gunsmoke on 29/10/2010 at 13:14
Goddamnit what? Did we miss something?
Pardoner on 29/10/2010 at 22:42
I assumed that Ulukai was identifying "Peter Molyneux" as a Vernon alt.
Ulukai on 4/11/2010 at 17:48
Right, Fable 3. I'm now on my second playthrough as the epitome of evil, whereas the first time I was a bit of a chancer but mostly a do-gooder.
[spoiler]I was expecting the game to come to a grinding halt once you became the ruler of Albion, with only the side quests to mop up, and wasn't really expecting the tough budgetary decisions at all.
I spent ages agonising over some decisions (Child Labour vs Schools vs Ultimate death tally) but realised that I was enjoying being made to think like that. Ultimately, I didn't have a tight enough hold on the reins and most of Albion's denizens died because I couldn't make the tough choices.
This time round, I'm a badass but am determined to save as many of my citizens as possible (so I can rule them with a grip of iron, muahahahaha!)
[/spoiler]
The Good
* I'm enjoying the combat more than Fable II, there's something so damn satisfying about the contact between enemy and ruddy great hammer that is incredibly addictive. The swords, less so.
* John Cleese, Simon Pegg, Stephen Fry and Sir Ben Kingsley give great performances, and Cleese's droll comments on some of my wardrobe choices in particular made me chuckle many times. Disappointed that Jonathon Ross had such a small part, but maybe it's for the best as he was rather annoying after a while.
* You'll appreciate this more if you're from the UK, but there's Sabine - a short mountain-dwelling tribe ruler with a Welsh accent who keeps going on about the valleys. And he's charming.
* The sanctuary. It's a hub of awesome character building goodness. With a butler.
* The attention to detail is great, there's loads of small touches that really made my day, whether they're little things tucked away or things the citizens of Albion say when they think you're not listening. [spoiler]Cue blackened chicken in the title sequence staggering out the door of the castle when you first enter.[/spoiler]
* The way weapon upgrades are obtained was well thought through, it's fun trying to get them.
* Oh, and it looks gorgeous.
* [spoiler]The darkness/crawler chapter in the desert could have been crap, but it had me gripped because it was executed so well. Scary shit.[/spoiler]
* A game with British actors who aren't doing America's epic-fail version of a 'British' accent. This is what we sound like, America.
The Bad
* Gestures and Jobs have been dumbed down, you can't fail to perform (gestures especially) unless you've only got three fingers.
* Side games seem to have all but disappeared (missing the card game especially, the mortar gun doesn't really cut it).
* A mini-map would be nice as Warcrow says, although the sanctuary's zoom feature went most of the way towards addressing this IMO.
* I'd have like to have had more variety in the voice actors for the citizens, there only seemed to be a handful of unique voices per sex.
* Combat can verge on almost being too easy, although I do like the way that you can't die per se, and instead are knocked out and penalised towards your current guild emblem. Nicely avoids lots of otherwise tedious repetition.
* Graphical glitches - there's a few issues with clipping planes etc. but nothing really show stopping.
Summary
More Fable II, but not just a new story - I think it's fair to say that if you enjoyed Fable II, you'll enjoy this and you'll find it brings more to the table in terms of morality without forcing it down your throat. Personally, I'm enjoying it a lot but the humour is exactly to my taste.
Nice.
Malf on 8/11/2010 at 07:07
It is fun, but a lot of the things they removed from Fable 2 ended up removing a lot of the game's flavour.
Not being able to choose exactly which gesture you want to use is irritating, as are the "Relationship Quests". In order to reach the next "level" of a relationship with an NPC, you have to do a quest for them. And unfortunately, all of these quests are repetitive fedex style quests. I did about 12 before getting bored shitless and ignoring them for the rest of the game.
I also miss putting on a performance and converting lots of people at the same time.
The big bad lacks a personal attachment and just ends up being just another monster to fight.
Oh, and if you're going to add up-keep of property to the game, add a way of doing it all at once. Having to maintain each and every property you own and individually set rent prices and the prices of goods is terrible.
While the sanctuary D-pad navigation was good, it disappeared completely for me as an option once I became King.
And prior to the patch, the dog and Golden Trail were dumb as shit, taking ages to respond.
Still, fun overall; I just don't feel the urge to do it all again, which counts as a failure when compared to the 4 play-throughs of Fable 2 I did.
