Story
Mothership Zeta starts off with players receiving a broadcast on their trusty pip-boy from an alien spacecraft. Those familiar with the wasteland will know where it leads you. Find the crashed UFO and nothing seems out of the ordinary, that is, until you begin rising into the air in a beam of light. A few moments later, you’ll find yourself on an alien probulator, and finally in a holding cell. This is where you meet Somah, another abductee. And the two of you hatch a plan to make your escape.
Unfortuantely, the novelty of the alien ship wears off quick, and it becomes like a wasteland dungeon crawl, only much longer. You’ll encounter other earthlings that the aliens have brought aboard, but none of them are particularly interesting. The story just has you trying to destroy several generators, make your way to the bridge, destroy more generators, and escape the ship. It’s not very engaging, and simply had me fighting on to escape the ship (I have invested a hundred hours in my character, I’m not leaving him on some alien craft) and return to Earth.
There is never an explanation as to the motive of the aliens, and overall it feels pretty thrown together. I can see what they were going for, the 1950s alien paranoia and little green men, but it’s an idea that was wasted with a plot worse than most sci-fi movies of that era.
Story: 4/10
Gameplay
The gameplay in Mothership Zeta again follows the tried and true Fallout 3 formula, which is fantastic. However, it’s the new additions to items and certain gameplay elements in Mothership Zeta that are important. You spend the entire time on the ship. There are a few nice scenes where the environment is exciting and there is something cool to see, but for the most part it’s the same narrow hallways over and over. It gets old quick.There are several new weapons, all alien, that make their first appearance. There is the electrified baton-like Alien Pulverizer, which is essentially useless if you have any melee weapon. The Alien Atomizer and Disintegrator are neat, and fun to use (any energy weapon that turns the enemies into a pile of dust always give me a kick). However, they aren’t any more powerful than other weapons found throughout the game, and it’s more of the novelty of using these weapons of another world. I don’t understand why they keep adding weapons to this game that aren’t any better than those you already have. It gives you no incentive to use the new stuff. They are very light, which is something I suppose.
There isn’t much else by way of items. There are a few clothing items (Samurai Armor being the coolest), but nothing dramatic in terms of improvements to the power armor you are most likely wearing. There are a few healing items the aliens have laying around, which are nice for healing but have some… interesting… side effects. There is also an alien epoxy, which is supposed to repair your items for you, but I could never seem to get it to work right.
The aliens are cool at first, but there are only a couple of types (varying on what kind of shiny space suit they are wearing) and killing hundreds of them gets pretty old. There are robots which is nothing new. The gem here is the abominations. I won’t spoil exactly what they are, but the way they point at you and cry out before running at you is chilling. An odd thing is the alien workers. They don’t’ attack you, but run off and get other aliens when they see you. That’s not odd. But it’s odd when you kill them you actually get negative karma. So they abducted you and did crazy experiments on you. Fight back and you are a bad person? I just don’t get the design choice there.
The Fallout 3 gameplay is always outstanding. However, Mothership Zeta does very little to improve upon it. It feels rushed, and they didn’t put a lot of care into the new items or enemies. And exploring the unvaried spaceship feels stale after the alien novelty wears out.
Gameplay: 6/10
Presentation
Mothership Zeta adds a lot of new art elements to Fallout 3. There is nothing reused here, and even the crap laying around rooms is alien and weird. It’s kinda fun to look at something and think “I wonder what the heck that is.” The design of the aliens is typical big head, big eyes, and gray skin. But this works in the setting of Fallout. The spacecraft, until it becomes stale, looks very new and detailed. It’s like nothing you’ll find back in the wasteland.The graphics are great, as usual. There are some weird bugs here or there, with textures not loading right or models of characters or enemies being in weird positions. A few times I’ve had enemies shooting at me that were stuck in walls.
The sound is great. There is little by way of music, but what there is works well, with a nice sci-fi feel. The alien sounds are fitting (and if anyone has ever seen Prometheus and Bob on Nickelodeon, they sound exactly like Prometheus). Again, the abominations stand out with their creepy noises that sound like muffled hissing. The rest of the sound effects are appropriately sci-fi, and it all works in the 1950s styling.
Overall, Mothership Zeta adds a lot of interesting things to look at. They did a great job getting creative and exploring what an alien spacecraft would look like. But eventually it gets old. I wish they would have varied the ship more.
Presentation: 6/10
Summary
Mothership Zeta is an interesting add-on to the fantastic Fallout 3. It doesn’t provide much story, and doesn’t really add anything new as far as your character is concerned. It’s the creativity of the situation that makes it worth checking out if you are a big fan of Fallout 3. If you don’t feel like dusting off that copy of the game to check out the mothership, you aren’t missing much. It’s a shame that Fallout 3 had to end with such a lackluster add-on.Final Score: 5/10
(Average of Story, Gameplay, and Presentation)
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