A long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away I promised I was going to play Fable 3 upon my completion of Halo: Reach. So really me talking about this damn game has been a long time coming. I finished it something like a month ago, I don't know. I mean I could go check, but that would require me turning on the Xbox, which shall not be done as House is on right now, and nothing interrupts my viewing of that show...nothing. So anyhow, let's talk about Fable 3 and what a piece of crap it was. Well...gave away my opinion right there didn't I? I should really talk more about this I guess, so here it goes. Click on to see the rest of the article.
So I decided to give the Fable series another chance after Halo: Reach decided to show me that a series as bland as wall Spackle can eventually churn out something worth being played. I played the first Fable game way back when before the 360 came out, and it was impossible to hate anymore. It was boring beyond reproach, bland and did not feature one original idea. While the moral choice system of gaming was still in its infancy, you had games like Knights of the Old Republic doing it infinitely better. Fable just had you kicking puppies, where as Revan could tear shit up if you decided to. It had a leveling system that left nothing to the imagination, and the world itself was so cookie-cutter, I'm still surprised everything wasn't shaped like a Christmas tree, a five pointed star, and a gingerbread man.
So fast-forward to the tail end of 2010, and we're up to the third Fable game. I skipped Fable 2, because really, after disliking the first one so much and seeing that about fuck-all changed while watching my friends play it, why would I bother with the second one? So back to the original point. I took the plunge and bought the third game, trying to push aside any prejudice I had about the series in order to give the game a blank slate, make sure it was judged by its own merits. In the end though, this was a complete waste of time and effort, as I could have honestly taken any thoughts I had about Fable 1, apply them to this supposedly new game and almost nothing would have been off the mark.
Albion is still a world full of things you do not need to do, and if you do happen to do them, there is really no tangible reward. Any reward you would also get, even if it were an actual help, would not be needed anyway, as all you need to beat the game is two thumbs and half of a working eye. Playing on the normal setting was such an absolute joke that I only died in the game once, and that was only because I was not paying the slightest bit of attention to the game at that moment. Regardless of this though, there is no such thing as an armor stat, so your frilly pirate prince shirt apparently affords all the same protection of that suit of armor you bought.
The story to this game, while keeping a sense of flow, is completely stupid. By the by, I am going to spoil the whole plot here, because it's fucking March, the game came out in November and a Paddington Bear book reads better. You're the prince...your brother, the king sucks. He's a dick, and he hadda break a few eggs in front of you to make his royal omelet. So you get mad, run away like a sissy, and get people to follow you by hugging them, or playing patty-cake, or fighting some easy undead a paraplegic 4 year old can fend off. Then you go yell at him, he gives you the kingdom, then you have to fight off the BP oil spill with the help of a man with a hookah, and a bald woman Lion Head had the common sense to leave out a romance subplot for, because bald women are gross. I am guessing there is a message there somewhere. Oh and you also have the help of a gruff, old British man who suffers a series of personal trials that makes you care infinitely more about him than any of the faceless whores you can marry and knock up in the game.
Speaking of those...things, like in any Fable game you can marry almost any NPC you meet in the course of the game. However, each city only has about a grand total of oh...I dunno, 4 face models, maybe. Or maybe it's only 4 face models stretched out over the course of the game with differing clothing, who knows. Point is, like I said, you can marry any of these people, and have children, assuming it is a heterosexual relationship (I guess, I wouldn't know if Albion has Butt-babies). However, the problem is with this game, and the games before this is that if you are a remotely normal person, you will not give a crap about any of the semi-faceless, one word-track set of people you can become betrothed to. If you can somehow find yourself giving half a crap about the NPCs you can do anything with in this game, then that simply means you are the type of person that goes into a department store and names all the mannequins, and remembers those names on each subsequent visit.
Lastly combat is the same as it has been in Fable previous; if you use melee, you're an idiot. Dump everything into AoE magic and go nuts. You can target spells, but why would you? You have near infinite health and eventually you can cover the screen in pretty much everything you want. I happened to choose lake of fire+ raining ice shards. However, I am sure that like the rest of this pointless game, the magic combos you use are totally up to you.
