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.

For those that have no clue what Fable is: It is a action adventure RPG on top of a sandbox area.

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. 

This is Fable 3?

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 be able to shoot that stupid blind bitch at the beginning of the game.

This blind bitch that I’m talking about is Theresa. This woman is the the daughter of Brom and Scarlet Robe who are from the first Fable. While she became a great Seeress in the first game, she somehow comes back to be an effective guide in the second game, raising the hero from a young age. She then comes back in the third game and instead of being a decent guide she turns out to be more misleading than anything. 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, Logan, the King. Walter (the King's General and the Hero’s mentor) leads you and Jasper (your servant, voiced by Monty Python member, John Cleese) 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 resistance group together that wants 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.

Really, the beginning of Fable 3 should have went like this:

Hero: Bro, can I have a word with you? Logan: Sure, what's 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 in game, kept you from seeking revenge on your brother, being able to better prepare for darkness which ends up possessing Walter and you killing him. That 5 minute talk would have saved countless lives in game and made more sense than going through the first half of the game.

Now during your adventures you free towns, feed people, basically do any quest that they send you off on, just to prove that you are a better man (or woman if you played the princess) than your brother. In many cases you make promises to leaders of these people you help. At the end of the story line they come in to cash in the promises that you made. Some of these promises include less taxes, universities opened, and land freed.

If the conversation above takes place though this 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 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 30 seconds of 2 brothers talking.

When I found out that Logan was doing what he was doing 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, Theresa. Instead you just get more of a lecture from her of “how you had to go through what you did to prepare you for it”.

This tends to lead to another “what the f**k” moment. King Logan has been a dick for years now and all he leaves in the national treasury for you is a measly 400,000. Where as the decisions you make almost immediately gain or lose case I don’t understand why there isn’t more in the bank. You as a king will also be forced to decorate the castle. Once again, if bad shit is coming do you really want to talk about my decorations, or do I want to invest more in the defense of the people? Heaven forbid I have mismatching drapes when the world ends.

"Girls don't like boys, girls like cars and money!"

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 the game 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.

With changing the women in game to actually look like women being the most noticeable change in the game 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 noticeable from it!

Albion in Fable 3 is to be taking place during it’s industrial revolution so we see a lot of areas that look like the beginning of the steam punk era. Many buildings are built updated with newer items. There are no labor laws in effect so almost all the children you meet are at work. The times that you do meet people that stand up to the ridiculous requirements of work are given the “do the work or get shot” method of negotiation. Things look bleak, polluted, and dirty in the city areas.

I realize that Albion is going through its industrial revolution but that doesn’t mean that everything changed. It would have been nice of Lionhead studios to include the old areas in the game that way the newer areas would have stuck out a bit more and helped the changed areas in the game stick out even more to where people could go: “Wow, I notice that from Fable 2, and they did a good job of 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 completist: this is one major pain in the ass. Besides the normal (for Fable) collect the gnomes or books there are some that will just take a while to complete. One of the achievements on here is to have a baby with someone online, so you might not want to pursue this achievement, especially if your friends list consist of only guys, and one of them is your brother. This could be bordering on (as one of my friends put it) virtual gay incest.

You don’t have a problem with that do you?

Overall

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