MadCap's Game Reviews - "Fallout 3: Point Lookout"

[Insert "Dueling Banjos" here]

I would like to note that I’m reviewing the DLCs for Fallout 3 in the order that I played them, not the order that they were originally released (something that likely could have been brought up beforehand, so…oops).  That being said, I was far more pleased with Point Lookout providing a far better gaming experience than Broken Steel and Operation Anchorage did.  I’ll go ahead and say it, this is tied with Mothership Zeta for my second favorite of the DLCs of Fallout 3.  What’s my favorite? Well, we’ll get into that last, naturally.  So, if you haven’t figured it out between the ones I’ve done and the ones I’ve yet to do…keep guessing!

Time to Axe these Mirelurks a question...

Meanwhile, I’ll get into Point Lookout.  This one has it all! Zombies! Rednecks! ZOMBIE REDNECKS! …oh, and something to do with a book that may or may not be black magic, which may or may not exist (probably doesn’t, though…maybe).  And the best part, of course, is that none of that has to do with the main plotline at all! It’s just there! An entire new area is opened up to the player upon leaving Vault 101 or reloading a game after installing the DLCs.  The player receives a message about a strange ferry piloted by a creepy man (who we learn more of later) that waits to take the player away to the Fallout universe’s equivalent of the Point Lookout State Park in Maryland.

And let me tell you, it’s pretty damn awesome!  I found it very pleasing that there was now an entirely new area to explore and make discoveries in. Sure, it’s only about a fifth the size of the main vanilla Capital Wasteland, but just the fact that it’s new is something.  As I said before, it allows new areas to explore and to make discoveries in.  And unlike the brown and gray rural world of the Washington, D.C. area, we’re treated to a lot of brown in Point Lookout.  However, this fits well because a great deal of the area is swampland – where aforementioned Rednecks and Zombie Rednecks can be found – even reaching out near into the coast.

The Locals ARE a rather helpful bunch...

The main plot of Point Lookout involves an ongoing battle between a British zombie and a head in a jar, and no, it doesn’t make any more sense in context.  After braving an old Southern plantation house and aiding the zombie (who I could just swear is about to ask me about the cliff racer menace whenever he talks) defend it from Tribals, the player gets conscripted by him to infiltrate their tribe and discover who their leader is.  And it’s…you guessed it, the brain in the jar, or actually the hologram of a brain in a jar.  Of course, to get to that point, there’s one tiny little thing you have do…

Go across the map to get high off of irradiated fruit and have a part of your brain cut out.

...it’s a Tribal thing.

And eventually, it comes down to a final confrontation between your zombie employer and the brain in a jar…though that might not even come to be, depending on how you play it.  I don’t want to give away anything, but I’m very sure that everyone involved will be satisfied by the end…and by that I mean, the player, because they’ll be the only one left standing when it’s all said and done.

But even after that, there’s still more to do!

Again, the main plot – barring travel times – takes about as much time as Broken Steel or Operation Anchorage does.  But where those two were simply add-ons, Point Lookout actually feels like an expansion, with more content to go with all the new goodies you get.  There are also quests galore to be had within it as well. Such gems include: a quest where the player much infiltrate a coven of Rednecks to retrieve a book with a nearly unpronounceable name that may or may not be the source of ultimate evil in Fallout universe (or part of it, anyway), a quest where clues lead the player to finish the mission of a Chinese spy and blow up a submarine, a quest that involves finding the source of the legends behind a haunted cave that even the Tribals are afraid of, and much, much more.

Really, I can't say that I'm dissatisfied with Point Lookout at all.  It has many things that I found sorely lacking in the previous DLCs.  A new area to explore, a quest line that I actually do feel more invested in (they wanted a piece of my mind, after all)  and goodies to run around using on the local population.  Good times!

Point Lookout is now available from Bethesda Game Studios and Bethesda Softworks for PC, Xbox 360, PS3.