A step in the right direction for Fallout 3 DLC, but like the first one it's too damn short!
User Rating: 7 | Fallout 3: The Pitt PC
The Pitt is the second piece of DLC for Fallout 3, and unlike Operation Anchorage, it is a great step in the right direction. You start your adventure to Pittsburgh by receiving a radio transmission that leads you to someone called Werhner. When you first meet Werhner he's under attack by Raiders, but not just any Raiders, they're Pitt Raiders. After gaining a disguise to make you look like a slave, you're lead to a train tunnel that allows you to take an old hand cart to The Pitt, formerly known as Pittsburgh. Upon arrival, you find the locals are just as friendly as they were in the Capital Wasteland, and a shootout begins. After following the trail to the bridge you get a good look at what Pittsburgh has become, and this is struck home by the sign hanging above the bridge welcoming you to the Pitt, with the motto "the state of independence" written below seeming like an incredibly cruel joke. Upon arrival at the gates you can either go peacefully, or kill everyone there. Whatever choice you choose makes no difference really, for as soon as you enter the gates to the Pitt all you're weapons and armour are confiscated and you're sent to the slave quarters to talk with Midea, the woman leading the slave's secret revolt. Of course, this being a tightly run machine, you're quickly forced into the Steelyard to search for ingots, a job that isn't loved by other workers due to the large infestation of trogs in the area. Trogs are one of the main reasons the Pitt is such a fun and deadly place to live. Due to some new strain of radiation, everyone is infected, eventually they die but some get turned into bestial flesh-eaters known as trogs. After collecting 10 ingots (you can run around collecting more, but I would recommend waiting until you've got your gear back), you're entered into the Hole, which is like the Arena in most other games, and most notable, Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. Once you've progressed through the Hole, you're granted your freedom again, giving you back your equipment and letting you speak to Ashur. I have yet to mention Ashur until now, but he is certainly worth mentioning. You see, everything is not as it seems in the Pitt, and while you were originally meant to steal the cure from Ashur who is using it to keep the slaves under his boot, things aren't as they seem and people are full of mystery, making this a brilliant piece of DLC. The new weapons added onto the game make it that much more fun, giving you both the Auto Axe, and the Infiltrator. The Auto Axe is a makeshift slave melee weapon using all the nasty bits of a car's engine and blades. The Infiltrator is a scoped rapid-firing machine-gun, that is incredibly accurate for a machine-gun. The actually Downtown and Uptown of the Pitt don't give you a lot of space to roam about in, but once you're released into the Steelyard and the abandoned apartments, the original free-roaming feel of the original Fallout 3 isn't lost, as it was in Operation Anchorage.
All in all, The Pitt is a brilliant piece of DLC, and a great step in the right direction, but it suffers from the same problem as Operation Anchorage, to the extent that it is too damn short!!
