Being the "least bad" Fallout 3 DLC is a bit like being the "most moral" person in a trial at the Hague, but given how bad everything Fallout 3 related is it needs all the accolades it can get.
Point Lookout isn't really more than a pocket-sized other Wasteland to explore, a brief main quest that doesn't have much to it beyond you killing ~tribals~ in droves, some decentish sidequests aaaand some loot. Yay.
The main quest isn't anything to write home about. A guy named Desmond conscripts you to kill and infiltrate some Tribals which are just... Uncritically placed into FO3's setting with all their uncomfortable tropes and occasionally you-no-take-candle style of speech in all its offensive. You get part of your brain removed (this doesn't mean anything) by a boatman and then you kill more tribals. Then you kill a lot of tribals. Then you kill a brain in a jar.
The only emotion this stirs in me besides apathy is mild annoyance, because on my main Fallout site circa 2009 I knew a guy who made Desmond his entire personality and was really annoying about it.
Desmond is an English pre-war ghoul who swears a lot and is a massive dick despite being good-aligned. I didn't really find him funny back then because the Bit is very one-note and nowadays I mashed through his dialogue after reading the subtitles because hoho wow this is some immature humor even for Fallout.
The main sidequests aren't going to make any Best Sidequests Ever lists but they're servicable compared to 3's.
One sees you taking up a Chinese spy's mission to destroy evidence of their espionage long after their death, and while it's not exactly rife with choice or even combat it's a nice little vignette with a decent tone to it - also it gives the Backwater Rifle, one of the game's better 10mm weapons.
The other is a thinly-veiled Lovecraft reference that's not very deep but it is relatively atmospheric and does utilize the scenery well. Apparently it was meant to be a lot deeper and better, but as is the norm with Bethesda games this was cut super late in development.
But I'll admit PL's setting does kind of irk because it's very superfluous. Like sugar candy. The parts near the pier honestly don't look much different from the Capital Wasteland and while the idea of setting a Fallout story in a swamp is neat, the terrain is incredibly repetitive and not very interesting.
Same goes for the Swampfolk, inbred cannibal killers, who were very obviously inspired by The Hills Have Eyes - such was admitted outright. They even used to be called Hillfolk, c'mon.
They're very much just there, making effigies and killing outsiders because that's what they do I suppose. The Lovecraft-lite quest gives the vague insinuation that they do it because this is supposed to reference Shadow over Innsmouth, I guess. Happy to see people from Cumbernauld show up in a game though!
Outside of the main quest and two big quests, though, Point Lookout just isn't very interesting. It's the first of the DLC maps to be nice and ~open~ but it's also so small that it only took me 3-4 hours to clear it of meaningful content.
Considering Mothership Zeta is next, let's just call this calm before the storm.
Point Lookout isn't really more than a pocket-sized other Wasteland to explore, a brief main quest that doesn't have much to it beyond you killing ~tribals~ in droves, some decentish sidequests aaaand some loot. Yay.
The main quest isn't anything to write home about. A guy named Desmond conscripts you to kill and infiltrate some Tribals which are just... Uncritically placed into FO3's setting with all their uncomfortable tropes and occasionally you-no-take-candle style of speech in all its offensive. You get part of your brain removed (this doesn't mean anything) by a boatman and then you kill more tribals. Then you kill a lot of tribals. Then you kill a brain in a jar.
The only emotion this stirs in me besides apathy is mild annoyance, because on my main Fallout site circa 2009 I knew a guy who made Desmond his entire personality and was really annoying about it.
Desmond is an English pre-war ghoul who swears a lot and is a massive dick despite being good-aligned. I didn't really find him funny back then because the Bit is very one-note and nowadays I mashed through his dialogue after reading the subtitles because hoho wow this is some immature humor even for Fallout.
The main sidequests aren't going to make any Best Sidequests Ever lists but they're servicable compared to 3's.
One sees you taking up a Chinese spy's mission to destroy evidence of their espionage long after their death, and while it's not exactly rife with choice or even combat it's a nice little vignette with a decent tone to it - also it gives the Backwater Rifle, one of the game's better 10mm weapons.
The other is a thinly-veiled Lovecraft reference that's not very deep but it is relatively atmospheric and does utilize the scenery well. Apparently it was meant to be a lot deeper and better, but as is the norm with Bethesda games this was cut super late in development.
But I'll admit PL's setting does kind of irk because it's very superfluous. Like sugar candy. The parts near the pier honestly don't look much different from the Capital Wasteland and while the idea of setting a Fallout story in a swamp is neat, the terrain is incredibly repetitive and not very interesting.
Same goes for the Swampfolk, inbred cannibal killers, who were very obviously inspired by The Hills Have Eyes - such was admitted outright. They even used to be called Hillfolk, c'mon.
They're very much just there, making effigies and killing outsiders because that's what they do I suppose. The Lovecraft-lite quest gives the vague insinuation that they do it because this is supposed to reference Shadow over Innsmouth, I guess. Happy to see people from Cumbernauld show up in a game though!
Outside of the main quest and two big quests, though, Point Lookout just isn't very interesting. It's the first of the DLC maps to be nice and ~open~ but it's also so small that it only took me 3-4 hours to clear it of meaningful content.
Considering Mothership Zeta is next, let's just call this calm before the storm.
Why is every Bethesda fallout NPC just rude it’s not fun and it just has me reject the story
Good atmosphere, interesting characters and good quests.
Probably the best overall DLC for FO3. This is mostly due to the fact it's the only DLC that's a really open and allows you to explore and do whatever. The others are either linear or break the game. It still suffers from from the usual Bethesda flaws like bugs and an average story.
the best dlc of fallout 3 the new area is foggy and has interesting conflict and memorable atmosphere
voice acting is good dialogue is fun
voice acting is good dialogue is fun
You arrive at an island uninvited and start genociding the locals thats kinda fucked up
The best Fallout 3 DLC. Point Lookout is an interesting area and adds some interesting lore bits to the game.
Awesome in every aspect, but the enemies have terrible balancing. Love the atmosphere as well
Far Harbor does it better.
Quintessential 6/10 DLC, very proto-Far Harbor - its map is generally more remarkable than the latter but its writing really isn't. Gives you tons of great possible story threads to yank on but does virtually nothing with them - a centuries-long feud between two unkillable assholes strewn strictly out of spite and a cult who seeks to reconcile with their own collective trauma by literally lobotomizing themself into what they perceive as blessed ignorance chief amongst them... both totally shrugged off! For shame!! Still offers up a fun challenge but if you thought Mothership Zeta ran like shit.. hoo boy, you ain't seen nothin' yet.
what the fuck is that main story
Point Lookout foi uma boa adição pra Fallout 3, um mapa totalmente novo com uma ambientação bem daora e tensa, uma vibe horror movie, a main questline é mediana, bem whatever e bem difícil, os novos inimigos são medonhos, essa dlc trouxe várias armas novas, e também outros itens novos, as sidequests são daoras, eu gostei muito, principalmente umas com uma vibe de mistério e Point Lookout tem vários segredos que você acha explorando
For sure, the best DLC for Fallout 3.
It definitely has more stuff to do than most of the other DLCs despite being really short but the biggest selling point of the DLC for me is the vibes and the environment.
If the gamebryo engine wasn't so dogshit, I feel like this is what a lot of the rural areas in The Capital Wasteland should've looked like. Even in the dlc which is a pretty small landscape, the framerate tanks a lot because of the engine, regardless of what hardware you're playing on. Too much foliage and trees.
But this DLC's environment is much closer to what it could've been and its really cool to see. Instead in the base game we just get a desert devoid of any life to make the game run better and to try and capitalize on the aesthetic of the first two fallout games.
Anyways, this DLC also has a lot more weapons that are actually useful like the lever action and the double barrel. The enemies are very unique too and the fact there's a side quest that connects to a location in The Capital Wasteland is pretty awesome.
This DLC still suffers from the issues that every other Fallout 3 DLC has with shit writing and being way too short but I feel this one is definitely more enjoyable than the rest.
It definitely has more stuff to do than most of the other DLCs despite being really short but the biggest selling point of the DLC for me is the vibes and the environment.
If the gamebryo engine wasn't so dogshit, I feel like this is what a lot of the rural areas in The Capital Wasteland should've looked like. Even in the dlc which is a pretty small landscape, the framerate tanks a lot because of the engine, regardless of what hardware you're playing on. Too much foliage and trees.
But this DLC's environment is much closer to what it could've been and its really cool to see. Instead in the base game we just get a desert devoid of any life to make the game run better and to try and capitalize on the aesthetic of the first two fallout games.
Anyways, this DLC also has a lot more weapons that are actually useful like the lever action and the double barrel. The enemies are very unique too and the fact there's a side quest that connects to a location in The Capital Wasteland is pretty awesome.
This DLC still suffers from the issues that every other Fallout 3 DLC has with shit writing and being way too short but I feel this one is definitely more enjoyable than the rest.
I had expected great things with Point Lookout's reputation as being "the best Fallout 3 DLC", but dude, what the fuck, this was terrible! The setting is a cool-looking swamp full of mire and marsh, but the enemies are either goofy-looking inbred hicks or crazy tribals that love gnawing on these psychedelic fruits (it's also pretty racist / classist to think that 'going tribal' equates to being dumb or going crazy, but yknow, not like this is the first time Fallout's done this). A lot of Point Lookout consists of empty fucking fields with a lot of mist, fog, and either Mirelurks or enemies with obnoxious shotguns that cleave away at your health.
And the glitches, holy hell, this DLC is buggy as hell. The awesome-on-paper first quest, where you play a long round of 'defend the tower' in a mansion with this well-dressed Ghoul (Desmond), is easily one of the worst quests in Fallout 3 just due to how frequently the scripting breaks or the game crashes. You have to constantly be quicksaving in case one of Desmond's lines doesn't load and thus doesn't trigger the next event, leaving you standing in place like a fucking idiot. I had performance issues with Point Lookout throughout my entire playthrough - I just ignored a lot of the interactable objects during the 'high on Punga Fruit' scene because interacting with the first bobblehead made the fucking game crash. For a game that already has huge performance issues, Point Lookout's jank is unacceptably bad.
It's also really short and focuses on a conflict that is impossible to care about. You're supposed to side with either Desmond or Calvert, but the game gives you virtually no good reason to side with either of them. Desmond makes these vague promises of making you 'rich', but you have no idea what treasure he's looking for and he treats you like the scum of the earth at all times, constantly belittling you and talking down to you. As for Mr. Brain-In-A-Jar Calvert, you get absolutely no time to learn what he's like as a person, and even if you decide to side with him because he's at least less abrasive than Desmond, Calvert betrays you at the very end for literally no reason whatsoever.
Who cares? This isn't my problem. The player is given no reason to care about or get involved in the beef between these two random guys that treat you like shit and offer no tangible or substantive rewards for siding with them. Why should I care about one shitty, random man over the other? What do I get out of this? You barely even learn anything about why these two are rivals or just how far back this rivalry goes. The world goes on unchanged regardless of who you side with, so Point Lookout's main conflict legitimately feels like filler.
At least the swamp looks cool. This was awful. 1.5/5.
And the glitches, holy hell, this DLC is buggy as hell. The awesome-on-paper first quest, where you play a long round of 'defend the tower' in a mansion with this well-dressed Ghoul (Desmond), is easily one of the worst quests in Fallout 3 just due to how frequently the scripting breaks or the game crashes. You have to constantly be quicksaving in case one of Desmond's lines doesn't load and thus doesn't trigger the next event, leaving you standing in place like a fucking idiot. I had performance issues with Point Lookout throughout my entire playthrough - I just ignored a lot of the interactable objects during the 'high on Punga Fruit' scene because interacting with the first bobblehead made the fucking game crash. For a game that already has huge performance issues, Point Lookout's jank is unacceptably bad.
It's also really short and focuses on a conflict that is impossible to care about. You're supposed to side with either Desmond or Calvert, but the game gives you virtually no good reason to side with either of them. Desmond makes these vague promises of making you 'rich', but you have no idea what treasure he's looking for and he treats you like the scum of the earth at all times, constantly belittling you and talking down to you. As for Mr. Brain-In-A-Jar Calvert, you get absolutely no time to learn what he's like as a person, and even if you decide to side with him because he's at least less abrasive than Desmond, Calvert betrays you at the very end for literally no reason whatsoever.
Who cares? This isn't my problem. The player is given no reason to care about or get involved in the beef between these two random guys that treat you like shit and offer no tangible or substantive rewards for siding with them. Why should I care about one shitty, random man over the other? What do I get out of this? You barely even learn anything about why these two are rivals or just how far back this rivalry goes. The world goes on unchanged regardless of who you side with, so Point Lookout's main conflict legitimately feels like filler.
At least the swamp looks cool. This was awful. 1.5/5.
Loved the vibe and atmosphere this DLC brought to the mix, feeling even more dreadful and dark than the base game. Story is also super good.
Another case of a revisit (need to revisit Fallout 3 in general, really...) but I remember this one being the best F3 DLC simply because it never crumbled under its own weight, or at the very least didn't crumble as badly when compared to the others.
Broken Steel is pretty much an Apology DLC for the ending with a thin epilogue of sorts just kinda attached at the hip, The Pitt tries to do some "moral dilemma" storyline yet ultimately fails because it uses the most hackneyed and trite quandary of "do you steal the All Important Baby or not?????" without actually digging deep as to how fucked up slavery is, Anchorage is just a dull CoD campaign with like, one or two funny moments, and Mothership Zeta is a cluster of annoying enemies, pathways, and overall structure without any real reward waiting for you.
PO, at least, offers a decent, B-movie horror-like approach to 3's setting, and the area itself is quite memorable even today. I could barely remember any of the DLCs mentioned prior, but this one I have the area down pretty well. Even the gunplay and stuff isn't too hampered from this either, which is usually the biggest fault of the game.
Still, it's in Fallout 3 so the writing is either mundane at best, woefully undercooked at worst, which leads into the main story just... being there. Still, I'd rather have this happen than deal with any of the other stuff again.
Broken Steel is pretty much an Apology DLC for the ending with a thin epilogue of sorts just kinda attached at the hip, The Pitt tries to do some "moral dilemma" storyline yet ultimately fails because it uses the most hackneyed and trite quandary of "do you steal the All Important Baby or not?????" without actually digging deep as to how fucked up slavery is, Anchorage is just a dull CoD campaign with like, one or two funny moments, and Mothership Zeta is a cluster of annoying enemies, pathways, and overall structure without any real reward waiting for you.
PO, at least, offers a decent, B-movie horror-like approach to 3's setting, and the area itself is quite memorable even today. I could barely remember any of the DLCs mentioned prior, but this one I have the area down pretty well. Even the gunplay and stuff isn't too hampered from this either, which is usually the biggest fault of the game.
Still, it's in Fallout 3 so the writing is either mundane at best, woefully undercooked at worst, which leads into the main story just... being there. Still, I'd rather have this happen than deal with any of the other stuff again.
its like watching a straight D student turn in some solid C minus work, you take the little victory.
Easily the best Fallout 3 DLC. A whole new area with new enemies and items, and most of all, creepy as fuck. Don't really care about the story but Desmond is a cool character when he isn't calling you retarded.
Probably my favorite of the DLC, the map was good and there was a lot to do here.
Fallout, please stop removing my characters' brains, it's hard enough living with an Inteligence of 4
Yeah, this is the best DLC for Fallout Three. New area, fun quests, and very creative.
Point Lookout was the one of two DLC for 3 I never bothered with - where Broken Steel (we'll get to you a LONG time from now buddy, relax) is a post-game DLC and honestly who wants to finish a Bethesda game, Point Lookout's THEME just didn't do it for me. You head to the LA bayou (Louisiana duh) to poke around and look for someone's missing daughter - kind of rubbish intro honestly, but what you find there is a MUCH more freeform adventure than all of the other DLC we're going over here and damn I loved it. The Bayou map isn't too big but you start off in a small coastal carnival spot that feels delightfully colorful but sadly there isn't much to do here. When you do arrive though the NPC who brings you here cheerfully points out that a mansion is on fire up on the hill...maybe go check it out? Or don't, who cares? And then you're just set loose in this little microcosm of a fallout game and the fun begins.
To be clear here, that fire IS the main story of the DLC though it very easily could not be. There's nothing really thematically going on here that ties it to the Bayou and what it is going through or even any of the side stuff - it's the just parts with the most voice acting + 'cinematic' moments. Don't get me wrong what's here is quite good: a drug fueled trip through a swamp that gets into some personal shit for your character (I'm not a wholly blank canvas! Woah!) and a horde mode section defending said burning-down mansion... it's neat honestly and worth the time. The real meat here though is this little slice of America you're wandering through.
The Bayou is TOUGH. There are inbred yokels who attack you rather than raiders who appear...mostly... human but their guttural southern twang gives them a more disturbing edge than any gory artwork display the Capital raiders can cook up back home. There's a few tough new ghoul variants here that lurk around graveyards which help them lean even more into the 'zombie' archetype and they are all suitably creepy. I do enjoy there's also a running subplot about the nearby military base and its hunt for a hidden chinese agent just before to war. This quest does help flesh out the American/Chinese relationship just before things went to shit and while it strains credibility that all of these necessary pieces of the puzzle have survived more-or-less intact after 200 years for us to piece together it still does FEEL engaging at solving these mysteries. And while Anchorage showed the very clear American propoganda to make the Chinese look like horrible monsters (but really just making the US look like racist assholes) we get to see a bit of the Chinese side here that they really weren't great themselves... but that's kind of Fallout 3's schtick right? Everyone is sorta awful?
Lookout strays very far from its On-Rails compatriot DLC in presenting just a tasty morsel of a mini-Fallout experience and I do think that helps it play much more directly into the game's strengths. The fighting just isn't good enough to hold up Anchorage or Zeta all on their own and the writing alone can't bear the brunt of The Pitt's moral 'dilemma' but the worldbuilding Bethesda engages in really can get us over the finish line here. This DLC is definitely my favorite and in a way I'm sad I missed it back in the day but... it sure was a surprising treat for today.
To be clear here, that fire IS the main story of the DLC though it very easily could not be. There's nothing really thematically going on here that ties it to the Bayou and what it is going through or even any of the side stuff - it's the just parts with the most voice acting + 'cinematic' moments. Don't get me wrong what's here is quite good: a drug fueled trip through a swamp that gets into some personal shit for your character (I'm not a wholly blank canvas! Woah!) and a horde mode section defending said burning-down mansion... it's neat honestly and worth the time. The real meat here though is this little slice of America you're wandering through.
The Bayou is TOUGH. There are inbred yokels who attack you rather than raiders who appear...mostly... human but their guttural southern twang gives them a more disturbing edge than any gory artwork display the Capital raiders can cook up back home. There's a few tough new ghoul variants here that lurk around graveyards which help them lean even more into the 'zombie' archetype and they are all suitably creepy. I do enjoy there's also a running subplot about the nearby military base and its hunt for a hidden chinese agent just before to war. This quest does help flesh out the American/Chinese relationship just before things went to shit and while it strains credibility that all of these necessary pieces of the puzzle have survived more-or-less intact after 200 years for us to piece together it still does FEEL engaging at solving these mysteries. And while Anchorage showed the very clear American propoganda to make the Chinese look like horrible monsters (but really just making the US look like racist assholes) we get to see a bit of the Chinese side here that they really weren't great themselves... but that's kind of Fallout 3's schtick right? Everyone is sorta awful?
Lookout strays very far from its On-Rails compatriot DLC in presenting just a tasty morsel of a mini-Fallout experience and I do think that helps it play much more directly into the game's strengths. The fighting just isn't good enough to hold up Anchorage or Zeta all on their own and the writing alone can't bear the brunt of The Pitt's moral 'dilemma' but the worldbuilding Bethesda engages in really can get us over the finish line here. This DLC is definitely my favorite and in a way I'm sad I missed it back in the day but... it sure was a surprising treat for today.
This is where my game started to crash constantly. Thanks for your shitty, save file bloating engine Bethesda!
Y a rien qui différencie les dlc de ce jeu du travail à l'usine
This review contains spoilers
The main quest for Point Lookout was really bad. When I say that, I don't just mean boring, but don't get me wrong, it was really boring. While many times in a actually good open-ended story, I have found myself outweighing the pros and cons of siding with each person. However, with this DLC, I found myself trying to decide what to do, only to realize I hated both characters, Desmond and Calvert, and just ended up killing them both. Technically, I sided with Desmond, but killed him one second after Calvert. Where I think Point Lookout really shines, however, is in its side quests. The map itself was incredibly boring, I did go to every location simply in search of more things to do, in terms of quests. In fact, there were two side quests that I would have much preferred to be the main quest, the Blackhall one and Velvet Curtain, just with a little extra length. Point Lookout suffered from being a little generic, with one of the most boring stories I have experienced, and terrible design of its main questline, while still having some of my favorite side quests in FO3.
The difficulty spike is almost as odd as the main story
I hated that mirelurk swamp section.
the one dlc thats actually downloadble content isnt that crazeee
A decent expansion that is slightly higher in quality than the main campaign, nothing much beyond that.
The best of the Fallout 3 DLC's, definitely. Very creepy, honestly the creepiest that the FPS fallout games have been for me. Some fun missions, like following the breadcrumbs of a Chinese spy, or dealing with a demonic book.