Fable III (26 Oct)

[Big Jack McBastard]

Well it's not far off now and since I've played the first two to death and back I'll definitely be feeding my thumbs this instalment, anyone else a bit wet at the thought of it despite themselves?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpR2Uy2VLMc
^-Trailer

Seems they've moved the traditional 'end point' of the game to the middle and so:

From Wiki:

The player is also tasked with dealing with how society works on a day-to-day basis, such as how to handle crime, poverty, and taxation. Fable III introduced location-morphing. If the player taxes a region heavily, the people will become visibly poorer, their buildings will start to fall into disrepair and the player will encounter hostility from them if he passes through the area.

Citizens of Albion can be punished for doing things good or bad, and can be dealt with in any way the player chooses. For example a citizen who doesn't pay their taxes can be dealt with by being thrown into a dungeon or being slaughtered by an army dispatched by the player.

Finally something to actually do once you take over! As opposed to the standard (essentially pointless) back-tracking of stuff you've already done and general pissing about you're typically left with in these sorts of games. If nothing else it's a welcome new direction and shows a bit more thought than the whole 'level up, kill the big bad, credits roll' conceit. The idea of towns morphing into slums or beauty spots due to your actions is something they touched on in Fable 2, but really only one half of a town and a fledgling community showed any noticeable changes, most places were off limits to your influence in any meaningful way bar their economy, sounds like this will be something almost universal this time around which would be cool to see.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2Xthk3_qmo
^{-Molly does a bit of blurb.}

Obviously I take everything Molyneux says with a handful of salt but at least he's not lazy when it comes to making games and usually knocks out something interesting and innovative, even if it inevitably falls short of the expectations he tries to generate in potential gamers during production.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8y5nR0kjnA

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Hah. They simply had to reintroduce some element of a god-sim into the game. Molyneux can't help himself. That is a fucking good idea though.

Fable II was disappointingly slow evolution of a 4 year old game, a thunderous disappointment in my opinion that made me despair of the increasingly glacial progress of console games. The inability to actually die, much as I hate losing, I really really hate losing, you have to be able to die in order to learn and feel some sense of a challenge. I think I spent half my time playing the pub games on it, which is a pretty damning indictment of what the rest of it was supposed to be like. There were great bits, they just all felt too brief, and the combat fell into an increasingly formulaic and boring malaise. The crucible was a re-run of the arena, but shitter.

I'm glad it hasn't taken them another 4 years, as it's lowered my expectations. But they really really have to nail the second half of the game, and not just make it a nominal boring waste of time.

[Famous Mortimer]

My main problem with F 2 was how quick it was to complete. I loved playing it, marrying people left, right and centre and all that, increasing my metal-working skill and all that, but there was nothing to do when I'd completed it, aside from trying to complete the tasks inside the last castle (which I gave up on after about 100 attempts).

Other than that, they'd designed it nicely, so it was plenty of fun to play, I just wish there'd been more stuff in it. I will no doubt go crazy over F3 though, like before.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

I agree, it was poorly structured because it seperated the entire world of Albion from the storyline. No wonder he's complaining people didn't use all the features- as he says himself- he made a game where there was no incentive, no necessity to use those features anyway. If I recall correctly, you only have to learn the complex combos right towards the end, and when you find out how cool they are you want to use them on everything...but that's it.

He talks about freedom, but Fable has always had a problem that it wants to be free but can't help squeezing people through this linear fairytale storyline. It's difficult to get the full world experience and have what's essentially a seperate platformer type game going on. When the story finishes you're left with a sandbox that's very nice but not anywhere near as interesting as something like Morrowind.

Somewhere inbetween Fable/Morrowind/The Witcher there is a completely awesome game waiting to be developed.

[Big Jack McBastard]

It's always the thing with sandbox games (not that this is sandbox, strictly speaking) that once the story is done you're left with a loose end but your character only truly dies once you switch it off and never put the disc back in the machine. Makes for a kind of ennui once you get to that point, even Oblivion and Fallout 3 (which had so fucking much to do/see in the world once the main story was over) eventually got to that point where I'd been everywhere, seen everything and done every last scrap of trivial stuff they had to offer [nb]too much bloody time on my hands clearly[/nb] and so there's no more point in continuing and so off it goes and that's the real end of the game.

I'd like an option of choosing your own method of death at the end (whenever you choose that to be) so we can have some closure for once.

I remember playing the Pub Games a lot too but I think it's cos they were sedate and handy for when I fancied a smoke and a pint but didn't want to quit or leave it hanging on pause.

The bloody music for it is playing in my head already.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

At certain points in the previous games the towns have been attacked by enemies, and you've been the defender. I quite like that aspect of it, and I think it took you out of your comfort zone. It'd be great to transform somewhere like Bowerstone by having some fighting, chases etc, something to make the town not feel so bloody clockwork.

[Big Jack McBastard]

A proto-Mafia undermining your rule in the towns perhaps?

I already like the sound of that and I just made it up!

[wasp_f15ting]

Fable 2 was by far one my favourite games of last year.. the music was stunning and the graphics were okay..

I know it wasn't long enough, but it just felt so quaint and cute.

So looking forward to the next one... I think i'll book some time off work

[Famous Mortimer]

I did play the last game to death - ages spent smithing, for example. Problem was, you could earn so much money so early on that it kinda unbalanced the spending thing in the game, so it'd be nice if they did something with that.

[Ignatius_S]

Competition to win a copy - http://www.frugalgaming.co.uk/?p=27517 - Twitter or Facebook account needed.

[Slaaaaabs]

The shift to being the king/queen midway through the game sounds awesome, especially with the seamless shift between normal gameplay and the 3D realtime overview of your kingdom. Something they seem to be using to great effect for gameplay if this screen is anything to go by...



I've also pre-ordered the book because I'm a big puff.

[Mister Six]

That screen reminds me of the great bit in Psychonauts, where your character is on the game board and can look through a window of the building that the game board is in... only to see himself playing the game.

[Lee Van Cleef]

I really need to start playing Fable 2.  I've pre-ordered 3 and I expect it'll be here in the next week or so.

That Villager creation thing should inspire some particularly creepy behaviour.

[hoverdonkey]

The IGN review of this has me confused. It gives 8 out of 10 and an 'Impressive' and then the review seems to focus on all the bad points.

[Garfield And Friends]

The IGN review of this has me confused. It gives 8 out of 10 and an 'Impressive' and then the review seems to focus on all the bad points.

Take IGN reviews with a pinch of salt. They're all over the shop.

IGN is handy for previews, and HD-quality in-game footage.

[wasp_f15ting]

This game blew me away..

But.. I need to complete it again, even though I did all the big side quests I think I might have sped past it a bit too fast, took 13 something hours, but it was well worth it. I don't think it is as good as fable 2 though. I liked messing around with the stats and stuff. Still my game of the year, one of the best looking games I have ever played. Having mancunian women in it makes it that bit more authentic..

I wish I'd spent 40hrs on it doing EVERY fetch quest for every person then I could have delayed the ending.

If you are playing this for the first time, Big Jack I saw your stats, get your real estate wealth to around 6.5 Million before you go to the main quest ending.. trust me. I wish I'd known :(

[Lee Van Cleef]

I'm spending time on Fable 2 before I get into 3 (looking forward to making and importing a villager and all that junk).  I think I've racked up 25 hours on Fable 2 so far, but I tend to get sucked in by all the life stuff (although I took my first wife out to get killed by bandits) and have a burgeoning trade as an arms dealer.

My problem with these games is I never like to be the bad guy, rents are low, do all the quests the nice way, never harm any civilians.

[Big Jack McBastard]

If you are playing this for the first time, Big Jack I saw your stats, get your real estate wealth to around 6.5 Million before you go to the main quest ending.. trust me. I wish I'd known :(

I got started early with mine as the key to raking in the cash in 2 was property. I was at 6.48 million by the time I got to taking over the castle and I was making coin at a rate of knots so that 'year' was a breeze. Finished with 800,000 in the treasury and 4.2 million in my vault. It's now ramping up again. I hope there's some stupid shit to spend this all on in some DLC.

Oh yeah anyone want to start a Legendary Weapons pool for the achievement? I've not got a list of mine yet but I'll knock one up and post it in a day or so.

[Lee Van Cleef]

Just finished the main quest on Fable II, bit pissed off actually,

Spoiler alert

I was led to believe that you could save the game before the choice and redo it, so I saved the game before and after leaving the spire the game autosaved on me and stuck me with the ending.  I'm not a big fan of playing games over, when I know what's coming it's nowhere near as fun, so having to redo the whole thing to get the other achievements is a no go for me.  Good story though, kind sad overall.  My dog is dead! :(

[close]

[Penfold]

Bought this for myself and have flown through it today, it was odd, there didn't seem to be a place to stop and mess around with family stuff and side quests.

It could just be that I'm not supposed to do that yet, I'm not sure how the new interaction bits work, I keep dancing with people and it's annoying.

So, my dilemma.

I'm now King and only have 20,000 gold and not many properties, I'm also trying to choose good decisions. does this mean I'm screwed?

I'm very tempted to start again and earn more guild shields and spend as many hours in the blacksmith as I did in Fable 2, about 4 hours.