Notes Before I begin
Any TL;DR (Too Long; Didn?t Read) posts or any smart arse variation on TL;DR will result in a report.
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All reviews are 360, unless stated otherwise.
Fable III is the third game from the ?Fable? series created and published by Lionshead Studios. Released now on the Xbox 360 and coming soon on the PC, Fable III is set 50 years after the end of Fable II and you take the role of a prince or princess, who must go on a quest to become a revolutionary leader and over-throw the current King, your brother Logan.
[Img_Inline width="375" Caption="Albion. Where parents use kids as missiles." Align="right"]http://www.co-optimus.com/images/upload/image/2010/fable3-kid-toss.jpg[/Img_Inline]
Fable III begins with one of the most amusing opening videos from any game this year. Sure, there is a message about never giving up but find me a screen that makes me giggle as much as this does. [http://www.shacknews.com/images/generated/4c595742d9888_featured_without_text_fable3chicken.jpg] I will give you a million pounds. Anyway, Fable III keeps up its humorous start by propelling you into the game with Jasper, your butler, rousing your lazy character and their sleeping companion, a dog named Dog, from a comfy sleep. After some brief tutorials introducing the moral choice system again, the new hand holding system and a reminder of the combat system, the story begins properly and this is when things begin to go wrong. Your brother Logan, who is also the King of Albion, is going slightly mad with power and orders the death of a group of protesters that have started protesting outside his castle. Upon hearing this news literally through a keyhole, Logan thrusts you into a choice, you must decide who lives or dies. The protestors or someone close to you. After you?ve made your choice, you are escorted out of the castle that night by Sir Walter, an old guardsman and your trainer of sorts, and Jasper, your butler, through a rather handily built cave system your father, the Hero from Fable II. It is here where you find out you have what it takes to follow in your fathers footsteps and become a Hero.
After a brief introduction to magic, you are then introduced to the Sanctuary, which will soon be holding your weapons, trophies from quests and various outfits. It is also here where your objective, which runs for the first half of the game, becomes apparent. Gain followers to help fight back against your brothers tyrannical rule, making promises to key people as you progress through the game. This involves doing a lot of quests and acquiring guild seals, which you use to level up, details of which I?ll go more in-depth about later on. The quests in question range from simple fetch quests in various guises, quests where you kill people and the slightly silly ones, like being shrunk down to play a hero in a tabletop game world or lure some chickens back to their coop whilst dressed as a giant chicken yourself. However, on the way, you will soon find out that Logan is not the main threat. Something scarier, meaner and three times as ugly is lurking in the shadows, ready to appear and is known as The Creeper. This sets up the second half of Fable III which focuses on this new threat. Although the story is seemingly split into two, it is actually a story, which links together well. It?s not going to win any rewards but it has a couple of interesting plot-twists to keep your interest and the way that one half of the story links to the other is done very well to keep it from being a story that is dismissed as drivel. And for those who wish to know if there is a proper boss fight at the end, instead of whatever Fable II called it, there is. It is nothing special but it does put a weird twist on what I thought would be a basic and obvious ending.
[Img_Inline width="375" Caption="Being a hero isn?t all doom and gloom, you get to pose for photos too." Align="left"]http://www.gossipgamers.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/fable3gdc10-590x333.jpg[/Img_Inline]
A few gameplay elements return from Fable II, including the ever-irritating dog, while something?s have been changed or tweaked slightly. The combat in Fable III has had a few tweaks made to it, taking it more of a challenge this time around. While some things are carried over from Fable II, including the KO?s instead of deaths for the players character, ranged and melee weaponry handling and controls, Fable III now includes certain enemies can used more varied ranged attacks. Instead of a rifle or pistol, they could throw grenades at you, cast a few spells or just decide to swamp you at any point. Each enemy also mixes up attacks if possible, switching between the ranged and melee while dodging your attacks. It makes a difference from just relying on Flourishes in big fights, which can now be interrupted mid-charge, making you use the roll and block abilities, keeping you alert to what enemy is doing what and on your toes. There has been a change to how magic works too, allowing you to combine two spells together to make a super-spell. To do this, you must buy two separate magic gauntlets on the ?Road to Rule? and equip a different gauntlet to each hand. Upon doing so, the two gauntlets will combine spells and apply both the effects when you cast them. A good idea on paper as it adds a tactical and interesting twist to the combat, but it can cause a couple of frame-rate issues, especially if you combine the Ice spell with pretty much any other spell, slowing the game down to a fraction of its normal speed. In addition, the tactical side is thrown out the window if you upgrade your magic ability to the highest, thus making fights a breeze.
The levelling up has been tweaked slightly too, being made into a slower but slightly easier to understand system. You earn experience, or ?Guild Seals?, from doing quests, fighting and despatching enemies or finding chests with the Seals inside. When you have enough Seals to purchase an upgrade, a small Guild Seal symbol appears, prompting you to press ?Up? on the directional pad, which will teleport you to the ?Road to Rule.? Now, here is where you upgrade your melee, ranged and magic abilities. You can also buy new expressions, dyes and other stuff as well, using your Guild Seals to unlock chests along the way, which will give you new abilities. You are also teleported here each time you get to a major point in the story, so you can upgrade in preparation for the next challenge. It is a faster, more streamlined version of upgrading your character that allows you to upgrade any skill you want at any time. However, while I am happy with the new, streamlined upgrading system, the much talked about ?Touch? system is pretty rubbish. As far as I can tell, the ?Touch? system is used for three purposes, leading people to workhouses, evil temples and beds when you want to have sexy fun times with them. It really has no other use and becomes annoying when you have to take a character by the hand, just so the golden path, which returns form Fable II, will update and guide you to your next objective. It feels at times that they?ve crowbarred this feature in at the last minute as, apart from the quests that require you to use it, you?ll never bother with it outside of the sex part. The gameplay overall has not really changed too much from Fable II which, depending on how look at it, isn?t a good or bad thing. The combat still feels the same and the moral choice system is still black and white with a helpful red or green ring to show you what is good or evil. There are some neutral options but they very rarely pop up, which is a shame. While nothing has dramatically changed, apart from the NPC interaction being restricted to one on one chats, it is not exactly a basic copy paste job either. It will be familiar to those who played Fable II to death, but challenging enough for those that are used to the system will not stroll back into it without a little practice and fine-tuning of their old tried and tested tactics.
[Img_Inline width="375" Caption="Even the Royal Army have time for the odd photo. No wonder Albion is in trouble." Align="right"]http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/fable-3-achievements.jpg[/Img_Inline]
Sadly, though, there is the odd bug now and again that makes the game a little harder and more frustrating to play. The golden trail, which is used to guide you to objectives, will at times either point you back the way you came despite you following it or just vanish completely. It?s annoying and irritating to suddenly be told to go back the way you came after following the path for a short while. There is also a problem with sound files vanishing at times, sound files from the same character playing over each other and at times, I have had an enemy glitch under the floor, rendering a quest unfinishable and leaving me unable to exit the area due to my character still being in a combat stance. It is not often these bugs happen, so it is not as annoying or frustrating as New Vegas [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.246820] and its various bug issues but it is still enough to raise a slight ping of anger in what is an otherwise technically perfect game.
As for the sound, it is still the same music from Fable II, with some newer music added in at times. There is nothing memorable but the music sets the mood nicely and always matches the situation, be it an upbeat, amusing scene or a dark, moody scene. However, the music plays a secondary role to the voice acting. Big names like Simon Pegg, John Cleese, Stephen Fry, Bernard Hill, Sir Ben Kingsley and the not so big name but kind of token British guy who is a bit of a dick, like Jonathon Ross all lend their names to characters in Fable III and they are perfect. Simon Pegg is perfect as Ben Finn, John Cleese is perfect as Jasper and Stephen Fry is without any doubt playing a role he is very convincing in, returning to play the person many love to hate, Reaver. John Cleese in particular is on top form as Jasper, delivering one liners with perfection and really just being himself and Simon Pegg is just amazing as Ben Finn, getting into the role and making it his own. The usual Fable humour is still there to, mocking everything from the ending in Fable II, to poking fun at Jonathon Ross and his past discrepancies involving rude phone calls. It?s all very tongue in cheek and amusing for a while, although sadly in the second half of the game, humour takes a back seat to drama and action, which is disappointing as the humour of Fable games is one of the best things about it.
[Img_Inline width="375" Caption="Admit it, you all love this guy really. It?s Stephen Fry, how could you not?" Align="left"]http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20101210011735/fable/images/8/86/Reaver_fable_iii_by_phoenix88049-d2zorz3-1.jpg[/Img_Inline]
Overall, Fable III is a hard game to judge, really. If you are a fan of the series, you might love it for being a brilliant game that is worthy of the Fable name. Alternatively, you?ll hate it as it comes up short on the promises made by the studio. If you are a newcomer to the series, it is a good place to start as it does not reference the old games too much and is enjoyable, accessible and fun. However, judged as a sequel to a good series, not enough has changed to make it seem different from Fable II and that is disappointing for me. Sure, they have tweaked the gameplay to be more challenging, as well as a small graphical tweak as well to make it match up to the standards of today but nothing else feels like progress. The new ?touch? system was over-rated and I personally felt it to an excuse to crowbar in a couple of escort quests, so it was not a feature that was totally neglected. The new property ownership makes it feel like ?The Sims: Albion?, having you run around the map, repairing the houses you?ve rented out as the occupants are apparently too dim-witted to stop breaking your houses. If you buy Fable III, you will enjoy it for the first play-through at least, as the twist and turns will keep you playing through the story. After the ending though, you will probably put it on the shelf and forget all about which is a disappointment as it is a fun game, it truly is. It is just the lack of anything new or even remotely groundbreaking that kills the replayability and appeal of the game. And that is the nail in its royal coffin I am afraid to say.
[small]Albion is a rather beautiful place, filled with colour, amazing architecture and English people. Although the most majestic thing in the entire game by a mile is Major Swift?s moustache. I?d love to have a moustache like that but sadly, my facial hair will take about a year to grow. Which by that time, my girl-friend would?ve probably shaved it off in my sleep. But she would keep it in a little box for me, so I guess that?s OK.[/small]
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Games: Final Fantasy X [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/326.166262] - Borderlands [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/326.180755] - Colin McRae
iRT 2 [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/326.187935] - Final Fantasy 13, plus guide review [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/326.203989] - Viva Pinata [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/326.234884] - Fallout: New Vegas [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.246820] - Fable III
Music: Full Fathom Five by Clutch [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/326.206062]
Random reviews: Friends list review, no 4. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/326.170076] Friends list review 1, 2, 3 lost.
Game previews: Final Fantasy 13 [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/326.178502]
Games: Final Fantasy X [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/326.166262] - Borderlands [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/326.180755] - Colin McRae
iRT 2 [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/326.187935] - Final Fantasy 13, plus guide review [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/326.203989] - Viva Pinata [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/326.234884] - Fallout: New Vegas [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.246820] - Fable IIIMusic: Full Fathom Five by Clutch [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/326.206062]
Random reviews: Friends list review, no 4. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/326.170076] Friends list review 1, 2, 3 lost.
Game previews: Final Fantasy 13 [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/326.178502]
