NMA Operation: Anchorage review

Brother None

Brother None

This ghoul has seen it all
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NMA's Mikael Grizzly take us with for a quick jaunt through Anchorage, Alaska. Conclusion? Not worth it.<blockquote>Because that's what Operation Anchorage is. It's a linear shooter in which you follow a pre-set path, shooting Chinese in the process. Combat wasn't the best part of Fallout 3, with overpowered VATS and AI that makes politicians look like MENSA members, but there it was at least balanced with exploration and some character interaction. In the grim past of the Fallout world, there's only war.

And you're fighting alone again, to make it worse - the touted "strike force customization" feature is a failure, as you have no control over their behaviour and their AI is pretty much nonexistent. So, in the end, you still have to shoot everything yourself, since your squad either ends up dead, stuck or watching the wall.

What further degrades the gameplay is how sparsely populated the battlefield is. One would expect the final confrontation between American and Chinese forces in Anchorage to include massive amounts of soldiers and ordnance with, but no, the operation feels more like a small skirmish on the sideline of the actual battle. Tense trench warfare in Anchorage is a yawn-inducing walk through narrow corridors, blasting the occassional mandarin-speaking grunt to pieces in overpowered VATS. A large vehicle depot supporting many tanks is a small yard with ten grunts to kill. The final "push" adds injury to insult, as it consists of six T-51b Power Armour soldiers running through an ice field to blow up a door.</blockquote>
 
Brother None said:
NMA's Mikael Grizzly

What further degrades the gameplay is how sparsely populated the battlefield is. One would expect the final confrontation between American and Chinese forces in Anchorage to include massive amounts of soldiers and ordnance with, but no, the operation feels more like a small skirmish on the sideline of the actual battle.

A large vehicle depot supporting many tanks is a small yard with ten grunts to kill. The final "push" adds injury to insult, as it consists of six T-51b Power Armour soldiers running through an ice field to blow up a door.</blockquote>
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Well, there is an old Falloutish principle, that number of characters in a location is symbolic. Complaining about that will lead to creation Fallout: Total War RTS. "Guns of Navarona" look for me very anachronistic in the XXI century (however according to Van Buren some nuclear/large caliber artillery could be possible).

Of course epic Anchorage campaign is poor choice for Fallout adventure, or the bitter truth is, that it was US propaganda only and there were so few Power Armor units there and China rule us and whole Kansas is changed into Chinese concentration camp and.....
 
Doesn't work that way in a first person perspective, it's expected that what you see is what exists in totality, unlike Fallout where you could obviously infer from the isometric perspective that you weren't getting the biggest picture of a town or city, the map screen lent that effect as well.

In this case, there is no such illusion, so if it's supposed to be a history-making battle, then it damn well better look like one to be convincing.
 
Well, one of the notes in a VSS terminal says:

Entry 0540

Sim back up and running after another few days of changes. Chase is running everyone ragged, making tweaks here and there.
The sim is, without any shadow of a doubt, divorced from reality. I've never seen the classified military reports, but some of the stuff Chase has added to the sim? There's no way it happened like that.
Version 7-36-099 was scrapped after Chase decided his face didn't look just right. I realize progress reports aren't the place for this, but there are concerns that the man is losing it. No one confronts him because everyone is scared. After West-Tek dropped off the grid, there were lots of rumors about the military commandeering private contractors, and no one wants to give Chase a reason to do that here. But really, what's the point in running this sim over and over and over? Any tactical data was mined months ago.
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So it's not as if the simulation is supposed to be "historically accurate".
 
Ausir said:
So it's not as if the simulation is supposed to be "historically accurate".
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That's almost besides the point...

The review is talking about the feel of the battle, and Bethesda's apparent failure to make it feel "right".

But on the point made here, even ingame it doesn't make sense. How would you mine data from an incomplete simulation? Unless Chase "adding" things is shorthand for him removing all the enemy soldiers :roll:
 
For some odd reason, Bethesda cuts most plot exposition from the released game.

There's an unimplemented holotape containing reconstructed VSS employee chatter, including a statement about Chimera tanks being a fantasy, as they weren't present in Anchorage.
 
"So it's not as if the simulation is supposed to be "historically accurate".
Ooooooorrrrrr perhaps Bethesda realized their failed attempt at what could have been a unique and interesting battle and decided to throw that in there to "explain" said failed attempt.
 
I had heard this DLC was horrible by friends who had, unfortunately, paid for it. Beyond their problems with the GFWL insanity, they said it was short and literally worthless. Minus the Gauss rifle, which had been added by modders prior to the DLC release, I believe.

I almost thought about trying it except I had deleted Fallout 3 from my computer in November and sold off the disc. And god knows I have no intention of going back to that p.o.s.
 
The idea, frankly with Anchorage is not that bad, for Bethesda. But the accomlishment by them ... like with a lot of things is a rather sloppy and bad one. They really should not have tried to make a shooter experience. There are already a lot of games that provide exactly that and to say it with a lot of better graphic and content and much better gameplay even.

I mean if anything Oblivion is a indication. And still seems to be in the "heads" of a few Bethesda developers. Anchorage? Invasion of the "main chinese" position with 6 dudes in Powerarmor? Yes ... like the invasion of Kvatch or Bruma with 5 imps and the defense maybe 10 soldiers with swords ... deadra invasion my ass ...
 
Yeah, they never could do an invasion properly. Armies are generally large groups of people, not a couple monsters/soldiers/etc.

Some things, if they cannot be done properly, shouldn't be done at all.
 
By the way, the portrayal of the Chinese in Fallout 3 (Here's commentary of one Chinese gamer) is one of the things Bethesda handled better than Black Isle did in Fallout 2 . They actually seem based culturally on 1950s China, as opposed to Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan movies.
 
The game was released in China? Did they not at least removed the chinese from Fallout 3 before it like the "nuclear references and Megaton bomb quest" for the Japanese version ... I mean you ... know to not accidently offend someone.
 
He's a Chinese guy who lives in the US (but was born in China, IIRC). It probably wasn't released in Mainland China, but could have been released in Taiwan or Hong Kong.

And I don't think the Chinese are portrayed in an offensive way in FO3. If I were Chinese, I would be more offended by the Shi in FO2, with the whole town based on cliches and stereotypes. Having Ashley Cheng, a guy of Chinese descent, on the team probably helped.

The only Chinese people whose opinions on this matter I know are the above Bethsoft forum guy and Ian Rex Miles Exitium Cheong Sol Wen Invictus Xian, and neither seems offended.
 
Mikael Grizzly said:
For some odd reason, Bethesda cuts most plot exposition from the released game.

There's an unimplemented holotape containing reconstructed VSS employee chatter, including a statement about Chimera tanks being a fantasy, as they weren't present in Anchorage.
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This sounds like they wanted to put it in the full game, but ditched it for not enough time or resources, or poor quality, or poor writing, or whatever.
Then they patched it up somewhat to be released as a DLC.
 
Hmm, let's count. The DLC is about two hours to complete, meaning you get paid $5 per hour. Unless they bump it up to the minimum wage of $6.55, I would not play it either.
 
Ausdoerrt said:
Hmm, let's count. The DLC is about two hours to complete, meaning you get paid $5 per hour. Unless they bump it up to the minimum wage of $6.55, I would not play it either.
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On very easy at a relatively fast pace, the entire Operation: Anchorage DLC can be completed in a little over 30 mins tops.
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the thing that bothers me most about operation anchorage is that the whole chinese invasion force was apparently repelled by one guy (without power armor), who destroyed three artillery pieces, two fuel tanks, three chimeras, around 40 chinese soldiers and one chinese general (well...it was more like "[INT] It's over! Don't be stupid!").
epic battle my a**. makes me wonder what they needed the t-51b for at all.
 
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