Back in the earlier days of the original Xbox, I remember people going batshit at my store talking about how excited they were for a game called Fable. Ranting on and on about how it was going to be completely open ended, lifelike characters and a world that changes in real time, and the ability to see things change with every action. Since I was able to get a free copy from the Microsoft retail site. I gave it a shot, and all I played was a was a cheap Zelda knock off with a less compelling story, shitty foppish acting, and Sims heart bubbles that would appear when I would rip ass in front of them. With a combat system that moved slower than the story, the only fun I had in the game is the genocide of the villages that would call me chicken chaser. Contrary to what everyone thought, I thought the first Fable sucked a bag of soggy dicks.
But at the recommendation of Rooster Teeth's Drunk Tank podcast, I gave a crack at Fable 2. Now, I'm not sure what exactly they changed, because it didn't feel like they changed anything but for some reason I've yet to figure out, I was really enjoying the game. The characters were still annoying but I found the story a bit more compelling and interesting (hell, it starts with a child being flung out a castle window. I don't care what game it is, that's fucking awesome). The combat seemed to move more fluidly and I was definitely enjoying going from town to town wrecking havoc and leaving ashes in my wake. I thought Fable 2 was great.
So since my PS3 was fried, I felt it was good time to crack open the free copy of Fable 3 I got for renewing my Derpbox Live gold account. Yeah this game is old to the rest of you but its my first time playing it.
So the story opens up with you picking your gender and learning that you are the descendant of the 2nd game from about 20 years ago. You are living your posh lifestyle as a member of the Albion royal family before finding that your brother, King Logan, is a bit of dickhead. Trying to convince him to show mercy on some civilians (you actually get a voice for some of the cut scenes) he forces you to chose to kill them or kill your significant other (I'm assuming its a significant other if your are a male protagonist too). You then get your ass out of the castle with your butler and some old night to start gathering troops for a revolution, and thus the normal Fable rigmarole begins......
And when I say normal rigmarole, that couldn't be a more accurate description of the game. With the exception of the overall character models (which seem to be ripped straight out of Sims 3), this game can be a complete copy paste of Fable 2. Almost nothing is changed as I remember it. One button for sword, one for gun, one for magic. Each one of them altering your appearance depending on how you use it. Same choices of weapons. Same results for buying real estate. Same groups of actions for dealing with the doofus civilians. They may have made some minor tweaks, but its virtually the exact same game as the one before.
Granted, there are a few changes. The world of Albion is slowly advancing in technology, so while still strongly fantasy based in most aspects of the game, in some areas it goes to a more steam punk themed industrial area. The interactions with said doofuses has been changed a bit as well too. Normally when when you want to bone or marry one of the generic masses, you have to whistle like a asshole or flex to people to show off your heroic bravado and the masses clamor around you, cheering and wooing like the paper is here. In literally a matter of button presses you can have your way with pretty much anyone in the land. Now they force you to do a stupid fetch quest before you can be their friend. Exactly what this game needed, Less reason to talk to the random dipshits that inhabit it.
For the record, there must be something bad in the water or Albion is inhabited by the dumbest class of people in fictitious existence. It takes very little to impress them it seems. I tested some of these actions at work and the went as followed:
~~Current Karma: Neutral~~
-Whistling at work while swinging my arms was met with blank stares and people walking away.
-Belching loudly earned me a disgusted look form most of the women and a "nice" from the other male in the room
-Trying to Fart on people just resulted in them leaving the room repulsed.
-Trying to Dance with a random female got me a sit down interview with my Human Resources Department.
~~Ending Karma: Bad?~~
Last I checked in the world of Fable that should have resulted in me getting cheered and praised for at least 3 of these.
Anyways, back to the topic. As I went through my quests, you meet characters who will join your revolution. none of which are interesting or substantial with the exception of maybe Paige. Its the same story for all of them: "We support your cause but don't trust you, so you'll have to do this for us." Which typically involves exploring a cave, killing the Hollows or Hobbes inside them, and reporting back. But as I ripped through the game, I found myself just trudging along, not getting invested in the characters or feeling any build up to the coming revolution. Even storming the castle didn't feel any more exciting than a standard dungeon and ends with a rather anti climatic fizzle.
Here's what kinda spoiled the game for me, I knew going in that after the revolution you take control of the kingdom and its your job to raise enough money to protect the city from an impending evil. You can continue the tyranny to raise the proper money, your can act justly with your promises to the people, but go broke in the process, or in some cases just leave things as they are, and the amount of money you have by the end of ta year determines how many casualties you can expect. I knew money would be important so before the war started I made sure to maximise the payout of the lute mini game and in about an hour or 2, earned enough money to buy the major properties of the Bowerstone Marketplace and raised the price of all the stocks to max. This is effective because your properties pay you a set amount every 5 real time minutes. Having something to do that day I just left the system running while I ran out for like 3 hours. When I got back I had amassed enough Gold that I was able to buy out all the property in Albion. Drop all the shitty houses to lowest rent, Drop the stores to normal, and Raise one specific district of High price housing to maximum and by the time you reach the mid point in the game, You'll be sitting on 10's of millions easy. Allowing you to continue being a good guy and save all your citizens in the process, with tons of money left to spare.
So if I enjoyed Fable 2 and this felt like a copy paste of that, then naturally I would enjoy this one, right? Wrong. I don't know what it was about this game, but the story did virtually nothing for me. I didn't like or become sympathetic to any of the characters and I Never felt driven to complete the game. I played it because it was the only game I had on the chopping block.
The combat in this game was incredibly slow. The Fable franchise never had lighting quick combat, but 2 at least felt smooth as I played it. In this one if there is more than 3 enemies on the screen the frame rate slows down in a free fall to the point where it feels like I'm playing in super slow mo. Swinging melee took forever and I would end up getting gang raped by whatever monsters I fought. Since my character was female and I didn't want her to be an ogre like I had in 2, I switched to Ranged and Magic and then the game became insultingly easy. Most enemies drop in one or two shots so all you have to do is rapid fire your pistol till you get surrounded then hit a level 2 or 3 area of effect spell to stun lock things in place and clean up with the gun. Combat is supposed to be the meat of the game, and it did nothing to engage me. You have to look at games like Bayonetta, Devil May Cry, or God of War, these games are a blast to play because the combat is fast, fluid, and complex enough to string interesting combos. If they found a way to mix your three styles of attacks for different combos it might be a whole nother story. Instead they went with the one button Darksiders/Zelda approach. It gets boring very quickly.
This isn't my video but the guy kinda looks like me.. Except not fat.
So since my PS3 was fried, I felt it was good time to crack open the free copy of Fable 3 I got for renewing my Derpbox Live gold account. Yeah this game is old to the rest of you but its my first time playing it.
FABLE III: (XB360)
So the story opens up with you picking your gender and learning that you are the descendant of the 2nd game from about 20 years ago. You are living your posh lifestyle as a member of the Albion royal family before finding that your brother, King Logan, is a bit of dickhead. Trying to convince him to show mercy on some civilians (you actually get a voice for some of the cut scenes) he forces you to chose to kill them or kill your significant other (I'm assuming its a significant other if your are a male protagonist too). You then get your ass out of the castle with your butler and some old night to start gathering troops for a revolution, and thus the normal Fable rigmarole begins......
 |
| I couldn't let the douche bag male die fast enough. |
And when I say normal rigmarole, that couldn't be a more accurate description of the game. With the exception of the overall character models (which seem to be ripped straight out of Sims 3), this game can be a complete copy paste of Fable 2. Almost nothing is changed as I remember it. One button for sword, one for gun, one for magic. Each one of them altering your appearance depending on how you use it. Same choices of weapons. Same results for buying real estate. Same groups of actions for dealing with the doofus civilians. They may have made some minor tweaks, but its virtually the exact same game as the one before.
Granted, there are a few changes. The world of Albion is slowly advancing in technology, so while still strongly fantasy based in most aspects of the game, in some areas it goes to a more steam punk themed industrial area. The interactions with said doofuses has been changed a bit as well too. Normally when when you want to bone or marry one of the generic masses, you have to whistle like a asshole or flex to people to show off your heroic bravado and the masses clamor around you, cheering and wooing like the paper is here. In literally a matter of button presses you can have your way with pretty much anyone in the land. Now they force you to do a stupid fetch quest before you can be their friend. Exactly what this game needed, Less reason to talk to the random dipshits that inhabit it.
 |
| 3 or 4 goofy whistles and this broad is ready to get the 5 STDs I picked up in the last town. |
For the record, there must be something bad in the water or Albion is inhabited by the dumbest class of people in fictitious existence. It takes very little to impress them it seems. I tested some of these actions at work and the went as followed:
~~Current Karma: Neutral~~
-Whistling at work while swinging my arms was met with blank stares and people walking away.
-Belching loudly earned me a disgusted look form most of the women and a "nice" from the other male in the room
-Trying to Fart on people just resulted in them leaving the room repulsed.
-Trying to Dance with a random female got me a sit down interview with my Human Resources Department.
~~Ending Karma: Bad?~~
Last I checked in the world of Fable that should have resulted in me getting cheered and praised for at least 3 of these.
Anyways, back to the topic. As I went through my quests, you meet characters who will join your revolution. none of which are interesting or substantial with the exception of maybe Paige. Its the same story for all of them: "We support your cause but don't trust you, so you'll have to do this for us." Which typically involves exploring a cave, killing the Hollows or Hobbes inside them, and reporting back. But as I ripped through the game, I found myself just trudging along, not getting invested in the characters or feeling any build up to the coming revolution. Even storming the castle didn't feel any more exciting than a standard dungeon and ends with a rather anti climatic fizzle.
Here's what kinda spoiled the game for me, I knew going in that after the revolution you take control of the kingdom and its your job to raise enough money to protect the city from an impending evil. You can continue the tyranny to raise the proper money, your can act justly with your promises to the people, but go broke in the process, or in some cases just leave things as they are, and the amount of money you have by the end of ta year determines how many casualties you can expect. I knew money would be important so before the war started I made sure to maximise the payout of the lute mini game and in about an hour or 2, earned enough money to buy the major properties of the Bowerstone Marketplace and raised the price of all the stocks to max. This is effective because your properties pay you a set amount every 5 real time minutes. Having something to do that day I just left the system running while I ran out for like 3 hours. When I got back I had amassed enough Gold that I was able to buy out all the property in Albion. Drop all the shitty houses to lowest rent, Drop the stores to normal, and Raise one specific district of High price housing to maximum and by the time you reach the mid point in the game, You'll be sitting on 10's of millions easy. Allowing you to continue being a good guy and save all your citizens in the process, with tons of money left to spare.
 |
| The king is such a Cock. |
So if I enjoyed Fable 2 and this felt like a copy paste of that, then naturally I would enjoy this one, right? Wrong. I don't know what it was about this game, but the story did virtually nothing for me. I didn't like or become sympathetic to any of the characters and I Never felt driven to complete the game. I played it because it was the only game I had on the chopping block.
The combat in this game was incredibly slow. The Fable franchise never had lighting quick combat, but 2 at least felt smooth as I played it. In this one if there is more than 3 enemies on the screen the frame rate slows down in a free fall to the point where it feels like I'm playing in super slow mo. Swinging melee took forever and I would end up getting gang raped by whatever monsters I fought. Since my character was female and I didn't want her to be an ogre like I had in 2, I switched to Ranged and Magic and then the game became insultingly easy. Most enemies drop in one or two shots so all you have to do is rapid fire your pistol till you get surrounded then hit a level 2 or 3 area of effect spell to stun lock things in place and clean up with the gun. Combat is supposed to be the meat of the game, and it did nothing to engage me. You have to look at games like Bayonetta, Devil May Cry, or God of War, these games are a blast to play because the combat is fast, fluid, and complex enough to string interesting combos. If they found a way to mix your three styles of attacks for different combos it might be a whole nother story. Instead they went with the one button Darksiders/Zelda approach. It gets boring very quickly.
This isn't my video but the guy kinda looks like me.. Except not fat.
If that wasn't bad enough, the frame rate tends to chug in non-combat situations as well. The lute mini game I mentioned earlier is basically a color matching puzzle over a span of a few seconds. You hit the buttons in the right order, the modifier goes up. That's fine. Its not a complex game, but whats frustrating is the icon to follow starts moving, but then when the assholes on the screen start moving and cheering, any smoothness on that gauge is gone and the thing jumps around, causing you to miss your color. Its fucking annoying.
Lastly and probably the worst note, is the game is simple. On my first play through I managed to breeze through the entire game and land the achievement for not being knocked down once. It was simple to do, in the rare situations where you are weak you'll probably have like 3 dozen potions to recover so you are never in any real threat of danger.
I don't understand why this franchise is so successful. Everything this game has other games have done better. Maybe its just because Microsoft fanboys and fangirls don't have enough first party content they feel they have to vehemently defend anything they can play that Sony owners can't. I'm not even a huge fan of Legend of Zelda but I can openly admit that Fable tries too hard to be better that it ends up falling short. The more useless goofy shit you add for people to do the worse the main game gets. You know what, I take that back because Yakuza 4 was able to load in enough shit that in 130 hours of game play I still have stuff to do and the story was still great. What is Fable's excuse? None, because if a game like Bioware's Jade Empire can come out and do everything Fable did and better, and Lionhead would not change or use aspects from it? Then they are just being stupid.
I'm certainly glad I got this game for free, because if I fucking paid for it I would have been even more disappointed. Fable 3 doesn't suck. But its certainly not good.
I don't understand why this franchise is so successful. Everything this game has other games have done better. Maybe its just because Microsoft fanboys and fangirls don't have enough first party content they feel they have to vehemently defend anything they can play that Sony owners can't. I'm not even a huge fan of Legend of Zelda but I can openly admit that Fable tries too hard to be better that it ends up falling short. The more useless goofy shit you add for people to do the worse the main game gets. You know what, I take that back because Yakuza 4 was able to load in enough shit that in 130 hours of game play I still have stuff to do and the story was still great. What is Fable's excuse? None, because if a game like Bioware's Jade Empire can come out and do everything Fable did and better, and Lionhead would not change or use aspects from it? Then they are just being stupid.
I'm certainly glad I got this game for free, because if I fucking paid for it I would have been even more disappointed. Fable 3 doesn't suck. But its certainly not good.
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