Review: Point Lookout (Fallout 3 DLC)
Jun. 28th, 2009 08:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
4thofelevenWait, wait, wait. Let me get this straight – Bethesda’s released a patch for Fallout that actually fixes the problems created by the last patch and doesn’t introduce any new bugs? And then they follow it up with a new DLC that works fine right from the start and is also really really good as well? I… I don’t understand…?
No, seriously, Point Lookout is wonderful. It’s head and shoulders above the other three DLC packages – I’m rather surprised at how much stuff is here, and how much I enjoyed exploring the new areas. If you’re only going to get one DLC, get this one… even Broken Steel looks a bit dull compared to Lookout.
So, what’s it about? Well, there’s not much of an overarching plot here – You get a message informing you there’s a ferry in the Potomac that’ll take you to Point Lookout for a small fee. Once you get there, you’re pretty much on your own. Well, hell, you’re an RPG protagonist – do you really need a reason to head out into the wilderness and kill things?
Point Lookout itself is a large swamp on the coast. It’s nowhere near as big as the Capital Wasteland, of course, but it’s still a decent sized area – maybe a bit more than one fifth the size of the base game world. Big enough to get lost in, certainly – big enough for there to be plenty of interesting little areas to explore. That’s the real strength of this expansion – it’s got the same sort of gameplay that made Fallout 3 such a wonderful game. The other DLCs were very linear and had little remaining content when finished, whereas Point Lookout is the complete opposite; complete the Lookout ‘main’ quest, and there’s still plenty to do in the swamps.
The swamps offer a completely different feel to the Capital Wasteland’s desert – Washington is filled with burned out ruins and broken concrete structures, the legacy of the bombs falling. Point Lookout seems not so much destroyed as abandoned. The swamp is slowly reclaiming the last remnants of civilization here. It’s a creepy environment, with bubbling swamp gas, strange native ritual dolls hanging from trees, and inbred moonshiners with shotguns behind every tree… Swamps are, I think, a vastly underrated game setting, and it’s nice to get a chance to explore an area with such a different feel to the base game.
I don’t want to spoil the main quest, but suffice to say that it’s got a lot of great moments and ends up… weirder than I was expecting. There’s a fair number of sidequests, and a few unmarked little things to do. I found it oddly satisfying to find a replacement lightbulb for the long-abandoned lighthouse, making it operational again.
Interestingly, Point Lookout doesn’t bother throwing new weapons or perks at you like the other DLC did – there’s a few new weapons; notably double-barrelled shotguns and lever-action rifles, and a couple of perks that can be acquired through completing certain quests, but they’re nothing special. That’s not a complaint, really – a game add-on shouldn’t have to reward you with awesome new weapons just to get you to play the damn thing; Point Lookout worth getting for the experience, not just because you get a stealth suit or whatever at the end.
A few negative points, just for balance. Point Lookout’s designed with high level characters in mind. Fair enough. Unfortunately, Bethesda’s idea of a tough enemy for high level characters is just a regular enemy with far too many hit points. Adding to the problem, most of the new enemies are scripted to do extra damage to the player with every hit, regardless of what they’re armed with. It gets very silly when half-naked hillbillies with axes are a bigger threat than Enclave troops were. Stealth-based characters will be at a particular disadvantage, as even a sneak-attack headshot isn’t going to kill any of the new enemies in one go. Hand-to-hand and melee specialists will also have difficultly… Fortunately, my character minors in Big Guns and has several thousand excess units of Flamer fuel.
I also feel the hillbilly swampfolk would have been better implemented as regular human npcs with some sort of odd skin texture, not as the rather cartoonish creatures they are here. They look like characters out of Redneck Rampage, and that’s never a good thing!
And why can’t your companion follow you to Point Lookout? In The Pitt, sure, you were trying to sneak in, keep a low profile. Here, though – you’re going on vacation! Why can’t Fawkes and Dogmeat come along? There weren’t any areas that would have caused problems with companions, and there was never any real justification for not having them…
Despite those minor issues, though, this is a wonderful expansion. Is it too much to hope that Bethesda will make a few more like this? I’d love a Commonwealth-based DLC of this size…
Minor notes:
- There’s at least two pint-sized slasher masks in the swamps, if you were disappointed at not getting a real one after Tranquillity Lane.
- Point Lookout’s sparsely populated, and lacks most of the services you’ll find in the Capital Wasteland. In particular, you’ll start to curse the lack of doctors after a while. Take plenty of Rad-Away before you leave – wandering through the swampwater takes its toll after a while.
- Oddly, judging by the pip-boy display, travelling to Point Lookout takes an entire month!
- Confederate hats are everywhere; they’re presumably the low-karma equivalent of the base game’s Lincoln’s hat. No Confederate uniforms, unfortunately…
No, seriously, Point Lookout is wonderful. It’s head and shoulders above the other three DLC packages – I’m rather surprised at how much stuff is here, and how much I enjoyed exploring the new areas. If you’re only going to get one DLC, get this one… even Broken Steel looks a bit dull compared to Lookout.
So, what’s it about? Well, there’s not much of an overarching plot here – You get a message informing you there’s a ferry in the Potomac that’ll take you to Point Lookout for a small fee. Once you get there, you’re pretty much on your own. Well, hell, you’re an RPG protagonist – do you really need a reason to head out into the wilderness and kill things?
Point Lookout itself is a large swamp on the coast. It’s nowhere near as big as the Capital Wasteland, of course, but it’s still a decent sized area – maybe a bit more than one fifth the size of the base game world. Big enough to get lost in, certainly – big enough for there to be plenty of interesting little areas to explore. That’s the real strength of this expansion – it’s got the same sort of gameplay that made Fallout 3 such a wonderful game. The other DLCs were very linear and had little remaining content when finished, whereas Point Lookout is the complete opposite; complete the Lookout ‘main’ quest, and there’s still plenty to do in the swamps.
The swamps offer a completely different feel to the Capital Wasteland’s desert – Washington is filled with burned out ruins and broken concrete structures, the legacy of the bombs falling. Point Lookout seems not so much destroyed as abandoned. The swamp is slowly reclaiming the last remnants of civilization here. It’s a creepy environment, with bubbling swamp gas, strange native ritual dolls hanging from trees, and inbred moonshiners with shotguns behind every tree… Swamps are, I think, a vastly underrated game setting, and it’s nice to get a chance to explore an area with such a different feel to the base game.
I don’t want to spoil the main quest, but suffice to say that it’s got a lot of great moments and ends up… weirder than I was expecting. There’s a fair number of sidequests, and a few unmarked little things to do. I found it oddly satisfying to find a replacement lightbulb for the long-abandoned lighthouse, making it operational again.
Interestingly, Point Lookout doesn’t bother throwing new weapons or perks at you like the other DLC did – there’s a few new weapons; notably double-barrelled shotguns and lever-action rifles, and a couple of perks that can be acquired through completing certain quests, but they’re nothing special. That’s not a complaint, really – a game add-on shouldn’t have to reward you with awesome new weapons just to get you to play the damn thing; Point Lookout worth getting for the experience, not just because you get a stealth suit or whatever at the end.
A few negative points, just for balance. Point Lookout’s designed with high level characters in mind. Fair enough. Unfortunately, Bethesda’s idea of a tough enemy for high level characters is just a regular enemy with far too many hit points. Adding to the problem, most of the new enemies are scripted to do extra damage to the player with every hit, regardless of what they’re armed with. It gets very silly when half-naked hillbillies with axes are a bigger threat than Enclave troops were. Stealth-based characters will be at a particular disadvantage, as even a sneak-attack headshot isn’t going to kill any of the new enemies in one go. Hand-to-hand and melee specialists will also have difficultly… Fortunately, my character minors in Big Guns and has several thousand excess units of Flamer fuel.
I also feel the hillbilly swampfolk would have been better implemented as regular human npcs with some sort of odd skin texture, not as the rather cartoonish creatures they are here. They look like characters out of Redneck Rampage, and that’s never a good thing!
And why can’t your companion follow you to Point Lookout? In The Pitt, sure, you were trying to sneak in, keep a low profile. Here, though – you’re going on vacation! Why can’t Fawkes and Dogmeat come along? There weren’t any areas that would have caused problems with companions, and there was never any real justification for not having them…
Despite those minor issues, though, this is a wonderful expansion. Is it too much to hope that Bethesda will make a few more like this? I’d love a Commonwealth-based DLC of this size…
Minor notes:
- There’s at least two pint-sized slasher masks in the swamps, if you were disappointed at not getting a real one after Tranquillity Lane.
- Point Lookout’s sparsely populated, and lacks most of the services you’ll find in the Capital Wasteland. In particular, you’ll start to curse the lack of doctors after a while. Take plenty of Rad-Away before you leave – wandering through the swampwater takes its toll after a while.
- Oddly, judging by the pip-boy display, travelling to Point Lookout takes an entire month!
- Confederate hats are everywhere; they’re presumably the low-karma equivalent of the base game’s Lincoln’s hat. No Confederate uniforms, unfortunately…