Fable III is the latest game in Lionhead Studios’ “Fable” series and it takes place 50 years after the last installment in Albion. The King has died and left the kingdom to Logan, the player’s older brother. Logan rules his kingdom with tyranny and forces you to chose who will live and who will die – your friends or some villagers – after which you escape the castle from with your mentor Sir Walter Back and your servant Jasper. You then start about gathering allies you help aid you in your revolution against Logan. Throughout the game you will be making promises to those who aid you, and once you are king you have the choice to come good on those promises or take the evil option and betray them.
The intro cinematic really sets the tone for this game. It shows a chicken who doesn’t what to be locked up, and so it escapes. The whole time we are watching this chicken trying to be free, there is a voice over telling us what is happening in Albion as well as some things that will relate to the hero of the game.
True to Fable’s nature the player has the options to make good or bad choices in many situations. By making the good choices town’s folk will like you more, whereas if you choice to take the path of evil town’s folk will fear you. Your appearance will also change depending on your decisions, if you are evil you will look uglier to others and if you are good you will be more attractive. You have the freedom to do lots – choose wisely because it affects how the world interacts with you.
- Look at the serenity… love the serenity.
The menu system is different to a typical menu system. When you pause the game you will be taken to your sanctuary. The sanctuary has a main room with four other rooms branching off this: one for multiplayer, options, weapons and attire. When you walk into the attire room, your outfits and clothes are display with their stats on separate mannequins for you to see. In the centre of the sanctuary there is also a country map showing the various regions. It also shows the non-playable characters, your Xbox Live friends, and all your real estate purchases from in-game. Being able to buy and sell homes like this is a great improvement from Fable II, where you had to actually walk to each individual home to buy/sell it. However, to refurnish a home you still have to go inside it.
The way the player interacts with villagers during a conversation has been changed from earlier games. You can no longer use any expression as you please, but can only use the ones that appear whilst in the conversation. Players can now also hold hands with someone, using this to lead them someplace. The Hero now has a voice, so during certain conversations you can chose good or evil approaches to the conversation topics.
Graphically the game is nice, with plenty of unique touches Lionhead are famous for. However, the game is not without its faults – graphical pop-up still occurs from time to time, even whilst in cutscenes strangely enough.
Another change since Fable II is the way that your level up or upgrade your attributes, you don’t spend experience points but instead guild seals. You can get guild seals by performing quests, developing friendships with villagers or just simply killing enemies. Once you have some guild seals head to the Road To Rule, which you can get to from your sanctuary. Once there you will see some chest with different upgrades or abilities in them, each requiring a different amount of guild seals to unlock. There are only a certain number of chests you can unlock until you progress further down the storyline. Another major change from Fable II and traditional RPG-styled games is that there is no longer a health bar – instead, a potion icon will appear above your character, indicating you need to heal.
- I’m really doing it. I’m really flying.
The game has many collectables for you to find. The Silver keys are still around, all 50 of them as well as 4 gold keys. There are 50 gnomes to find and destroy which are just like the gargoyles from Fable II, they will insult you in the same way so that you know you are close. The new collections to find are Auroran flowers which there are 30 of. Finding all of these things will reward you with special items. There is also the Demon doors still, which want you to meet their requirements before they will open for you.
To top it off, Fable III has 50 legendary weapons for you to find. There are 13 pistols, 12 rifles, 12 swords and 13 hammers all of which have different damage levels and upgrades. Upgrades on weapons happen when you reach certain requirements with the weapon its self. Take Gusket’s Musket for example, it upgrades are Liquidator, Hireling and Freak. To get the Liquidator upgrade you must kill 300 human enemies, for the Hireling upgrade you must earn 10,000 gold from jobs, and for the Freak upgrade you must decrease you moral standing. Each upgrade has a different effect.
Online play is pretty fun, you can just go about doing your own thing you can team up with a friend of yours and do some quests together. Along with doing quests you can become business partners with a friend or even start a family together. Playing together has its advantages because anything you earn goes for both of the players, it isn’t split up between the two. There is a slight benefit if you are visiting someone else’s game because you will earn a wage for helping them out.
For those who have played Fable II the controls will feel natural for you, most of the button layout is the same, the only major difference is that you no longer need to hold the right trigger to absorb the experience orbs. For those who haven’t played the earlier games the controls are easy enough for you to pick up as you play along, because certain thing are introduced to you at different times.
- Don’t drop me Daddy
Despite being a new title, there are few extra items that you can download to add into your experience of the game, one is a quest pack and the others are mainly just things for your characters appearance (outfits, dyes and tattoos) or potions. The quest pack is the Understone Quest Pack. This DLC sends the player underneath the streets of Bowerstone to discover a new town with more homes and shops to buy. The DLC also gives you two extra quests: the Mercenary Shooting Range and the Wheel of Misfortune., this quest pack cost you 400 Microsoft Points and is available to buy through the Xbox Live Marketplace. Another DLC is the Free Weapons Pack, which as the name suggests is free, this pack offers you two weapons, Bloodstone Bludgeon and Gusket’s Musket.
For me the main reason for getting this game is because I really enjoyed the previous two. Apart from that I like a game with good story and fun gameplay so I just had to play this. So if you like an action-adventure styled game that’s immmersive and humorous, this is one for you. With all the collectables and achievements available it’s bound to keep you playing for a while.
