Fable III

This one's been a long time coming, and while I do also have F3AR to review, I figured that it's time I do another X-Box exclusive. And I think Fable III was the most recent one. Correct me if I'm wrong. Anywho, let's get to it.

STORY
Fable III is set in the world of Albion, a land where the age of industry has just begun, giving a steampunk feel to alot of the old standard fantasy settings that the Fable games have always been set in. After 50 years, your character from Fable 3 has had two children, yourself (a prince or princess) and your brother, Logan. Logan is loathed and feared by his subjects, and the main focus of the game is building up your forces in an effort to overthrow him.

The story is interesting, and some of the characters are genuinely likeable. The land of Albion, as portrayed in Fable III feels like a logical and believable change from what we had seen in the first two titles.

PRESENTATION
Albion feels more visually diverse than in its previous depictions, with the landscape ranging from snowy villages, to grassy fields, to misty swamplands. The inhabitants of Albion are about as annoying as ever, but still look visually interesting, with a cartoonish, exaggerated style.

While the game looks nice and all, the voice acting is, for the most part, repetitive and annoying. The NPC's have the same cockney accents as in previous installments in the franchise, which can get old fast. On the upside, John Cleese plays your ever faithful man-servant, Jasper. Hearing him deliver his lines with his trademark humour helped endear Jasper to me. Stephen Fry and Michael Fassbender also do some entertaining work as Reaver and Logan respectively.

The interface has also been streamlined, with the menu's of old being replaced by a physical place for you to check your inventory, store your weapons, and swap out spells, etc. It works in simplifying the more fiddly parts of customization, but at the same time seems to limit the customization (in contrast to previous games).


GAMEPLAY
The hack 'n slash gameplay familiar to the series returns in the third installment, and it's working about as well as it ever will. While swords and guns are fun to use, if you ever get overwhelmed, spamming area of effect spells will normally save your butt. It's just as unbalanced as the last games.

To stop you from just spamming magic, the developers have added in the feature to personalize your weapons by doing certain challenges. By killing a number of Hollow men, for instance, your gun may get a bone white barrel.

As mentioned earlier, alot of the menus have been given a physical form, by way of the sanctuary. Carrying on with this trend, the experience bar/levelling system has also been given a physical appearance, in the form of the road to rule. This contains all the XP unlocks, as well as customization unlocks and what would amount to a progress bar. The farther you are in the story, the farther along the road you are. It's an interesting mechanic, which I found to be really cool.

Now, with any Fable game comes the promise of "Freedom of Choice". But thats never really been the case. Good ol' Peter Molyneux has been writing cheques that his game can't cash. While "moral" choices are featured, they're the same old choices as always. They pretty much amount to "Build an orphanage" or "kill the orphans for unlimited youth" sort of thing. But this is made even worse due to the fact that Fable III could have been so much more... I'd explain, but I don't particularly want to spoil anything for you guys. Sorry.

REPLAYABILITY
With moral choices comes multiple playthroughs, but Fable III doesn't offer so much choice as to really warrant another playthrough. To save you the time just imagine doing everything you did, but acting as a jerk or a saint if you played as a good guy and bad guy respectively. Aside from that, Fable doesn't offer all that much. It has some side quests that can take up some time, but really, once you finish the main quest, it all seems a bit pointless.

OVERVIEW
Aesthetically, Fable III is as fun and colourful as ever, gameplaywise it works pretty well, and the story is solid and interesting. The customization seems to have dropped off a bit since Fable II and the moral choices are as cartoonishly good and evil as they'll ever be, until about halfway through, that is. Some of the characters are interesting, and some of the voice acting is really quite good, but if you loved Fable II, Fable III may disappoint you.

Next week, F3AR. The week after, I'm thinking I'll do my first movie adaptation game... uuurgh... Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon. Well, whatever happens, I'll be posting F3Ar on Sunday. Might do a Top 5 on Tuesday, we'll see. See you next time!!