Plenty of reviews for Point Lookout have popped up, and the consensus seems to be this is one of the better DLCs. G4.<blockquote>Point Lookout has taken development lessons and fan criticism from Operation Anchorage, The Pitt and Broken Steel into account, successfully eliminating almost all of their problems, resulting in the Fallout 3 expansion we've all been waiting for. Point Lookout takes place away from the wastelands, but rather than dumping players into a small, contained new environment, Point Lookout is its own new zone. There's plenty to explore, with many new adventure triangles tugging at you in the corner of the screen. I'd tried to keep myself on the main quest path in order to finish Point Lookout as soon as possible, but failed more than a few times -- I just had to see what was hidden away.</blockquote>MTV Multiplayer.<blockquote>There’s a level of cleverness in the writing of the quests in “Point Lookout” that reminds of The Dark Brotherhood quests from “Oblivion.” A dark twinge with a definite sense of humor is present in all of them. For example, one has you taking soil samples from around the landscape to determine if the leftover bodies from the Civil War have made “Point Lookout” a viable oil drilling location.</blockquote>Big Download Blog.<blockquote>There's little reason to return to Point Lookout once all the quests are completed. With the exception of Operation Anchorage, previous expansions included collection trade-ins, like super mutant blood samples for the Brotherhood of Steel to study or parts toward building a new Liberty Prime in Broken Steel. In The Pitt, players won access to the steel refineries to convert scrap metal into ammunition. The most Point Lookout has to offer is a chance to distill moonshine for booze and profit. The problem with this system is that punga fruit is one of the main ingredients of moonshine, and you need a lot of it. Although they grow naturally in the wild, they don't seem to grow back - at least not in any amount of time we were willing to sit for. Plus, despite infiltrating the cult, we were never privy to the secrets of refined punga fruit harvesting, so there went our dreams of cornering the market. Over time, players will eventually exhaust all the fruit in the area, leaving little reason to return. Installing the add-on stocks punga fruit in the inventory of many of the traders across the Capitol Wasteland, but that simply underscores the point.</blockquote>VGChartz 8.3.<blockquote>Unlike in Broken Steel, the new weapons you can find in Point Lookout aren't very flashy. The Double-Barrel Shotgun is widely available at shops, hidden in containers, and dropped from enemies. It's got more power than the unique Terrible Shotgun, but fires two shells with each shot and has to be reloaded after every shot. It's pretty effective at taking out multiple weaker enemies in VATS, though you have to be careful - there's a bug where if you only have one shell remaining and try to fire the two-shell shot in VATS, the game will lock up on you. There's also a Lever-Action Rifle, which holds 10 rounds and is pretty accurate over long distance in VATS, but isn't particularly powerful. One quest reward will give you a unique version of this - the Backwater Rifle - with a bit more kick. There are also some new melee weapons - an axe, a shovel, and a couple knives, with unique versions of each that do even more damage. The unique axe, The Dismemberer, has a pretty quick attack rate and does about as much damage as the Lever-Action Rifle. The final new weapon is the Microwave Emitter, a damage-dealing version of the Mesmetron that does about as much damage as a shotgun but is pretty difficult to aim and use outside of VATS.</blockquote>Xbox 360 Achievements 9.<blockquote>Each expansion to Fallout 3 has been more expansive than the last. Operation Anchorage was pretty confined, The Pitt added a small-scale new city, Broken Steel offered reasonably open areas and a new level cap, and now Point Lookout trumps all three with an enormous, open area to traverse, adding about as much real estate to the game as the other three expansions combined. The swampy region of Point Lookout has a unique look that sets it apart from the DC wastelands, with forested marshes, deserted plains, and rugged cliffs being battered by ocean waves. With dozens of locations to discover, explorers could easily be traversing the wetlands for hours hunting everything down. Mutated wastelanders and feral ghouls roam this region, and players will have to stay sharp to survive, as Point Lookout is the most challenging of Fallout 3's additional quest lines. If you've ever complained about Fallout 3's expansions not being "big enough," Point Lookout surely won't disappoint.</blockquote>WorthPlaying 9.2.<blockquote>My personal favorite quest, "The Velvet Curtain," involved completing the mission of a long-dead Chinese spy. Even though my character showed up about a hundred years too late, I still felt like James Bond when I was tracking down a person whose molar contained submarine self-destruct codes or when I was using special glasses to discover a hidden bunker and uncover hidden equipment caches with items vital to my success. All of the side-quests are incredibly solid, and they give you incentive to stick around Point Lookout long after you've finished the work you came here to do. I'm still combing the map to look for new locations and rewards, as this place really is stuffed to the gills with adventure. </blockquote>Telegraph.<blockquote>Point Lookout also contains some nasty new adversaries in the form of inbred swampfolk, insane cult members and amphibious mire-lurks and swamplurkers. Admittedly, they are all re-skinned versions of other creatures in the Fallout 3 universe, but they suit the rustic swamp environment better than say, a team of super mutants would.
Some of the new creatures are also far tougher than enemies that players may have faced up until now; the Feral Ghoul Reavers, in particular, are diabolically hard opponents. Players may have encountered them before in the Capital Wasteland, but in Point Lookout they seem more dangerous than ever. Not only can they reduce your health by half with three well-placed blows, they also hurl radioactive goop with uncanny accuracy which can cripple limbs at around 300 yards. They also have the ability to absorb damage as though they're made out of Teflon; most weapons may as well be peashooters for all the harm they do to these creatures (notable exceptions being the Gatling Laser, the Tesla Cannon and the Gauss Rifle). To top it all off, most Feral Ghoul Reavers hunt in packs, so you can be assured of doing a lot of running (and when that fails, dying) in most encounters with them. The swampfolk, also hunt in groups and in large numbers they can be quite deadly – they can also end up fighting among themselves on occasion which is useful if your health is running low. </blockquote>GameZone 8.5.<blockquote>However, even though the focus has shifted towards exploring, there are still some hardcore firefights to be had. There are some new low-tech weapons to be found in the mix are shovels, axes, and double-barreled shotguns. The battles are action-packed and implemented very well within the base game’s combat system.</blockquote>Mygamer.<blockquote>Unlike the other DLC, there are a couple features that really stick out besides the different type of environment to explore. First, this is one area that you are not going to want to explore unless you have purchased the Broken Steel DLC. If you are anything less than level 20, I highly suggest staying in Washington DC. Fighting insane inbreed hicks is a lot more difficult than it sounds as they are some of the game’s toughest enemies. I never thought I would get so much use out of my Tesla Cannon, the killer weapons to find during Broken Steel. Without this powerful gun, my time in the swamp would have been a lot harder. </blockquote>There's also a video review available from GameTrailers (thanks Alphadrop).
Some of the new creatures are also far tougher than enemies that players may have faced up until now; the Feral Ghoul Reavers, in particular, are diabolically hard opponents. Players may have encountered them before in the Capital Wasteland, but in Point Lookout they seem more dangerous than ever. Not only can they reduce your health by half with three well-placed blows, they also hurl radioactive goop with uncanny accuracy which can cripple limbs at around 300 yards. They also have the ability to absorb damage as though they're made out of Teflon; most weapons may as well be peashooters for all the harm they do to these creatures (notable exceptions being the Gatling Laser, the Tesla Cannon and the Gauss Rifle). To top it all off, most Feral Ghoul Reavers hunt in packs, so you can be assured of doing a lot of running (and when that fails, dying) in most encounters with them. The swampfolk, also hunt in groups and in large numbers they can be quite deadly – they can also end up fighting among themselves on occasion which is useful if your health is running low. </blockquote>GameZone 8.5.<blockquote>However, even though the focus has shifted towards exploring, there are still some hardcore firefights to be had. There are some new low-tech weapons to be found in the mix are shovels, axes, and double-barreled shotguns. The battles are action-packed and implemented very well within the base game’s combat system.</blockquote>Mygamer.<blockquote>Unlike the other DLC, there are a couple features that really stick out besides the different type of environment to explore. First, this is one area that you are not going to want to explore unless you have purchased the Broken Steel DLC. If you are anything less than level 20, I highly suggest staying in Washington DC. Fighting insane inbreed hicks is a lot more difficult than it sounds as they are some of the game’s toughest enemies. I never thought I would get so much use out of my Tesla Cannon, the killer weapons to find during Broken Steel. Without this powerful gun, my time in the swamp would have been a lot harder. </blockquote>There's also a video review available from GameTrailers (thanks Alphadrop).
