Nate Lanxon

Wednesday 1 April 2009, 12:21pm

Fallout 3's The Pitt: Like Ravenholm, but with slaves

If you enjoyed the Ravenholm chapter of Half Life 2, you'll almost certainly love the latest downloadable content for the epic post-apocalyptic RPG Fallout 3 -- welcome to The Pitt.

I just completed the expansion pack, which takes you away from the desolate, radioactive wastelands of Fallout 3 to a new world map. Populated with diseased, psychotic abominations of the human form, and a battle royale segment not dissimilar to the Crucible challenge in Fable II, The Pitt is a dark, heavily action-driven expansion offering between two and five hours of gameplay, depending on how you play.

This is a Trog, and you'll be killing lots of these

You enter a new slave-filled city via a tunnel from the Capital Wasteland after responding to a radio signal requesting help. Your mission: find a cure for the raging sickness inside the city and free the slaves. Or massacre them. It's up to you.

The Pitt largely follows the trends set by Fallout 3 itself -- raiders to kill, objects to find, several paths through the quest, people to either befriend or behead. But it lacks a much-desired raising of the level cap, which irritated me.

Meet Ashur: head honcho in The Pitt. Despite his spiky appearance, he's an alright dude

Graphically it's more detailed than the main game, with NPCs appearing more engaged in their surroundings. The industrial grunge of the metalwork factory appeared greater in scope than many environments of the main game, too.

And despite almost every in-game character deserving a swift bullet through the face, and the city itself being as detestably unwelcoming as Ravenholm, it's a fun place to be. Just don't expect a radical new storyline, or new gameplay styles. Though there are four new achievements to earn, and an awesome new melee weapon, along with new armour.

Graphically sweet, and it comes with a delicious Auto Axe weapon

The Pitt is available for download now on Xbox Live for 800 Microsoft points (about £6.70).

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