Fable 3

Fable 3

For those that have been keeping tabs on Lionhead’s Fable series this is the third installment. Fable 3 takes place 50 years after the last Fable and although promised to be better than Fable 2, but I have some issues with Fable 3 that would tend to lead me believe otherwise.

Thanks to the downfall of the quality of the Final Fantasy series I have been trying to get my RPG fix else where. Whereas this game won't masturbate (play with itself) like some other modern RPGs, you do try to score with it (no seriously, you go around and try and get people to love you). But at least you get to control how your character goes about discovering the world.

After Fable 2 came out with its story line and action, Lionhead decided to keep the Fable crowd happy by giving them Fable 3. In a much anticipated game by the lovers of the Fable series, I was reluctant to get this game. Now, I wish someone would have just kicked me in the nuts instead, and I could have kept my money and been good. For those that have a great love for this game, I hope you understand the things I will spew out. For those that want to finish this game and don’t want to know about the story line, stop reading now. I will not hide any of the story line nor will I hide what happens at the end. For those that want to read this, here we go. This is a very over rated game and I will tell you why.

Story

Again I'm warning you about the spoilers and this is the last warning since everything will be revealed here. After watching Fable 3 being played, actually playing Fable 3 and going back through the first half again, you really should shoot that stupid blind bitch at the beginning of the game. She makes it sound as though your brother is a crazy ass hole who needs to have a bullet to the head. Instead, he is trying to do the same thing you are: preparing the world to defend against the darkness. True, you might be the hero that people need but, that doesn’t mean your brother has to die for it.

The story starts off where you need to build a resistance against your brother the King (Logan). Walter (the King's General and the Hero’s mentor) leads you and Jasper (your servant) out of the castle and into an adventure so that you can meet and persuade people to join your cause. You end up getting a group together that want to make Albion better and you go and dethrone your brother by force. During your travels you come across this really wicked enemy called “The Crawler” and fight his “children” called “the Darkness”. Come to find out this enemy will spread across the world and if you don’t have 6.5 million in gold saved up for your army by the last day, all of Albion will die.

The beginning of Fable 3 should have went like this:

Hero: Bro, can I have a word with you?
Logan: Sure, whats up?
Hero: Why are you being such a dick? I mean you are taxing the crap out of our people, building a massive army, and being a tyrant. We don’t need this shit so why do you have a stick up your ass about it?
Logan: Well bro, you know all the expeditions that I have gone on?
Hero: Yeah.
Logan: On one of those expeditions I met this creature called “The Crawler”. He was in charge of these forces called “The Darkness” and his goal is to kill the world. I have to be a dick in order to protect the world from The Crawler and The Darkness. Do you understand?
Hero: So, if you don’t do this, we will all die?
Logan: Yep. And while I do that, I need you to round up some more forces, pretend to start a rebellion, screw some bitches, learn some magic, and I will toss the kingdom your way afterwards. That way we will have a stronger army to contend with the darkness. Just make sure you don’t take Walter over to Aurora.
Hero: Sounds good to me.

This would have saved you from having to be a dick later in game, kept you from seeking revenge on your brother, and finally being able to better prepare for darkness which ends up possessing Walter and resulting in you killing him. That 5 minute talk would have saved countless lives in game and made more sense than going through the entire first half of the game.

This also means that you would not have to go back on promises that you made in game, or work as hard to do the things you didn't need to do. Don’t get me wrong, I understand why the story is like it is. The world is a tough place and for you to be able to save a lot of people you need to go back on your promises. People won’t understand it but in order for you to help them; sacrifices must be made. I think they could have done this without having a lame ass story that could have been prevented by the two brothers having a thirty second conversation.

When I found out that Logan was doing all of this because of The Darkness coming, I was hoping that you would be able to take your sword out and run it through that stupid blind seer from the beginning of the game. Instead you just get more of a lecture from her about “how you had to go through what you did to prepare you for (The Darkness)”.

Graphics

Its been a few years since Fable 2 has come out and I remember going around looking at the same type of graphics over a decent looking world. Nothing too glamorous and nothing to get you to stop and take a look at the world around you and go “whoa”. The male and female models were dangerously similar and there were times where Fable 2 would slow down just to catch up with itself. So add 50 years to the Albion world where Fable 3 takes place, change almost all the landscape of the world so it looks different, change the female model to actually look female (although most of them are ugly unless they are lesbian) AND YOU HAVE THE SAME F**KING GAME AS FABLE 2.

Changing the women in Fable 3 to actually look like women being the most noticeable change in Fable 3, you still have the issue of it being slow as balls. Seriously, there would be times that the graphics would slow down so much that I actually thought I cast a spell. The graphics have no noticeable changes to it so it still looks like pixeled ass in a lot of areas. Although its supposed to be a game after Fable 2, there are only 3 areas from Fable 2 that are in Fable 3, and only one of them is recognizable!

I realize that Albion is going through it’s industrial revolution but that doesn’t mean that everything should have changed. It would have been nice of Lionhead studios to include the old areas in Fable 3 that way the newer areas would have stuck out a bit more and helped the changed areas in the game to stick out even more to where people could go: “Wow, I remember that from Fable 2, and they did a good job of remaking it.” Instead of: “Where the f*** are the old areas of Ablion?”

Sound

There is really nothing to expound on this. The music fits. The voice acting fits the main characters (having John Cleese as Jasper is great). The action sounds fit. But nothing in this game stands out and says: “BOW TO ME I’M AWESOME.” In fact ways they could have helped this is have people donate voice acting for Fable 3 instead of having the same 5 voices for all the women in game and 5 different voices for all the men in game. I'm sure that if they had a contest for prizes they could have at least gotten 100 people to put their voice into a microphone and send it to them so people could say that they had their voice in a game (I know I would have). To sum it up, it was “meh” at best.

Gameplay

Fable has always promised freedom of character with every game so with all the freedom it promises that you can have it still is a very linear game; you can’t go into areas unless you first unlock them by doing certain quest. So while the promise is there they actually mean it’s there after you finish the game. Sure you could be a dick to people, or buy houses, or kill villagers but if you can’t escape what good does it do you?

One great thing that Fable 3 did was make the start menu interactive. You don’t have a menu anymore you just have a sanctuary that you can visit at any time and make any changes that you would need to. From outfits, to weapons, to checking on your real-estate, to joining another players game, to traveling to anywhere you want. Lionhead at least improved upon that.

While they improved on some things I feel that they have taken a step in the wrong direction in other things. Combat is definitely lacking in this game. There was only one time I was knocked out in combat and that’s because I was not paying attention. All other times it was: make sure I have fire and shock equipped, hold the magic button until I feel I can kill everyone around me, and repeat till all the enemies are dead.

They took a step forward with how you can cast two spells at a time now. Then, they took two steps back for you now having to equip your spells back at the sanctuary and you will not be able to pick your spells that you want to use unless you continually go back to the sanctuary to equip the spell you want. They also split the spells up and in some cases made really useful spells into potions instead. So spamming the slow time and creature summon no longer applies in this game if you are trying to save your potions.

Leveling up is different now too. Instead of collecting red/blue/yellow/green orbs from the type of kill you do, you now just get health back for kills and fill up some of your hero meter as skill points for you to spend later on. While it has made it easier to level up your character they did add stupid things for you to spend it on as well. Fortunately most of the lesser skills to spend points on are not needed nor do you need one to level up the next item you want but when it comes down to your main skill like magic level 5 and you haven’t bought level 3 yet, it wont let you open it up unless you have all the points for level 3,4 and 5.

Replay

This is kind of my second time though Fable 3 and although I didn’t complete it the first time I wanted to make sure that I had enough gold to save all of Albion and not go back on the promises I made in game. I ended up having close to 20 million in the bank and gave it all to the kingdom. My real estate was pulling in over 200k an hour and by the time Fable 3 ended the kingdom still had over 16 million and I had another 9. Fable 3 doesn’t end after the fight with the Crawler so you get to quest and get to work for the rest of the achievements. In this the replay value is excellent. I will probably get another play through before I call it quits.

After the story the world is open up to you and you can start making even more influences in game. If you chose to go back on your word on a few things for a quick buck, the landscape will have changed drastically where there will be a mine where the rich use to live, old towns that were demolished in the fight are left in shambles, and education is now only for the rich. All of this will also have an impact on how the rest of Albion sees its king.

Lionhead studios also added weapon upgrades to the list of things that you have to collect to get achievements but:

1) You cant collect all weapons by yourself and will have to go online to trade them which means that you have to at least have two characters to get all the weapons you need since the weapons given you are game based and not random. In other words whatever game you have, you will only get the same weapons and will have to go online to get the other 4 to 6 weapons out of 50 that you need.

2) To get the upgrade for certain weapons IS RETARDED. You can get a weapon at the beginning of Fable 3 and STILL be working on upgrading it before Fable 3 ends. To say its worth it is a total bag of shit.

For those that are completionists: One of the achievements on here is to have a baby with someone online. For most of you that don’t know a girl that is online AND willing to play this game with you; think of this as (as one of my friends put it) virtual gay incest. You don’t have a problem with that do you?

Overall

This was a great game if it was an expansion of Fable 2. There was not enough of a story to give Fable 3 its own game, although fun; it was an over hyped game that barely passes.

Graphics: 6. Really, it seems to have the same graphic problems as Fable 2. Being lazy doesn’t cut it in my book.

Sound: 6. Famous actors don’t make great games. Great games have all the aspects covered. No epic soundtrack, no epic sounds make this one a forgettable game out of the series.

Gameplay: 5. Combat so easy you can do it in your sleep. This takes no skill to play and gets monotonous after a while.

Story: 4. Really, a 30 second conversation between King Logan and the Hero debunk most of this story. In fact if the Hero didn’t take Walter along on his fight for the Kingdom, Lionhead would have had to do some work to have a real enemy to fight instead of a possessed mentor.

Replay: 9. Despite how poor the rest of the game is the redeeming factor of the game is that you can play this a few times. However I plan on playing it once more before I turn it back to game stop and get $35 back. Which is pretty much what this game is worth . . .new.

Overall: 6 (Average) This seems like a forced out bowl of crap that should have been an expansion pack instead of a full on game. It was enjoyable until I was reminded that I spent the full price to get it.

I had a feeling you were gunna review this after seeing you play it every day on XBL

Do you want editor access?

well I also played halo reach (still playing) for the last two months, and burnout paradise but, I dont think you will see reviews on any of them.

ok full review up but, I probably need to work on a few thing up there so let me know. I will have pics soon.

How about you put this in through The Editor??? I can't hold your hand forever.

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That was one of the most incredibly funny things I have read on this site but isn't that the the great revelation of this game? Is The Crawler and The Darkness widely known at the beginning? It sounds like a grim surprise towards the end but I imagine that dethroning your evil brother is the plot device that shapes your choices through the game?

The writing of this review is the best written by Zimes so far. If you move the story above graphics you will have a great new review though very spoiler heavy.

nothing in this game was a surprise. I was honestly let down although its still a fun game. I plan on doing 2 more play throughs. one just to be an ass, and the second with my brother. there is a achievement to have a baby with another live player but it just gets weird when you know the that one of you are playing a girl. eye contact is definitely out of the picture

So Fable 3 falls under virtual gay incest, right? LOL.

f**ker, I almost spewed my soda all over the screen. I so need to use that line in the review.