Mothership Zeta - Review

Well its done, the final DLC is out, and to be honest... I think its a bad way to go.
enough of that for now lets get onto the review.


Well it all starts the second you step outside vault 101, you pick up a strange new signal to investigate as with all of the DLC (bar Broken Steel).

Due to this you can set foot onto the wastes for barely 10 minutes and chose to be whisked away into the stars. I do however strongly suggest you get in a good few levels before trying, high teens is an absolute minimum if you ask me, more on that soon.

so you make it to Recon Craft Theta, those emergency beacon has strangely been amplified to cover the entire Capital Wastes, and see no immediate differences. Once you get close enough to the ship you are picked up by a giant tractor beam and begin you slow, blue glow filled, 50's cliché abduction! floating rocks and all.

Story Synopsis – Minor spoilers
after a pretty disturbing blurry vision probe you will black out again and wake in your cell with fellow wastelander Somah, this is where he story begins. you quickly think up a fool proof scheme to escape and follow through with it by beginning to beat the crap out of eachother, and then turning on your little green guards as soon as the shield door comes done, as mentioned before its all very cliché. I won't give away too much story but you find your salvation in a little girl called Sally who knows the ship like the back of her hand, and despite having lost her entire family in the great war of 2077 (yes she is still a little girl) seems extremely happy, this proved quite annoying to me as everytime I followed one of her requests she would pop up splurting her super happy fun comments... I don't know maybe she just needs some friends (or a psychiatrist)

after traversing the completely linear hallways (with the ever helpful guidance of Sally) you will come across a dilemma, this will cause you to need to go out into space for a short while, oh and as chance has it there is a spaceman in cryo-stasis on board (along with a Samurai, Cowboy and Anchorage Medic, each of these people seem to be of at least decent use in certain areas, modifying alien biogel to heal humans, pumping lead into alien skulls and slicing their way through pretty much anything. Despite their seeming usefulness ultimately it will come down to whether you want to fight to keep THEM alive against the horribly overpowered aliens or just kill them yourself and get some unique weapons and armour, good character or bad I'm pretty sure you all know the best choice.

after murdering your way through cryo-labs, weapons research labs, robot assembly and don't forget the livin quarters you will have a final face off with the captain. I won't give to much away but after your not to friendly encounter you will come to the great finale! Which I would love to talk about but dont really want to give away the ending, lets just say this could be a hard a hard battle if you are on your own, having to fend off aliens from behind and an entirely giant new threat ahead, afte dealing with both your will be able to beam yourself back to earth. Congratulations you are back on earth and away from the evil ship, but was it all worth it?

Weapons and Combat

On-board Zeta you will find a some new w

eapons, all with a unique variant hidden somewhere on-board. When I say some, I really mean

some – There is one melee weapon, 2 energy, short and long and a heavy energy weapon. You

will find some

other weapons from Earth's past and a couple of other unique weapons but they all leave a little to be desired. These weapons, while not that effective at all, are practically the only weapons useful on Zeta as the aliens seems pretty resistant to human technology, don't let that stop you pumping a 12 gauge into their head though, that's still pretty effective ;).

Armour is all but non-existent on-board the ship as the aliens bullet stopping armour would be just too small for you, sorry. The only armour you will find is that which you loot from your dead friends so best bring your own.

Finally there is one of my biggest gripes. The completely over powered enemies. Where most of the aliens will go down like most strong enemies, all to often you will bump into a predator like almost invisible enemy, wearing his super strong energy shield. While exactly the same as the other aliens on-board this armour leaves them as one of the strongest enemies in the game, taking more than 3 direct Tesla cannon hits to put down.

While I understand bethesda putting these in to give the player a challenge, I think I speak for everyone when I say a strategic enemy that takes cover and flanks is much more fun then a half invisible bullet sponge that makes you use more stimpaks than a behemoth.

Environment

While refreshingly new and different from the bleak old wasteland the perfectly sterilised and shiny interiors of Zeta are just too different yet to common. The wow factor quickly wore off as I found myself traversing the same corridor multiple times and think oh look that pipes on this side now, and, where did the orange fluid tubes go?

Sure its different, sure its fun, but it gets old a lot faster then the vast wasteland.

Even the much awaited space-walk was a let down, I was outside for 2 minutes having to do a menial task and then straight back inside, I think maybe a little bit of dirt and grime here and there wouldn't have gone a miss

I haven't Really included an exploration Portion this review, this is because it's practically non-existent. The only thing you will be searching for are the unique alien weapons and the Capture logs for the Achievement... Let me tell you - this alone sucked most of the fun out for me, only to find at the last minute I had missed 1 and couldn't go back as the doors had become INACCESSIBLE... yeah great work on that one huh? my advice is to either use a guide or just do it on another save some time - don't waste the time or stress searching.

Overall

Overall I think Mothership Zeta is a bit of a let down, as for the last big DLC, sure it has that big difference thing going for it, I mean who would have guessed fallout would have aliens, but as for actual interaction with them, I think it would have been best left untouched.

If you are looking for a DLC as linear as anchorage with no sign of a story and enemies harder then Broken Steel then go for it, but for me... I wish they would repeal that 'No-Refunds' Policy.

8 for Effort but come Bethesda is this really it?

Did I mention there about 5 different loots to find, 2 enemy types and practically no exploration?

We at Inbetween-Gamers give Zeta

5 / 10

best choice? Hardly.