Dear Internet,
"Fable
III" is the obviously third installment in the Fable series made by Peter Molyneux,
who has become synonymous with the concept of promising the moon for his games
and delivering a boulder, a boulder of marble carved into the likeness of the
moon, but still a boulder mind you. It
is not so much that he makes promises that he cannot keep, but more that he
shares his concepts for the game he is working on with the general public
before running them by his team to determine their feasibility technologically
wise or otherwise. The first Fable game
was to have trees growing back after you cut them down. When the team realized that this was going to
take half of the usable processing to do, the idea had to be scrapped. So, when it comes to his games, it is best to
completely ignore a majority of what he says before the game actually comes
out. "Fable 3" is pretty much
that, an active attempt on my half to know as little about the game before
starting it.
I have
played the first and second in the series, but those were quite some time ago. The first came out nearly ten years ago and somewhere
in between that and the release of "Fable III" being released almost
three years ago I got through the first two games. Sadly, what happened during those games are
mostly a blur to me. The stories were
less than memorable. In fact the only
thing that I remember about the second game's story was that it was a near
identical cookie-cut plot to the first.
There was also something about being jailed or forced to work against
your will at one point, but as I said it is all fuzzy. Why am I mentioning all this, Internet? It is because "Fable III" is
supposed to be a direct sequel to "Fable II," taking place 50 years
after the last game. Every time that
somebody who looks remotely old steps into the story, I feel like I am supposed
to know them. I cannot tell who and what
is supposed to be a reference to the older games other than the most obvious
names like Bowerstone Castle. So, on
matters of recycling plot and matters of originality of the series, I must
remain mute.
There
is still a lot to cover with just the five hours of play today. The Fable games have all allowed the player
to determine what kind of "Hero" they can become. I make use of quotation marks because the
player can become a goodly hero as per the definition of the word hero or a
murderous, chicken kicking thief. Rarely
is there a non-partial option. At one
point, a random NPC came walking up to me and started telling me to say along
the line of "Try to be evil for a change, you might like it." However there was one exception to this
polarized morality when the main character is forced to decide who would be
innocently executed, your lady friend or a bunch of strangers. The game tries to end-spectrum this choice,
but after a while of indecision, the game chooses for you. While not an actual third option because no
one is saved in reality, it was refreshing to see that even indecision was an
option in a game series where one must either be a crazed ax murderer or a
social worker who operates a kitten orphanage.
Without
spending too much time on gameplay that I have only scratched the surface on, I
will just quickly list a few gripes.
Enemies are not lootable beyond experience which means that having to
pass through three to four packs of wolves when making your way through a path
means nothing when they barely give you EXP.
If you want or have to dig for treasure, you must wait for you trusty
canine companion to notice it. If the
dog is acting buggy and not noticing it, you have to circle around and around
to get the dog to reset its path checker.
There is a quest guider that points the exact way that the player has to
travel to reach their destination. A
glowing golden dust points the way constantly to the end of the dungeon, so
never mind remembering the pathway since the game tells you how to get
out. That might not seem like much and
rather helpful if there was more than one path to go through in some of these
dungeons. It is mostly straight halls
with a forked path occasionally popping up.
If one follows the forked path, it almost always ends quickly with a
chest or treasure for the player. Since
the forked path is so short, one cannot get lost even if there was no golden
dust guiding them. Also, the guiding
glitter can be buggy. When talking to
people, the player is limited to three options, positive, negative, and
humor. These three options have various
different variations. For example, positive
interactions include shaking hands, chatting, and dancing. The player is given one option for each of
the three major branches of interaction, and as far as I can tell no way to change
which specific sub-action to do to the person they are talking to. This leads to situations where the player can
go up to a total stranger, give them a fierce tickling, and become good friends
because of it. I might get the police
after me if I tried that, but I'm not the prince of a kingdom.
The
writing for the minor stories and side quests are definitely something to enjoy. One special side quest included a chicken
farmer who believed his feathered stock were attempting to overthrow their
masters in a coup d'état. Another included a small jab into avaunt-guard theater. The jokes range from the subtle to the full on knee slapper. I shall just include
a few screencaps that you can guess what is going on.
Internet,
I have a few more things that I want to say, but they will have to wait for
more time to develop so I can make a legitimate claim against them. The most prominent being the length of the game due to
certain playing habits that the game inevitable draws out of me.
Yours in digital,
BeepBoop
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