Fable III

Ok so I'm going to try to get through this without sounding like a jaded gamer which is extremely hard for me because of what Fable 2 did to me.

Fable III is the third game by Peter Molyneux in attempt to make you care about the fate of a bunch of emotional-less NPCs being oppressed by their King who happens to be your brother. You are essentially the rebel child and set off to try and overthrow him to make Albion a better place to live. The reason that I was so upset with Fable II was the lack of any real change from the first one. It just felt like the only things that changed were bigger maps and a dog. Even the story lacked any real kick and sadly Fable III follows its predecessor with its uninspired story.

The game starts off following around a chicken. Yes a chicken. It follows it as it tries to escape from being killed by random towns folk as Reaver (yes again) does the narration. The chicken ends up being killed (spoiler?) and one of its feathers lands on your window sill thus beginning your journey.

Right away you'll notice that the lip sync and graphics for this game are god awful. I'm being totally serious the lip work is totally off and the cutscenes(apart from like 3 HD ones) look even worse. It looks like everyone has lockjaw. You would think that will all the next gen engines that Lionhead would've gotten a better one. The only thing that look decent are the horizon shots which look pretty colorful and I guess the fog but I don't think anyone can mess up how fog looks.

Speaking of fog let me quickly touch on the monsters, most of the monsters are exactly the same from the last to games although rather uglier especially the Balverines. There are a few monsters but they are confined to an area so you wont be seeing them around as often. You will fight Hollow Men. Lots and lots of Hollow Men. They are EVERYWHERE. They've become what Hobbs where in the first and second game.

The combat for Fable III is pretty much exactly the same as Fable II. You're standard each button controls Magic,Ranged and Melee. The Melee combat is still the same flail and flourish type of combat. I don't know a lot about the ranged since I barely used it. It was pretty useless since magic does twice the damage and casts faster than you can shot and reload. The Magic for Fable is still great which is the only thing I still love about the Fable series. The magic combinations are fun but feel a tad overpowered at times. The one big step back for magic is the fact that you can't scroll through them on the fly, they are now in the form of gloves which you need to swap out (you can only have one at a time or two if you've unlocked the spell combination skill)and some spells have been converted to potions that you use on the D-pad. I didn't like the fact that when you could combine two spells you couldn't use the spells on their own. For example if you had Fire and Vortex you couldn't just use vortex, it had to be vortex and fire.

They bring back so many elements from the old games in Fable III it feels like you're playing Fable I again. You're base is again the Guild HQ. There you can swap weapons, spell gloves, clothes, etc. This opens up when you press the start button so saving is a bit longer. Luckily you can do it in the middle of a fight if you feel a spell or weapon isn't adequate for the current situation you can just change it. Reaver is also around and she will be your guide(again) through what you need to do. The story for Fable III is so overly dramatic. You have to gain followers to help you overthrow your brother and you have to make promises with them in order for them to join you. I thought to myself, a quick slip of poison into my brother's morning coffee wouldn't have done the trick? I LIVE IN THE SAME CASTLE AS HIM!! But then I remembered it was a game and sighed. Anyway not only that, there is apparently a big shadow thing that is going to destroy Albion and so on. I heard that its similar to the black shadow in Kingdom Hearts. Never having played KH (don't judge me) I can't say but for those of you that HAVE, there you go.

The ending for Fable III is again a load of shit. You see it coming miles away and it isn't even that hard. I literally sat there and went "Is that really it?" They spend the entire last half of the game hyping up this huge war and then it happens and its over in a few minutes. In other words, don't get your hopes up for a change in tradition of Fable having crappy endings.

Customization has been obliterated in Fable III. You can't buy clothes the old fashion way, they sit out in the open and there's about 10 or so styles of clothing to choose from (if you don't mix and match). For a game that's all about the Role Play element they really messed it up in this game. Also the towns don't feel different. It all feels like you've been there before.

One more gripe and I'll end this (wow this got long) the button holding to open or do anything. Who the hell thought that was a good idea? I don't mind holding down the A button to open the door but I have to let it go for it to work. It doesn't automatically happen. Trust me, after playing so many games where doors open on one press, it will frustrate the crap out of you. Anyway, Fable III just made everything worse and didn't deserve to be made. That said, lets all sit back and wait for the inevitable Fable IV. Maybe they'll give us new ways to fart on people.