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Because I prefer to play games on consoles, and I can live without user-created content.

Also: I deem point lookout to be excellent. Recommend download. If only for the insanity sequence

Wow, at first I felt underwhelmed when I was in the mansion but when I stumbled upon that spy quest.. WOW.

Okay, I'm done with Point Lookout and while it started out weak and bland it ended on a high note for me. My only complaints are item placement, especially the Confederate hat and the ingredients needed to make Moonshine. Other than that the DLC is oozing with a great and refreshing style and setting.

Oh god, I'd forgotten about that. I will die a happy man if I never have to see a bag of yeast again. Seriously, what's the big deal about moonshine?

Though at the end of it all, I'm still wondering "How do I put my brain back?"

I'm going to put that jar on my desk and cry a little every time I see that and get another flashback of my dead mother with a party hat.

It's worth reiterating that that was the best scene ever. In a horrifying "oh god what the hell is going on" kind of way.

So, how would you rank the new DLC compared with the existing ones?

For me, I put Broken Steel at #1, the Pitt at #2 and the Alaska sim at #3.

So if you can help me to figure out where it stacks up against the rest will determine if I should bother buying it or not.

Hmm, to me the top three is the Pitt at the top for story reasons and going with an excellent "grey" moral choice, not to mention making me feel bad and disgusted with the game. Point Lookout comes in second for a wonderful new locale with some great quests and an awful lot of care to detail and whatnot Finally at the third place is Broken Steel. While it does add some good new quests and locations, I find the extra perks rather disappointing. Last is Anchorage, which is a fine expansion but compared to the other packs rather lacking and too focused on combat. I still enjoy it for the experience and rewards but it's not as great as the Pitt and Point Lookout.

I'd probably have to agree, though I'd probably rate The Pitt and Point Lookout about equal. The Pitt has amazing scenery (I actually got vertigo when exploring in the steelyard) and the moral conundrum, and Point Lookout has some awesome quests and makes a welcome change to the capital wasteland.

I wouldn't go in with a low-level character, though - those swamp people can soak up a lot of damage.

I agree, especially the mutated hicks are more than capable of killing you with a few axe sweeps, as I have found out to my dismay with my level 5 character.

Gwar! wrote:Honestly, why do people play the console version, when for the same price (cheaper even) you can get the Full game on the PC, with more DLC, and 1million^97% more mods?

I guess this is a discussion for another thread.
Give me a minute.

This is definitely the best DLC to date in terms of content. All of the previous DLCs have essentially been nothing more than a series of fairly linear missions that take place within very linear (albeit new) locales.

With Point Lookout you finally once again get that true sense of wasteland exploration. It is true that you come to Point Lookout with a goal in mind (find, and rescue Nadine) but that is a goal you can very easily stray from [much like how most players do with the main storyline quest in F3.] Once again you find yourself coming across many, many things [buildings, landmarks, holotapes] that have no bearing to the main story of the DLC but only serve to provide a richer gameplay experience. You encounter quests which have absolutely nothing to do with the main DLC storyline, and when I say encounter - I mean you literally stumble upon them much like how you uncover all the other non-main storyline quests in F3. Exploration, Exploration, Exploration.

That was my main problem with the Pitt - you went to new area, a new part of the Fallout world never before seen...and what do you get to do? Not much. The level of exploration you get to do is extremely low. Everything is completely linear in terms of quests. In fact, I think all there is to do are the quests revolving around freeing the workers. Oh sure there is the Ingot hunt, but that hardly counts since it is initially related to the main story quest anyway. I wanted to explore the devastated ruins of Pittsburgh [and surrounding area] and I really felt like I didn't get to do that. In the Pitt you just go over a couple blocks of a destroyed industrial area and wander around up and down in a few buildings.

Now, the quests themselves in the Pitt were fun - the story, etc was all very well done. I just wanted more of an area to explore, much like what you get to do in Point Lookout. The main game of Fallout 3 managed a careful balance between story telling and exploration - I felt The Pitt lacked in overall exploration when it was a prime candidate to give us a large area to explore. I mean lets face it, whats cooler - the destroyed industrial wastelands of The Pitt or the Swamps of Maryland?

Now I don't have the same problems with Operation Anchorage and Broken Steel because neither of those really brought us to any new locales. Sure Operation Anchorage brought us to Alaska, albeit a simulated version - but therein lies the point: You were in a video game simulator with a predefined narrow scope - as such, as a player, I didn't expect a huge level of exploration. I thought Operation Anchorage itself was a nice change of pace. Pretty action oriented, which I liked. My only qualm is that you can't reenter the simulator, which is too bad. I also wish it would have been a little longer. Again let me reiterate that since Operation Anchorage itself was supposed to be a military simulator within F3 I don't mind the lack of exploration.

Now if I could only have one DLC from F3 I'd get Broken Steel solely for the fact that it expanded the storyline and raised the level cap, which I liked immensely. I'd been playing Fallout 3 at level 20 for several dozen hours by the time I finally installed that DLC. I liked seeing some resolution to the events at the end of the game. With regard to exploration elements: Given that you didn't really go to a new area [you were still basically fighting around DC] I don't feel like I got ripped off in terms of exploration potential. The new subway areas and the air force base were pretty cool. Plus you got to fight with Liberty Prime again (if, albeit only for a short time) and I thought the missions were more interesting and fun that in The Pitt. The last mission was particularly epic, on par with the final mission in the base game in my opinion.

Point Lookout though. Wow. There is just so much to do in this DLC package. You have a few interesting stories going on (The one with Desmond, The Chinese Spy, etc) plus there are several other neat side quests (the still, the safari, Dunwhich book, the gas exploration, etc) and then there is still even more. Did you all stumble upon the crashed fighter jet and listen to the black box recorder? A perfect example of why I love exploring - this area has nothing to do with any quests (at least that i've found!) but it's very cool to find as a player, and when you listen to the recorder you get a really great experience that only serves to make the gameplay experience richer. I mean how cool is it hearing a recording from someone who was in the air when the bombs dropped?

Likewise the quest dealing with the Chinese agent was great. You got another glimpse in to the past that only served to enrich the backstory and provide a lot of fun for the player in the present.

Point Lookout is my favorite of the DLC to date, though Broken Steel is almost mandatory download in my opinion. Being able to continue my character and actually gain some more levels has been a blast.

So to sum it up:

I feel like Operation Anchorage, The Pitt, and Broken Steel simply added new gear and additional quests to go on. Broken Steel being the best of those three because it upped the level cap and allow endgame characters to keep on going and because the quests were fun.

While Point Lookout admittedly has a pretty weak main storyline (better than Operation Anchorage though) it has several wonderful side quests that reward player for exploring - something I think is crucial in these massive open world sandbox games. This DLC has the most to do (and I've spent the most time on it also because I simply keep uncovering things) I really feel like i'm exploring the swamps of Maryland with this DLC.

I'm just sad Mothership Zeta will be the last DLC.

Thanks a ton, Lagduf!

It sound like you and I see eye-to-eye on what makes Fallout 3 enjoyable, so your review has made me 100% certain that I'll enjoy Point Lookout.

yakface wrote:
Thanks a ton, Lagduf!

It sound like you and I see eye-to-eye on what makes Fallout 3 enjoyable, so your review has made me 100% certain that I'll enjoy Point Lookout.

I really have been having a blast with it. Almost 10 hours solely in this DLC and I still haven't found all the locations!

Keep in mind that the enemies in Point Lookout have an extra unresistable 35 damage added to every attack, and if you have Broken Steel, expect to run into reavers wherever you find Ghouls. You can go there before you finish the main quest, but I wouldn't recommend going before you hit 20. Unless you are some sort of masochist and like sucking down half a dozen stimpacks or more per fight.

On the upside, you can earn a couple of perks that both up your damage by 5 per shot and one of them also increases your DR by ten. One of them is only supposed to work on a particular type of enemy but is reported currently bugged to work on everyone, so if you like automatic weapons you will see a drastic damage increase. Which is good, because the swampfolk can take a double barreled shotgun to the face without flinching.


PS and also minor spoiler



Before Point Lookout, I had gotten used to being able to vaporise nearly anything I came across before it had a chance to fight back, and even Deathclaws went down so quickly I didn't need to cripple their legs. You can imagine how genuinely shocked I was in the mansion, during the first Tribal encounter, when I started firing on the first group with A3-21's plasma rifle and expected them to disappear just to take 40+ damage per shot from their hunting rifles. I was wearing full Hellfire armor and helmet for 85% DR. During the final defense I put mines around the doors and chucked a Nuka Grenade at them as they opened. Not even tribals can take a Nuka/Bottlecap mine chain explosion with 100 explosives, 3 levels of Demolition expert and pyromaniac. Reavers can)

Makes me wonder when we'll see the first of Mothership Zeta.

Maybe it's that I don't look very hard, but I saw bugger all of the other expansions before release. I don't imagine this'll change soon.

There's usually a trailer a few days before the release but that's about it.

Crap, not even a release date is known.

I wonder how long Mothership Zeta would be. I can't imagine it being any longer than Operation Anchorage. Unless the Mothership is a huge city-ship the size of Point Lookout. Actually, that would be pretty amazing. A city-ship with it's own interior environment with alien forests and animals as a sort of colonization effort with Earth as the target. The crashed alien ships were advance scouts sent a few years ahead of the main ship to report on Earths current condition...just to have them crash and the Alien ship to show up and realize that Earth is no longer the haven they expected it to be. Or maybe the expected a war to wipe it out to make it an easy conquer? Maybe the Aliens were conspiring with the Enclave(who started the nuclear war in the first place) to hand over Earth and trade the Enclave interstellar technology to go find their own planet. They were planning to leave Earth anyway and contracted the Vault program to serve as a massive social experiment to get any unforseen galactic road trip issues solved beforehand.(this much is true, so says the Fallout Wiki)

Eh, I'm thinking that the ship will be more of a campy 50's setting, bright metal corridors with flashing lights.

I imagine too that Mothership Zeta will be a more or less linear series of missions like Operation Anchorage and the Pitt than a more open world thing like Point Lookout.

Either way it will be fun.

I'm just sad I finally reached level 30!

You can always start over again!

BrookM wrote:You can always start over again!

I'm planning on it. Just need to beat Mothership Zeta with my first character and finish up a few lose ends in my main game.

Any 2nd and 3rd playthroughs that I do will be solely for achievements.

I gave up on achievement hunting, no way in hell am I going to enslave people out in the wastes!

They're not people though, just pixels and programming disguised as people.

Oh I expect it to be a disappointing short foray into a huge flying saucer ala Mars Attacks. Doesn't mean I can't dream though.

BrookM wrote:I gave up on achievement hunting, no way in hell am I going to enslave people out in the wastes!

You gotta do what you gotta do to survive in the wastes.

Lagduf wrote:

BrookM wrote:I gave up on achievement hunting, no way in hell am I going to enslave people out in the wastes!

You gotta do what you gotta do to survive in the wastes.

That meant going on a murderous rampage through Paradise Falls for me.

BrookM wrote:

Lagduf wrote:

BrookM wrote:I gave up on achievement hunting, no way in hell am I going to enslave people out in the wastes!

You gotta do what you gotta do to survive in the wastes.

That meant going on a murderous rampage through Paradise Falls for me.

Oh, I did the same thing too.

What great fun I had when I discovered just what they were up to in that little camp of theirs...