Fallout 3: Point Lookout Review
What's that coming over the hill?
Version tested: Xbox 360
It's a rare game indeed that warrants the investment of time that Fallout 3 does. Yet somehow the sprawling post-apocalyptic wasteland drags us back no matter how many times we think we should be bored of it. Already four DLC packs down the line, Bethesda has certainly delivered on its promise of episodic content - but so far, the quality has been a little variable. Cue a gravel-voiced "Previously on Fallout 3"...
Operation Anchorage was an inauspicious way to kick off the DLC onslaught, with a boringly easy, overly linear trudge only saved by the intriguing scenario. Then came the infamous The Pitt debacle, which, although it was a much better extension to the storyline, was fraught with technical difficulties when it first appeared.
Last month's Broken Steel did the hardcore fans a huge favour by raising the level cap and adding new perks. But although the missions felt better integrated into the existing Washington DC wasteland, it was all a little "business as usual" until the rip-roaring finale. Maybe this time Bethesda could deliver on all fronts.
Hopes have certainly been high in the run-up to release. Pre-release chatter insisted that Point Lookout would be less hemmed-in, allowing for a much greater degree of exploration than previous episodes: an exciting prospect.

Harry Redknapp's not looking so good these days.
Set in a swampland area in the distant peninsula of Point Lookout, the episode kicks off with the note that a certain Captain Tobar is offering passage to "any merc, treasure hunter or adventurer" who's looking to explore. Arriving at the riverboat dock at Protomac in the south-eastern corner of the map, you're told of a land of "warm beaches and luscious wetlands", which is of course a complete lie.
After a brief chat with a distressed woman looking for her lost daughter, the amiable Tobar sails you across, and the adventure begins for real.
At this point, you're free to just wander off and explore the full map without restriction, and it quickly becomes apparent that the swampland is indeed quite a large area - estimates suggest it's almost one fifth the size of the entire Capital Wasteland. Along your way you'll find the peeling remnants of a "fabled pleasure town of the sunny past", including a gigantic ferris wheel, souvenir shops, a lighthouse, churchyard, cave network and mansion. The slightly gloomy, murky feel gives it a cloying atmosphere. Swamp Ghouls and Swamplurks thrive in the dampness, so you'll be expected to battle long and hard if you feel in the mood to poke around much.
Elsewhere, the usual assortment of eclectic residents go about their lives, and you can go and pay them a visit if you're feeling nosy - which of course you have to be in this game. Some offer inconsequential fetch quests, with the usual rewards for carrying them out; others just look like escapees from The Hills Have Eyes, and waste no time trying to kill you in the face.
Going by such names as Bruiser, Brawler, Scrapper and Creeper, these deceptively challenging human foes hunt in packs. First you might catch sight of a scrawny shotgun-wielding short guy screaming redneck cusses in your general direction, but wherever the Creeper goes, a towering Bruiser with crazily bulging biceps goes too. These lumbering, mutated simpletons with faces that even a mother couldn't love can really take some punishment, so it's useful to reach Point Lookout absolutely armed to the teeth.
Once you start following the main story arc, Point Lookout reveals itself to be a strong contender for the best portion of DLC in the series to date. Dancing between the typically contrasting demands of two sets of squabbling factions, your first task is to visit a potty-mouthed ghoul called Desmond, a former secret agent who finds himself going to slightly absurd lengths to defend his mansion from a tribal cult. Under attack by mercs, you go in, kick some butt and pick up the trail.
Without giving anything away, the episode does the usual Bethesda trick of eventually giving you the chance to choose contrasting outcomes. Do you protect the "victim" of an attack, or do you take a contrary view and dig into their past and find out that, in fact, they are the bad guys? Or do you just figure out what the biggest reward is and base your decisions around that? As predictable and transparent as the formula is by now, it's still an irresistible one, and one where you're never quite certain who's the least detestable. As ever, this gives some of the missions a pleasing degree of replayability as you figure out the best outcome for your karma alignment, or simply which of the new perks are most useful to you.

Eye eye.
In terms of New Stuff, Point Lookout is a little lightweight, but is certainly no worse an offender than all three previous DLC packs to date. Many of the "new" enemies are simply reskinned versions of familiar foes, albeit tougher to kill, while the majority of new loot and weapons will be all but useless to those wandering around with energy weapons and armour.
Fortunately, the highly entertaining quests and acres of exploration available to you more than make up for any shortcomings in Point Lookout. Also heartening is the amount of non-essential quests dotted around for you to get around to when you feel like it. Like a compacted version of its parent game, this is the first DLC that has felt like a genuine expansion, as opposed to a just a few inconsequential missions thrown together.
Each and every part of Point Lookout is both challenging and interesting, and you come away with the impression that Bethesda's quality control has tightened up over the course of the year. As a whole, Point Lookout hangs together better than any previous Fallout 3 DLC pack, and as such comes highly recommended - yes, even for those of you who have grown weary of endless wasteland scavenging and VATS combat. With this release proving how entertaining a "mini expansion" can be, hopes are now riding high that next month's Mothership Zeta episode can continue the good work.
8 / 10
Point Lookout is available to download now for 800 Microsoft Points (GBP 6.80 / EUR 9.60).
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Comments (73) Latest comment 3 years ago
Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!
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Long story short, I hope they bundle all the DLC on a disc, and then I might start a new game one day.
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A monster. A MONSTEEEERRRR
Love that song.
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Does this DLC titbit remove the level cap also, or do I HAVE to buy Broken Steel to get that particular change?
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Mmm, Fallout 3.. oh come here, you big lug!
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That blows. I want the level cap removed, but content wise this is the only pack that interests me. I've had enough of deserts and sand.
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curses scowat
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If you're playing on PC there are mods that increase the level cap.
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But I think kangarootoo plays on 360.
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Is it just me, or are the new enemies in this DLC really, really bastard hard? Up until now my level 30 character has been able to mace his way through pretty much anything. I was having serious problems with the tribals in the mansion, it took me several attempts to complete the first mansion defence section.
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I really thought that would happen after Oasis. The whole ending was set up for it, I must admit to being a bit disppointed when it made no difference to the gameworld.
I reckon after that quest would be the perfect time to install this mod.
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For stating that I actually like the game which I had never expected as I hated Oblivion so much... :/
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Pity they couldnt have raised the level cap on this as well though - I know it probably takes a while to get to level 30, but with all these extra quests, etc, that are adding, I can't help but feel that I'd end up getting to 30 sooner rather than later and missing a whole load of stuff.
Wouldnt be much point seeking out all the quests if theres no reward for them...
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LOL
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edit: (pun unintended)
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LOL
True, there's lots of love for that game and I simply can't understand that. At the time it might have been the first game to show the power of the 360 but as a game it was very poor (again, IMO of course
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Level 15 seems rather low - have you finished the story arc of the original game?
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I still think Oblivion (with a few mods, admittedly) is a better game than Fallout 3. Bigger, more interesting and more stuff to do.
That's a good way to get me some neg karma I reckon
edit: basically agree with everything Simonkey75 just said - Oblivion just felt so more epic, with more variation and more interesting environments, despite some glaring flaws. Fallout 3 fixed a lot of what was wrong in terms of technicalities, but didn't feel like half the game Oblivion was.
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Level 15 seems rather low - have you finished the story arc of the original game?"
I did on the Xbox 360 and reached level 18 from memory. I've since bought the PC version and purchased all the DLC for that version instead. I'm a good way through the main quest though but have been distracted from completing the main quest because of the DLC. I reached level 15 last night actually while playing Point Lookout!
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Maybe it has something to do with my lack of skills (though in general I'm not that bad at games) but I found hand to hand combat in 1st person unplayable. 3rd person camera was horrible so not really an alternative. My character was a ranger (so the bow was my primary weapon) but after I'd levelled up a bit, enemy confrontations always ended up in me running backwards and shooting arrows (lots of them), all the time hoping I wouldn't run from a cliff or run out of arrows. Many enemies took well over 10 arrows to die.
And doing lots of repetitive and useless actions to level up a particular skill didn't improve matters much IMO.
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Besides, outside of VATS, I found ranged weapons in Fallout 3 to be pretty poor also.
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edit: meant to say that subtlety is glaringly lacking from the writing on FO3, but Oblivion is no different. In FO3 you have this immersive world full of the great exploration moments you described, but tied to plot/character/mission writing that is outrageously ham-fisted
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It's hard for me to say whether to start a new character or not as I don`t really know how linearly the HP of the enemy characters scales in relation to the player level. From the couple of hours I played last night, unless it turns out there is a reasonable plot based explanation for how hard these characters are then I suspect then they have just been given artificially high HP to up the challenge. Not only that, they also seem to have very high damage stats. In the first battle against the tribals, despite wearing the Winterised T51b power armour they were able to kill be very quickly just by ganging up and hitting me with axes, and despite having no obviously decent armour, they were sometimes taking two or three tesla cannon shots to put down.
If I were going to have to make a call on this I would probably suggest that going in with a totally new character might prove extremely frustrating.
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I know there are mods that can change the outcome of the game but I'm wary about installing them in case they interfere with the DLC. Anyway, I was hoping when I completed the Xbox 360 that the wastelands would change gradually the longer you played but, of course, the game just ended. Oblivion's fantasy setting and the addition of magic is just more to my tastes really but Fallout 3 has still managed to keep me playing for almost 100 hours in total across the Xbox 360 and PC versions so it's clearly doing something right!
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I do play on 360, which pains me when I see that mod you linked to skillian. They have overdone it in places, but the overall effect is great.
There seems to be this falsehood in post apocalypse fiction circles that stuff stays dead for hundreds of years. If people are able to walk about without melting, you can bet the plant life will be back in 2 or 3 years if not significantly less.
Radiation doesn't mean that all life ceases, it just means that some life suffers whilst other life flourishes in its new found space. Some species of plant would do really well if their normal predators were no longer present. And insects are all but immune from the ill effects of radiation, so there would be no problem with pollination. And even if animals couldn't survive longer term, they would probably survive long enough to distribute eaten seeds.
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"Yeah how many things have you wrote mong?"
Utterly irrelevant.
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"No you don't, true, and you are entitled to your opinion. I suppose I was a bit unfair. I disagree strongly though."
Now that is better
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Makes it look kinda like oblivion. Part of the attraction of FO3 for me is the way the landscape is.
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