Today marks the release of Fable 3's first mission based (or rather quest based) DLC. The Understone DLC promises a new location, new weapons, the return of the Wheel of Misfortune, new enemy types and a new shooting range. But is it worth the $5 (400 MSP) price tag? Read on and you'll see.
(keep in mind, I haven't had a chance to truly try out the Wheel of Misfortune so I have no real opinion on it and I played through the DLC after I beat the main game)
From the get go, you'll get two new ranged weapons, the Marksman 500 (a rifle) and The Full Monty (a pistol that doesn't reveal all, which may be a good thing), which I found both to be better than most of the other ranged weapons I have. The Full Monty I was ably to fully upgrade before I finished playing through the main miss-I mean quest. There's two other ranged weapons that you can get, but you can only get them if your score is high enough in the new shooting range, a rifle (whose name I can't remember for the life of me at the moment) and the Black Dragon, a super powerful pistol that should ring a few bells for those who read The Balverine Order.
The new shooting range in the Bandit Camp is slightly reminiscent of the Westcliff Shooting Range in Fable 2. Like the Westcliff range, the goal is to shoot as many targets as possible (headshots gaining you more points) in order to get the high score and hopefully, the super bitching pistol. That's about where the similarities end. Where the Westcliff range you had a few rounds to get as many points as possible and you could only shoot one type of the targets (depending on whether or not you decide to help develop the town or not) and the targets were static save for when they dropped.
The Bandit range is much simpler. As Lemmy (the guy who made, runs, and talks non stop about the range) puts it, you have to shoot everything. It's quite easy to get headshots this time around as you can automatically pop your redicle on the heads. But as if to add a bit of difficulty to this, the targets glow the same color as your redicle when it's on the target, making it difficult to judge if you're going to get a chest shot or a headshot, and a few of the targets move about. You no longer have several rounds to net as many points as possible, but instead a set amount of time to nab as many points similar to the mortar in the Mourningwood Fort.
The main meat of this DLC is Understone itself. The quest starts with a factory owner in Bowerstone Industrial who believes along with his workers that the factory is haunted because they can all hear a voice ordering people around. He sends you into the factory's cellar to 'perform an exorcism' which soon enough leads you to Understone. I'm not going to say what really happens here, but I found the end twist to be interesting enough. But be prepared to fight waves and waves of skeleton hobbes and one of the new enemy types, skeleton wolves.
The other enemy type is what can be described as a steampunk robot, whom you'll have to use all three combat types in order to defeat. Unfortunately, you only get to fight this guy once.
One letdown of the new area is the fact you can't fast travel there once you finish the quest. You can return, but you'll have to fast travel to one area and enter Understone not unlike a cave or a basement. And also, even though it's labeled as a city built underneath a city, the actual 'city' part of Understone is more of a small town with a few good properties to buy. Seriously, you time in Understone is filled with more tunnels and 'The Voice' than it is the actual 'city'.
In all of this, you only get to make one moral decision. I can't really say which one is better, as I'm pretty sure that regardless of your decision you'll still be able to buy all the houses and stalls (I can be wrong though).
Another downside to Understone is that it's short. As in, you'll finish the majority of it in about an hour. I was eating lunch when I was playing through Understone, so it'll probably take you less time if you're giving it your full attention to beat.
What's the final verdict? Well, you can do a whole lot worse, but then again you can do a hell of a lot better than Understone. With Fable 2's meaty Knothole Island and See the Future DLC, I was expecting this to be a whole lot meatier and to offer more unique items, but Understone lacks this. The only unique items you can get is four ranged weapons which takes almost no time to acquire them all (seeing as half the set is given to you once you start up the game), and maybe an item makeup and an item of hair. I may be wrong on the hair and makeup part, but I'm almost certain that I didn't see them until Understone.
If you have money to burn and can't get enough Fable 3 action, get Understone. Otherwise, pass it or wait for a price drop. There isn't really enough content here to justify the $5 price tag.
At least you can visit the Demon Barber of Fleet Street:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHP2DAYRiGA 
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