E3 09: Fallout 3 - Point Lookout DLC

Bethesda has been doing a fantastic job extending the world of Fallout 3 with some terrific DLC campaigns (The Pitt, Broken Steel, Operation Anchorage). The latest of these is Point Lookout, set to launch in just a few weeks on June 26th for PC and Xbox 360 and later in the year on PS3.

Point Lookout has a slightly different feel than the rest of Fallout 3, with the Bethesda team going for a slightly more gothic horror theme yet still fits within the Fallout universe. It's a larger map than most of the other DLC and will take about 3 - 5 hours to complete. It's also quite a bit more difficult, being made for characters around Level 30. You can certainly play it at lower levels, but they warn that trying Point Lookout under level 15 would be nearly impossible. The number of random encounters has been upped, so you never know when a monster will come ambling around the corner to kick your ass. And speaking of monsters, three new types have been added including the Scrapper and the Brawler who look like they just stepped out of The Hills Have Eyes. There are also six new weapon types to collect and use.

The story of Point Lookout concerns a ghoul named Desmond, whose haunted mansion like house has been taken over by a mysterious cult. Your job, if you choose to accept it, is to discover the secret of the cult and help Desmond regain his spooky domicile. The small portion I saw was great fun and I look forward to playing it in-depth in a few weeks.

Also on the way is the the Mothership Zeta DLC which will have you being abducted by aliens who have come back to retrieve a crashed spaceship. If this sounds a bit strange, it is! But it does have basis in the original game, where you can find a randomly located crashed spaceship complette with dead alien and super powerful ray-gun weapon. If you haven't found it yet in your game, be sure to try because that ray-gun can take out Deathclaws in one shot. The perfect weapon for ridding the wasteland of baddies once and for all. But use it sparingly because the ammo is irreplaceable. Hopefully this DLC will provide some more access to it but we'll have to just wait and see. No date has been set for Mothership Zeta but you can be sure it will arrive before the Fallout 3: Game Of The Year Edition (with all the DLC included on the disc) launches this holiday.