Review: The Pitt

Game Review: Fallout 3 DLC: The Pitt
Release: March 24th, 2009
Genre: RPG / Shooter
Developer: Bethesda Software
Available Platforms: Xbox 360
Players: 1 (Offline)
MSRP: 800 Microsoft Points ($10)
ESRB Rating: M (Mature)
Website: http://www.bethblog.com

Fallout 3 was introduced to the world in October of last year. Since then Bethesda has released two separate DLC packages for it. The Pitt is the second of three set to appear on the Xbox Live Marketplace. The Pitt takes your character to the post-nuclear version of Pittsburgh. You are quickly informed that a disease is crippling the slave population of The Pitt and turning normal people into Trogs a fast and fierce new enemy in the Fallout world. You are tasked with getting chummy with the leader of The Pitt and snatching the cure before it is too late.

In order to do this you will first have to sneak into The Pitt, disguised as a slave, do some dangerous dirty work for one of the slavers, and survive a battle to the death in a makeshift arena. To encourage you to do this Bethesda has given players 4 new achievements to strive for, worth a total of 100 Gamerscore.

One of the first, and most positive things, you will notice about this DLC is that it has an absolutely phenomenal atmosphere. As you stumble across a mine and car littered bridge towards the city it is hard not to be awe struck at the gorgeous details that make up the skyline. Smoke billows across an evening sky, dogs bark in the distance, and the sound of Wildmen (humans living outside the city limits) rallying one another all make you feel like you are in for something incredible.

With this DLC comes 9 new weapons, 18 new armors, 3 new perks, and numerous new locations. Of these new additions almost everything is a success. The Auto-Axe is easily my favorite weapon to use now, and The Infiltrator (Silenced, Scoped, Assault Rifle) is satisfying every time I pull the trigger. The new armors look unique for the most part, and offer some nice bonuses. The perks aren’t as exciting, mostly just raising stats specifically for the new weapons.

As I mentioned earlier, The Pitt introduces a new creature to the mix, the Trog. These new creatures can leap, run, and generally sneak up on you quickly. It injects a nice bit of adrenaline into the game, and they are a welcome addition.

Another nice, and unexpected feature of the DLC is that it gives you quite a few opportunities to make good and bad karma choices (something Operation: Anchorage lacked almost entirely). You can rat our friends to a seedy slave who uses the information as leverage to do less work, or ignore him completely, among other things.

Despite all of these positive aspects, there are a few things that keep The Pitt from being a must buy. First and foremost, The Pitt is short, arguably even shorter than Operation: Anchorage. The quests are never challenging (The Arena specifically, I was able to blow through the three quick bouts armed with nothing more than the Auto-Axe and one Stimpak)

The Mill adds a bit more length to the overall experience, tasking you with collecting 100 Steel Ingots. This particular environment is laid out magnificently and the rewards for collecting the Ingots are great, but as it is entirely optional some might choose to skip it, stunting the length of the DLC.

Finally, while I didn’t experience any myself, there have been some reports of glitchy and buggy gameplay. Things like game crashes, audio dropout, and poor collision detection. Most of the time these incidents only occurred once or twice, but it is something to keep in mind when making your purchase decision.

Verdict: If you loved Fallout 3, and you’re looking for another reason to jump back in to its engrossing world The Pitt gives you an excellent excuse. The story might be lacking, but the new weapons, perks, and other rewards contribute to the overall experience of the game, and should not be missed.