So Far Cry 2 gets a couple of guns, Fable II gets a little island, and now Fallout 3 hits the road. Regardless of how it actually turns out, developer Bethesda showed up other game makers with their announcement of three new downloadable episodes in the works for Fallout 3. Now this sounds like some exciting stuff:

* Operation: Anchorage. Enter a military simulation and fight in one of the greatest battles of the Fallout universe - the liberation of Anchorage, Alaska from its Chinese Communist invaders. An action-packed battle scheduled for release in January.

This is great, since it's long been a part of the Fallout lore. But a military simulation? A la Tranquility Lane? Hmm. They already have the artwork in there for Chinese troops.

* The Pitt. Journey to the industrial raider town called The Pitt, located in the remains of Pittsburgh. Choose your side. Scheduled for release in February.

Ooh, choose your side. I like the sound of that. Go Steelers!

* Broken Steel. Join the ranks of the Brotherhood of Steel and rid the Capital Wasteland of the Enclave remnants once and for all. Continues the adventure past the main quest. Scheduled for release in March.

Wait, what about the "choose your side" stuff? What if I support the Enclave? I do like the sound of continuing the adventure past the main storyline, though. It implies that the level cap might be lifted.

The irony is that it was Bethesda who gave DLC a bad name back when they were offering horse armor for Oblivion. Now they're really putting their collective back into it.

But I'm not entirely convinced for one important reason. Bethesda has done some superlative world-building, RPGing, and even storytelling, but they still haven't mastered the art of more than a couple of characters fighting each other at a time. Fallout 3, like Oblivion, was at its weakest when it tried to get epic. Remember all those knights shuffling around inside dungeon hallways in the Knights of the Nine DLC for Oblivion? The Brotherhood of Steel sorties in Fallout 3 weren't quite that bad, but they were still pretty bad. Sequences like that showcased the bad animation and sometimes questionable AI. Until these problems are solved, I can't imagine how Bethesda is going to do anything non-ridiculous for the battle of Anchorage.

Also, these are announced solely for the Xbox 360 and PC. What's going on that Fallout 3 players on the Playstation 3 have been cut out of the action?