Fable 3 - Xbox 360

[Adam Stone]

I've been playing Fable I and II again... and they truly do poo all over this. In my opinion.

There are a lot of good ideas in here, but most of them, it seems, are far to vague to be explored by the player - which is a shame but understandable. Personally I think things will be very different for the next fable. I hope it returns to its once grand roots.

[eastyy]

i always felt they were trying for epic but just really limited in scale and size

If they had fable 2 combat in a oblivion sized game i would be happy

[Shoju]

http://www.blisteredthumbs.net/2011/...asons-fable-3/

I love his hate.

Watched all of that. Sounds really bad, as if the series is getting worse. Hopefully the upcoming PC version will be a big improvement.

Just played through Fable 2 and thought it was fun but too limited and that it just hasn't made enough advances over the 1st game. I had hoped by now that Fable could somehow live up to the hype Molyneux started over Fable 1 but it seems to be miles away from that.

[SuperBeatBoy]

From what Jeff was saying on the bombcast last week. It hasn't.

I finished it a week ago and its got to be one of the most technically AAA title of this generation. Performance & bug wise. They took what i loved of Fable 2 and took a massive **** on it and served it to us all and called it Fable 3.

[Flabio]

To me Fable 2 and 3 are almost identical, I've never really understood the '3 is much worse than 2' crowd. It really isn't. And that's even with taking my inherent bias into account.

[Spatial]

I'm playing through this now and it doesn't really feel any different to 2. I hesitate to use the words expansion pack because it's a bit more than that, there's some changes both positive and negative, but I think my apathy for this title is a direct result of it feeling too similar to the second game.

I feel like I've played it all before, so whereas with 2 I spent time doing the sidequests and exploring, now I'm skipping most of them and burning through the main event to get it done and dusted and out of my backlog. I appreciate I'm missing some good bits by doing that as the sidequests are usually the best but I can't help it.

What bothers me most about 3 though, is the really skewed morality. Part of the whole "So you think you can do better huh, well prove it!" thing is a bit broken once you become monarch. For example your first decision is [HIDE]what to do with Logan. Here was a King who seemed to do everything via black and white choices and was utterly hated for it.

So what happens?

The first choice the game sets you into is either execute him or pardon him - a black and white choice!

Where's the option to imprison him? Instead of thinking about a bit more cleverly in how the choices are designed it forces you into some dodgy choices which you know are either wrong or completely wrong.

Also, Logan knew for all this time that the attack was coming and says his policies were done with that in mind, to build an army. Except the player and a bunch of totally ragtag bunch of outcasts and downtrodden ruffians manage to storm the castle, level half of Bowerstone and overthrow him in next to no time. When you think about that it skewers half the moral judgements you expected to make from that point on.[/HIDE]

Oh and the hand holding mechanic - that was really one of Peter M's ideas wasn't it? It had to be, because if anyone else except the boss man had come up with that idea then it would have been kicked to the kerb in the early stages.

I wouldn't mind but the engine can't even keep up with people holding hands going over some gradients like steps, so they end up letting go and snapping back when the terrain allows.

[SuperBeatBoy]

Becoming King is an utter bore, the choices you have been presented with are pathetic. You are obviously want to go for the best ending possible and you can do it without even trying. I kept skipping the dialogue on those decisions just to hurry the game along. I managed to save the whole kingdom by doing nothing.

Repairing your properties one by one is also a really daft decision. In the end i just never bothered.

[FelixofMars]

I think this killed it for me, I enjoyed Fable 2 even though it was flawed in places and a bit rough around the edges it still let you do what Molyneux keeps going on about that is it does allow freedom. even if it is in a half arsed way compared to what he sells it as you could go anywhere and do anything within the limits of the world and tackle the missions in any order.

Fable 3 doesn't really do that, it is still there but it feels more like the game is telling you to go to X, Y & Z to complete the main quest and get to the King bit at which point you have some redundant choices to make.

I know they wanted to cut down the UI clutter but I don't really like the new trading system in the game its far to annoying for me to be bothered with and is slower than just having a buy/sell UI menu.

Its a shame really because the character design and everything else feels a little more polished but is ultimately flawed by the lack of any RPG element. It pretty much is a short action adventure game now with a very linear route.

[Neon Ignition]

Started this up last night and I'm a little mixed on first impressions. I'm not sure on what the aim of this game really is. On one hand it's not too dissimilar to Fable 2 but on the other hand it feels like it's pushing me along via narrative rather than the adventuring. Though the voice acting is decent I don't like that the main character speaks due to her voicing opinions that I wouldn't necessarily want my character to. The game looks a lot sharper than the last one but the motion blur in the cut scenes is very heavy and off putting and the character seems to control worse than in F2. It's very brown as expected but not as bad as I'd feared, overall there's just that sense that the engine is ready for pasture. It's going to be interesting to see if it wins me over like F2 did as I continue.

[Adam Stone]

The motion blur is used in a very poor attempt to hide the sh*t animations and the horribly low character models *sigh*

[Neon Ignition]

Last night it felt like this was finally falling into place but it turns out I'm halfway through the game already. If anything it feels more like a Lionhead game than the first 2 Fables, it feels like there was a clear vision for the game going into it and it was pursued to the end without really looking back at what was being left behind. The main trouble seems to be the kingdom managment as it feels like the game is in a rush for me to reach that bit. Though it's usually a good thing when a sequel tries to do something new rather than recycle, it works against Fable as the core of the game hadn't been perfected yet and so it suffers here. I'm definitely enjoying the game, more so than when it first started too, but for Fable IV I'd prefer if it got back to basics and saved all the bells and whistles new ideas for other series or later games when the infrastructure is in place to support it.