What can I say about this 3rd romp through Albion? It's got it's own charm, I'll give it that. A majestic land full of what can only be described as British people that don't take kindly to being belched or farted at, yet for some reason love to have a stranger walk up to them and dance with them in the streets.
Fable 3 is Lionhead Studio's and Molyneux's most recent escapade into their own little fairytale land. It contains all the good parts of Fable 2, but for some reason seems to have simplified certain aspects. Making money still means working your veritable arse off, but the way it's made feels the same. You sell and buy 'stuff'; real estate, trade goods, food, potions or clothes to pawn brokers (apart from real estate) or you can take the time to perform one of the 3 job mini-games. Pie Maker, Lute Hero or Blacksmith all resort to the player pressing a series of buttons at the designated space in the sequence. The attempts to make this different are the inclusion of different lengths (Pie Maker)or an additional button (Lute Hero). Ultimately though, it seems that the simplification takes something away. When it comes to the Ruler stage of the game and you need 6.5 million gold to save your kingdom from evil, it can be a tedious affair in wracking the gold up. This is made worse by the fact that when performing these mini-games, my 360 (a new Elite, bought just before the change to the newest brand of 360 systems) liked to lag and make me miss time a button press. Strangely, it's only Fable 3 this happens..
Simplification has also spread to the character development system, AKA the Road To Rule. Along this road, which leads to you becoming Ruler of Albion, there are numerous chests with a certain number of Guild Seals required to unlock them. Gaining these seals is done by performing quests or via the universal rpg grind of killing enemies. The orb system removed, it is easier for players to understand precisely what they want and navigate to them, the Road to Rule and Pause causing the player to enter a different world where you can move your character to different rooms to change appearance or weapons, etc. However, this has cost the player character options. Physique is gone, so you can't make your character look like a towering mass of muscle, along with the various spells that some players may have enjoyed. Raise Dead and Chaos have been removed entirely, Time Control added as a potion available during battle along with what can only be Raise Dead's replacement, 'Summon Minions'. It can be said these changes were made to allow for the new magic mechanic of mixing spells via wearing different spell gloves, allowing for a fair few different combinations (Flaming Blades springs to mind).
Weaponry too seems to have fallen under these cut-backs. The ominous cleaver and brutal axe weapons are notably missing, along with the crossbow. Instead, all players are allowed to have are a variety of pistols, rifles, swords and hammers. Each is different in appearance, especially the 'Hero Weapons' which change according to your players actions. My hammer, which I was able to rename to Foebreaker via the in-game options, took on an ornate appearance for my ability to find gold, had an elaborate handle for my pleasant nature to the people and took on a silver look because I got married to another player on XBox Live. Whilst aesthetically pleasing and probably allowing for numerous weapon looks, the weapons ultimately feel the same. The named and legendary weapons can all be given extra attributes by completing certain tasks, such as killing 300 Hollowmen to gain extra damage. Still it's a massive shame there are only 4 weapon types.
Despite these problems, I still found myself enjoying Fable 3. For the first half at least. The side quests are genuinely interesting, one involving my character being shrunk to the size of a miniature and used as 'The Hero' in a game not too dissimilar to Dungeons and Dragons. Another, a throwback to Fable 2, saw me helping someone obsessed with gnomes bring them to life so he could have some company. I had to hunt these foul-mouthed little bastards down later, laughing at their comments all the way. It was when it came to being King that the game fell. The first decision that you are forced to decide at the beginning of the game is a real heart-breaker, whilst the decisions to be made as king are really black and white options. At one point, I was given the option of ending Child Labour or keeping it in effect. Keeping it meant more money for my coffers to save the kingdom (some 200,000 gold) but broke a promise, changing the law meant I lost money but kept my promise to change the law. Breaking the promise means extra gold which ultimately means lives saved. However in theory the loss of the ally through the broken promise should also mean loss of lives. It doesn't quite make sense. Neither does the year long breakdown given to you to acquire enough gold to save the kingdom. For the first 4 days of kingly decision making, 30 days pass between each one. However, the final 2 cause 120 days to pass each. Whats worse, the monetary value that should have been accrued during those missing days isn't there, so make damn sure you have enough cash to save your kingdom before making those last few decisions.
In the end, Fable 3 is an enjoyable game. It has it's problems, some technical glitches and over simplification specifically. However if you are willing to forgive it it's mistakes and simply enjoy it for it's humorous side-quests, it's excellent voice acting (notably John Cleese, Stephen Fry and Bernard Hill) and great story, many hours can be whittled away in order to be benevolent, or be a bastard. Either way, it's a good laugh.
Story:
4/5
An interesting twist to the original Fable storylines. Not original, but with voice talent like John Cleese and Bernard Hill, who cares?
Gameplay:
3/5
Combat and making money gets repetative easily. Change of tactics means combat can remain enjoyable though.
Presentation:
4/5
Graphically, this is the best in the series. Some character animations look choppy when the characters are at a distance though; and some of the effects look a little worse for wear.
Overall:
3.5/5
The Fable series continues to almost achieve greatness. The faults however, continue to cause it to fall short.
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