electricity at your enemies? Now you can!)
The main quests that have been added to the game, which take place after the ending of the original story line of "Fallout 3," are challenging enough to the point that it still remains fun without getting infuriating, adding on another good four to five hours to the game (in main quests alone). After you have finished the main quests, there is no longer an official cut-off point or ending to the game, so you're free to just wander and encounter the many other new enemies and side quests that have also been added, bringing many more hours of enjoyable gameplay.
Possibly the greatest part about "Broken Steel" is that it lifts the original game's meager level cap from 20 to 30. I can say that while playing through "Fallout 3," I maxed out my character a little after halfway through the main story, which was pretty disappointing since some of the best parts of an RPG are leveling up and improving or learning new abilities. Along with the new level cap are more of the game's trademark "perks," which are basically new unique buffs that can be applied to your character every couple of levels. Some of the most interesting ones include "Puppies!," which allows your canine friend, Dogmeat, to be respawned if he is killed, and "Nuclear Anomaly," which causes you to erupt in a nuclear explosion when your health is below 20 HP, killing all of your surrounding enemies, after which you are healed.
While "Broken Steel" has some really great stuff going for it, it's all moot when the game isn't working, which is unfortunately quite often.
Of the three installments of downloadable content that have been released for "Fallout 3," the one that has been most heavily criticized by reviewers for technical issues was the second DLC, "The Pitt." This seems puzzling to me, because the problems in "The Pitt" were nothing compared to those found in "Broken Steel," which is inundated with bugs that cause the game to crash, rendering it unplayable at times. Somehow, other reviews tend to gloss over this.
Things didn't look good for "Broken Steel" from the start. When it was first released, the DLC had to be pulled from the Windows Live Marketplace—the virtual marketplace through which it is sold and downloaded by PC users—because of an error that made it impossible for players to even install the game, much less play it. Beyond this critical issue, there was also a problem that prevented gamers' in-game achievements—certain milestones or feats performed within the game—from being properly recorded on their Windows Live accounts.
Eventually, the game was put back up on the Marketplace for download, but the achievement issues were still not fixed. Like all video games that are on Live, the achievements in "Broken Steel" are supposed to be worth certain amounts of points that are added to the player's Gamerscore. After being re-released, the game would say that the achievements were being unlocked, but the points were not added to the Gamerscore.
Even worse, by the time Microsoft finally fixed this issue and updated the game, the result was that any achievements you unlocked during the interim were no longer unlocked, and therefore you didn't get the points—which you should have been awarded—added to your Gamerscore.
If issues with the achievements system don't concern you, "Broken Steel" is still plagued with enough problems to hinder your experience with the new content. At times, the game can be virtually unplayable; while playing through the new missions, I once had the game crash on me three times in a 10-minute span. Other times, the game will run relatively smoothly and only crash every now and then. The one problem that is by and far the most consistent, however, is that you actually cannot quit the game without it crashing. If you hit "exit game," the program simply freezes and you must use the task manager (Control-Alt-Delete) to manually shut the game down. I have literally not had a single game session in which the game closed properly.
Updates and patches for Windows Live games are all done automatically whenever you start the program, so I can say with confidence and certainty that this is not an issue of me not having the most recent version of "Broken Steel"; these problems have yet to be fixed. Should Microsoft ever get around to patching up these bugs and crashes, there will be a far less frustrating (and far more enjoyable) experience to be found here.
Score: 6.9/10
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