Fallout 3: Point Lookout Comments by Kristan Reed

"I still think Oblivion (with a few mods, admittedly) is a better game than Fallout 3. Bigger, more interesting and more stuff to do."

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.

@CountFapula yet to see anything in Fallout 3 that is more "mature" or "intelligent" than Oblivion, and being gloomy and SF doesn't automatically make it more grown up or serious than a fantasy based game. As for the crack about elves etc - come on! "Super Mutants"?!

I'd agree with Les that ranged weapons in Oblivion were pretty much useless. Other than that I did actually like it though :).

Oblivion's ranged weapons were quite poor, but I mostly played as a mage and didn't think stuff like fireballs and lightning was too bad.

Besides, outside of VATS, I found ranged weapons in Fallout 3 to be pretty poor also.

... apart from the writing

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

@CountFapula: irrelevant. I've read, watched (& played through) plenty of stories. you don't need to be an author to have an opinion

@metalangel

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.

@Dr Wadd: thanks for the info... My plan will stay as it is, then - new character goes straight to Operation Anchorage. Anyone else: Any other input would still be appreciated!

@ Count Fapula may not agree with all your points about F3 but that was one hell of an eloquent post. F3's "real world" setting means that moments such as you described are more likely to occur because we the gamer feel a contextual relationship with that world. Not sure how much is the "author's" (ie Bethesda's) intent and how much is the gamer empathising and reading context and back story into it though. Oblivion is always going to struggle to produce those emotions though simply because it is not set on a recognisable "Earth". Having said that it has its fair share of wonder-inducing moments IMO

God what is it about typing in Opera Mini that turns my sentences into incoherent sludge?!

Much as I love Fallout 3, I can't love it quite as much as Oblivion. Fallout's post-apocalypse setting is quite depressing (yes, I know it's intentional) and I keep yearning for some nice blue skies, swaying trees full of leaves and lush green grass but nope everything is desolate, dirty and ruined and a swim in the water leaves you with radiation poisoning.

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! :)

Still holding out for the GOTY disc edition with all the DLC on before resuming/restarting Fallout 3. Although reading these DLC reviews make me want to return to the Wastelands badly. /resists

Strange really I found oblivion boring, the greenery was nice but it was all the same and the dungeons were all pretty boring as well. No to mention levelling up was pointless as all the enemies levelled with you. It would of been nice however in fallout if bethesda had made it so the world started going green after you went down a certain route on the oasis quest.

I think both Fallout 3 and Oblivion suffer from a severe case of repetition, though F3 was an improvement IMO. Also I think the NPCs were an awful lot better in F3.

Spent about two hours in Point Lookout, I think it's worst DLC for fallout ever. I liked anchorage and pitt, and I loved Broken Steel. This swamp setting is refreshing from beginning..but come on, farmers which can survive two shots of tesla cannon? Huh?

I played some more of Point Lookout last night and it's starting to get good. I've just joined the tribe that's there and been granted a couple of nice perks. The enemies are still bastard hard though and some look a little cartoony and weird, like those half-naked troll things (can't remember what they're called, sorry). I have to say that when I completed the manor quest I was shocked at how rude Desmond was. What an unlikeable git he is. I was almost tempted to kill him there and then and not bother with joining the tribe!

doomguy, that sort of artificial levelling up of obviously unarmoured foes (what, so I hit you ten times with 10,000 degree plasma and it gives you a twisted ankle, but the eleventh hit instantly gooifies you?!) is lazy design. They want believable looking inhabitants for this area, but also have designed the game so the play becomes unstoppably powerful far too quickly (remember, you can have a sniper rifle and laser pistol within 10 minutes of leaving the Vault) so they have no choice but to give what should be weak foes stupid amounts of HP. But hang on, surely the whole point of having power armour and gatling laser is that it makes me unstoppable? Maybe the challenge should be coming from something other than combat? ;)

Yup, the combat is very basic and easy. I just did the whole Steelyard bit in The Pitt in one run without ever really feeling in danger, despite entering the area with nothing but an Autoaxe and my slave gear. Yes, I could ramp it up to very hard but that won't make the game actually harder, it'll just mean the baddies will take an extra round from my hunting rifle before the head detaches.

@skillian and Farzlepot

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.

@CountFapula

"Yeah how many things have you wrote mong?"

Utterly irrelevant.

@CountFapula

"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 :)

kangarootoo: yup, apart from the odd hotspot, the world's only post nuclear wasteland (Chernobyl) is actually a thriving wilderness. Thing is, desert *was* believable for the first game which took place in Southern California (which is mostly desert and certainly would be moreso if you removed irrigation) and Bethesda, more excited by putting their local landmarks in than facts, decided DC would become one too. As an aside, do you think the general public would accept a leafy, overgrown "post nuclear" landscape?

I dont understand why you would get that mod?

Makes it look kinda like oblivion. Part of the attraction of FO3 for me is the way the landscape is.

After playing it at a mates for a few days going round i found my self wanting more, but i have the PS3 (Did have an Xbox but i got the RROD and im poor haha no mum or dad to re-buy me one in the real world) but i loved the feel, now i play on very hard or hard and h my mates guy is level 28 (Thanks to the Broken steel DLC) and i found it really hard haha, i mean 30+ rounds of shot gun rounds to the face and they still wanted my nuts on a platter, was still great fun, i will be getting this for my PS3 when its out, but im still looking forward to mothership Zeta more now after reading omre abot it

So if I understand correctly, this is comparable to Morrowind's Bloodmoon expansion? In terms of new content that is ofcourse

@chopping_sticks I don't think you can turn into a werewolf...