Despite it’s flaws I enjoyed Fable II. Though you do need a different way of thinking when it comes to games involving Peter Molyneux. It becomes a balancing act between keeping an eye on the game without looking into any words that come out of Peter’s mouth. Something I’ve been following to the tee. So when I came across Fable III on the showfloor I decided to check it out with a head lacking any big promises.
The story takes place 50 years after the events of Fable II. You play the son or daughter of the now deceased hero of Fable II. Your brother is the king of the land. You discover he isn’t exactly a good chap and try to overrule him. Once you become King the real choices start to appear, you can rule the kingdom in anyway you want. In between missions you are given options at your castle to change the way you run your kingdom. These vary from taxes to crime for example, you may actually to go into the field yourself and protect your town from crime if you wish. The representative really pushed the idea of choices and how slowly overtime your actions will change the world. Something Fable has boasted before. We will have to wait until the final product to see if this actually holds true.
Your hero can now be customisable, the demo offered the choice between a good or evil, male or female, each one looking completely different to the other in both appearance and clothing. Gone are skill points, gone are the ability customisation options. Everything is now dynamic and streamlined, weapons and magic level up depending on how much you use them. Don’t use guns much? Your gun skills will reflect this. There aren’t many weapons in the game but instead weapons will change depending on what you kill. If you kill enough skeletons with your sword and it will become a skeleton sword. Kill enough civilians with your gun and blood will drip from it adding many potential options. This I hope will be selectable and unlocked instead of changing automatically. Another option added to the game are followers. The more followers you have the more powerful you become along with your overall influence in the world. Also you will lose followers for dying adding more penalties for death this time around. If your character decides to be evil your physical appearance won’t seem so drastically. Horns, halos and markings for example will only appear when in combat. So wondering around town you will look relatively normal, though an evil character will look noticeably paler.
I got to play a quest in a dark cave with your mentor where you have to find a way out after becoming ship-wreaked, but something isn’t quite right. Gameplay wise nothing has changed, X to attack, Y to use a gun and B to use magic, all of which can be charged to become more powerful. Your magic has also been streamlined. Magic is now used with the power of rings, allowing you to only equip 2 at a time. But the 2 spells can be combined to make a more power attack. Unfortunately only the lightning spell was playable so I wasn’t able to experiment with this mechanic. When the quest took me outside I noticed how much the background visuals have improved. Fable II looked nice but didn’t really pull me in. While they only showed off a small part of the desert area, what I saw (other than all the dark tunnels) looked better, though character animations haven’t changed much.
One thing that stood out to me was the fact your character will talk. Granted that during the whole quest he only said 2 or 3 lines. I hope you can pick dialogue options or else I will see a disconnect between my character in-game and in cut-scenes. But from what I saw, it’s not looking hopeful that will be implemented. Stephen Fry will return and Jonathan Ross will be lending his voice as Reaver’s Butler. It’s also looking like the rumour of Charlie Brooker lending his voice won’t be happening. Which will make 5 people (including myself) sad.
Fable III isn’t looking to be a game to change your mind about the series. But if you enjoyed Fable II you will feel right a home. We will have to wait until October 26th to find out if it’s more streamlined approach will benefit this overambitious series.
