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.