The Fable series, though perhaps not the most amazing and well-received line of RPGs, has done pretty well for itself since first appearing on the Xbox a few years back. The quirky storylines and strange methods of game play are more than enough to draw millions of players back to Albion for another go with each new game.
And so it was with the recently-released Fable III, the newest addition to the Fable clan. This time the player is plopped into the boots of the prince or princess of Albion, who is forced to flee Fairfax Castle and their brother's tyrannical reign as king. Then they must raise an army to stop the madman from ruining the country... though it seems that more is going on here than meets the eye.
It's a neat enough story. In typical Fable fashion there are several curve balls that keep Fable III's plot from becoming mundane or predictable, and though it doesn't swing around quite as wildly as, say, Fable II, it's still a neat departure from other fantasy stories. (Tough to argue becoming the ruler of Albion.)
But that story can only be as successful as the mechanics behind it, and it's here that Fable III stumbles. Just a little. Not cripplingly, but...
Game Play, or How to Play an Xbox 360 Game with One or Two Buttons
Anyone who's played Fable or Fable II should be able to warm to Fable III within minutes. Though the means through which weapons and magic are acquired and mixed is different - not to mention leveling, which is radically different - combat in Fable III is just as it's always been: you lock onto enemies and beat them to death with melee weapons, fire on them from afar with ranged weapons or use magic to blast them to pieces.
Simple enough, and, yes, it requires very little strategic sense or use of multiple buttons. Combat is repetitive, as before, though you're blessed with a host of neat slow-motion tricks to make attacking more interesting. A pity you can't really die...
So nothing new there, in other words. What about beyond combat? As with the other Fable titles, there's a lot to do - and perhaps not enough time to do much of it.
You can buy property. You can raise a family. You can be a bounty hunter - or a hunted bounty. You can roll pies, hammer out swords or strum a lute to earn some coin. You can collect items for people. You can go on side missions. You can race chickens. Albion has no shortage of things to do, and most of them are fairly fun... at least for a while.
All of these tidbits are stymied, however, by the game's length. Fable III is extremely short, like its predecessors, and a particularly zealous player can beat the game in a single day. This precludes listening to the story and doing most of the side quests, true, but even with those elements added in Fable III shouldn't take more than a week of casual play. Consequently, no matter how much effort you put into, say, buying up all the property in Albion, it feels like something of a waste by the end. Why'd you bother doing all that stuff when the game ends so abruptly?
Blasted Xbox 360 Automatic Saving
There is, of course, one answer to the shortness problem: play it again. As with the previous games, Fable III has a well-defined morality system that provides players with equal opportunities to be both good and bad, and doing so changes the options available during the game. It doesn't change the overall story, true, but side quest options vacillate a fair bit. Sounds good, right?
Well, there's just one problem: you can't make multiple saves in Fable III. Making a new game eradicates the old. Why would you do that, Microsoft? What's wrong with allowing multiple saves on one hard drive? True, the game doesn't take long to beat, but that doesn't mean players will want to wipe out everything they've just done to start over again.
Sigh. On the plus side, at least, Fable III is wonderful to look at. The graphics are top-notch, and though the characters look a little cartoony they're also fully believable. This aesthetic works well with the game's sometimes-serious, oftentimes goofy and hilarious goings-on, so kudos for that. The music isn't quite so good, but you can't have everything... at least the voice acting works, with some great performances by newcomers and veterans alike (yay for Stephen Fry!)
Fable III is a game to buy, but not one to buy in the first few months. Like the other two games it will invariably drop like a stone in price, and once it does should be snagged. Until then, rent the thing to get your Fable kick. You'll be able to beat it during the rental period, guaranteed.
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