Operation Anchorage takes place in the Fallout world's past, before the bombs would drop and turn the planet into the broken, shattered shell of its former self. The Chinese have invaded Alaska, and it's up to you, in this training simulation, to take out key emplacements and lead the charge that would eventually result in the liberation of Anchorage from those blasted commies. It's like a videogame within the videogame!

After downloading Operation Anchorage, which costs 800 Microsoft points, your character will follow a radio signal to a new world map location, where you'll be asked to embark on a simulation of the historic Battle of Anchorage, with some juicy rewards waiting for you at the end. Note that your virtual persona will not have any of your normal gear, but you will still have access to your perks and skills for combat purposes. Sadly, there's not much to do in this content outside of combat, as it's light on role-playing and heavy on the stealthing and shooting.

OpAnch does manage to make the visual experience more varied, as the icy terrain and gorgeous blue skies of Anchorage, Alaska are a stark contrast from the depressing grays and browns of the Capital Wasteland. The differences between the environments are mostly limited to exteriors, however, as indoors the environments feel very similar to what you'd find in the rest of the game, though new Chinese propaganda posters and military weaponry do serve as some welcome new window dressing. We particularly liked the snowmen that you find outside an enemy camp, dressed up like American soldiers and waving the red, white and blue.


If plenty of ice and snow seems like it would get boring, the intense firefights in store could make you reconsider. Chuck a grenade at a squadron of Chinese soldiers hunkered down behind a bunker and watch in VATS as streams of slush and clouds of snow explode into the air along with their bodies. Bethesda also managed to capture the wartime experience you'd normally get from a Call of Duty game, complete with ear-ringing explosions and a camera perspective that will rock you from side to side as artillery fire comes just a bit too close for comfort.

In fitting with the subject matter, Operation Anchorage is a much purer shooting and stealthing experience than the original game, not just in terms of theme, but also in terms of gameplay. For one thing, you won't be able to just pop an infinite number of stimpacks or chug Nuka Cola to heal up in the middle of a firefight. Restorative items have been completely removed, replaced instead with health-restoring terminals available at regular checkpoints, along with a similar ammo dispenser. We didn't find that we ever had to really conserve ammunition, though, at least not on the normal difficulty setting. Missiles and energy weapon ammunition are fairly abundant, as are grenades, so as long as you use a variety of different weapons you won't have much trouble with shortages.