Exploring Fallout 3’s myriad of labyrinth tunnels, fields, roads and buildings was, perhaps, the finest part of an undeniably exceptional game. The finality of its ending, then, proved a sore sport for many Wastelanders eager to continue playing their character after the credits scrolled. It was an anti-genre moment, as the vast map, exhaustive quest options, and the heavy emphasis on looting anything not nailed down made it feel natural to want to return to the ruined utopia for more goodies.

This hasty and abrupt ending was clearly a bit of a sore sport for Bethesda, too, so with Broken Steel – the third set of premium downloadable content for Fallout 3 – the ending has been rewritten. Or, to be more precise, removed entirely: all the Project Purity related stuff at the end of the game still happens, but now you can keep playing after the main quest finishes.

Not only that, but the level cap has been increased to 30, complete with a bevy of new perks to keep everything feeling fresh. Hardly a bad idea by any means, but surely one that would have been served its purpose more efficiently in an earlier piece of DLC. Any character that’s progressed through Operation: Anchorage and The Pitt has just thrown away a bountiful supply of experience, after all. Starting at level 20, you can expect to reach around level 24-25 by the end of Broken Steel. Unless you’ve left plenty of stones unturned, you’d have to wade around the wasteland taking out Raiders for a long time to see level 30.

On The Road Again

Returning to the quest itself, and without wanting to spoil the finale for anyone yet to see it, Fallout’s narrative corrects itself by having you wake up in the Brotherhood of Steel’s Citadel, having spent a fortnight unconscious, to the news that the nefarious Enclave have been reduced to a rather pesky militia. Before long you’re out of bed and roaming around the map searching out the pockets of Enclave resistance, quickly running into a serious snag that forces you back to the Citadel and into devising a new plan of attack. One that won’t go a bit pear-shaped, with any luck.

This initial burst of excitement – certainly up there with some of Fallout 3’s greatest moments – is sadly short-lived. It’s not long before you’re forced to traverse some new underground metro stations which, unsurprisingly, look and play exactly like the old underground metro stations. Roaming around these tunnels feels like a design shortcut, Bethesda opting to take the easy route to pad out their new content.

It’s also a bit insulting to the player, who has seen more than enough of the metro system on their first trek through the storyline. To top it all off, a new monster – the Feral Ghoul Reaver – leads to many tedious altercations due to its ridiculously high amounts of health. They’re rock hard, doused in radiation and handy at lobbing dangerously explosive globs of themselves at you. Even level 20 characters will have a moderately difficult time dealing with the little sods. I found the trick was to lob explosives at them.

Which, in a way, is kind of refreshing. Not since the first encounter with a Deathclaw has the game been so curse-spewingingly difficult. But whereas the immediate response to seeing that first Deathclaw was to turn around and run like the dickens, the game forces you into confrontation with the Reavers, demanding you engage in a handful of long and drawn-out battles against some very difficult odds. Make sure you’re well stocked up on Stimpacks before even attempting it. Or you can just turn the difficultly slider down, but where’s the fun in that?

It’s All So Refreshing

Eventually, after the brief diversion through the Presidential Metro and an encounter with a diligent security robot, you wave goodbye to the subway and move onto the Adams Air Force Base, where the Enclave are residing en masse. It’s here that you’re subject to a bit more visual panache, epic sprawling architecture from the outside and the odd but pleasing juxtaposition of yellows and blues when you get indoors. It helps craft a sense of identity that the repetitive green and grays of the previous sections fail to make up for, but never quite lives up to The Pitt’s distinctive use of red. There are some nice design touches, though, with one of the more memorable sections putting you in a house that’s toppled over, leaving everything at a distressingly jaunty angle.

It’s also here that you stumble upon the new Enclave weaponry, the Heavy Incinerator, and the Brotherhood’s new form of completely overpowered destruction in the shape of a Tesla Cannon. They’re very powerful, as you might imagine.

Bigger and Better?

But, fun though the new big guns are, combat has always been the weakest link in the otherwise splendid chain for Fallout, and it’s a bit of a shame to see that Bethesda have, once again, opted to take an aggressive route for their DLC. There’s very little opportunity to be sneaky or to talk your way out of confrontation. You just blast your way from point to point and ultimately pick from the poorly designed ‘good’ or ‘bad’ options at the end of the experience. Broken Steel lacks The Pitt’s, and much of the main Fallout 3 campaign’s, endearing subtlety in moralistic decisions. It boils down to this: do you cripple the good guys, or the bad guys?

It’s not bad by any means, but in some respects it feels like Broken Steel is playing it a bit too safe, regurgitating past ideas into an enjoyable, if unremarkable, whole. It’s not entirely certain what it wants to be. Advancing the main questline and upping the level cap means it integrates itself well into the regular game, but at the same time it doesn’t really do much to make itself stand out. And whilst reaching level 30 is definitely a time-consuming challenge, the rest of the new content spreads itself out a bit thin. I preferred The Pitt, to be honest, but Broken Steel is definitely worth a look if you’ve got a batch of Microsoft Points burning a hole in your pocket.