The latest instalment of the…much discussed Lionhead franchise is out on October 26th (according to wiki), and I haven’t seen a thread yet, so here we are.
Despite being very much maligned in some circles, I’m quite a fan of the franchise (although Fable II really hacked me off with a game-ending bug about 3/4s in…). It had a nice whimsical feel and was fun enough. This time I’ve been avoiding reading too many dev statements and hoping Peter Molyneux has learned to keep his trap shut in the hopes of avoiding hype; to that end I’ll wait for some reviews to come in.
The previews I’ve read so far seem pretty interesting; the combat and overall look of the gameplay to me highly resembles Fable II, which may explain why it hasn’t been too long in development. However, the new thing this time is that you get to be king. While you could be the de jure ‘king’ in Fable II and your decisions could shape the world (particularly in Oakfield), this time it’s apparently been ramped up to 11.
I’ll probably pick this one up, I must admit. What are your thoughts?
I really enjoyed the first one (although the concept of scale in that game was a bit weird, which was really driven home when they called a small pond a “lake”). The second one… I don’t know, for some reason I just couldn’t get into it at all. I barely made it out of the starter town.
Are the sequels available on non-console computers?
I’m enjoying the first one, but there are just so many peculiar quirks to the game. Like, the Minderbinder-esque economy, that allows you to buy items then sell them straight back to the same vendor for a profit. Or the fact that killing bandits is a good act, unless it’s the king of the bandits who asks you to kill him, in which case it’s an evil act. Or that killing a villager is exactly as evil as killing five sparrows. Or the bizarre restrictions on whom you can and can’t marry.
Never played the first but I loved the second and will most likely get the third. The only thing is, I do agree with some of the restrictions on marriages. Marriage is SO casual in that game that it ceases to have meaning. As a girl, I didn’t want that frumpy little Alex. I wanted to marry the guard who was around when I was a kid, and then showed up when I went to Oldtown as an adult. How is that not a romantic story? You see him when you’re like 8, and he’s 18 or 20, and then you’re all grown up and he sees you’re an adult now. And it’s fantasy, high fantasy at that, so I thought that romance would have been perfect in the story, if not IRL.
I am not overly fond of the end of Fable II I admit…and I also wasn’t terribly in love with the way it just grew Darker and Edgier as the game went on. But these are minor things, compared to how good the game is at times.
Similarly in the first one: In the starting tutorial area when you’re a child, one of the things you do is help a girl find her teddy bear. When you grow up and go back to that city, there’s a cutscene where you run into her, and of course she’s an adult now too, and she talks about how great it is to see you and that everyone thought you were dead. Cutscene ends, look around the town, and she’s nowhere to be found.
Fable 2 is x360 only, but 3 will be on PCs as well.
Also, they fixed a lot of that weirdness with Fable 2. And Molyneaux said they took out a lot of the crap features that no one ever used for Fable 3. Personally I hope they improved the dog. I don’t need that thing barking at me that it found some crap ring when I’m in the middle of killing 30 skeletons.
I loved both the first and second versions and finished them both, so I’m really looking forward to this one. I tend to play it as a “good” character as far as possible, so much so that I always end up with a halo around my character’s head. I finished Fable II once I’d defeated the main villain and then settled down with a wife and child - somehow it just didn’t seem right to carry on adventuring after that!
I’m surprised I’m solidly in the minority on this one: love the concept, really abhor the execution. I feel twice burned by the Fable franchise: one, the game never approached the hype of the publisher; two (and more importantly), huge bugs that ruined people’s games, with a lackadaisical response from the publisher.
I should have learned my lesson after Fable I, and felt really stupid halfway through Fable II that I had gotten sucked-in again. I vowed on my wife’s grave that I’d never buy another Fable (which really pissed her off, given that she’s still alive).
You had bugs? I had no problem with any bugs on Fable II.
I have to admit though, the hype thing is your own problem. I don’t mean that as harsh as it sounds, but there isn’t a game in the world that could match up to the hype of it’s publisher!
Can you tell me what bothered you so about Fable II?
That’s naive, or ignorant. Fable 1 was hyped by Peter Molyneux loudlyu promising features that he damn well knew were not going into the game. They were cmpletely abusrd for the timetable and he knew or should have known that. He boosted the game like he was personally getting five bucks for every pre-sell./ What actually came out was a serviceable, and fun, but fairly shallow Zelda clone, with a very small amount of character interaction tossed in for good measure.
Can’t speak for her, but for me, Fable 2 fell down horrifically by treating the entire thing as a damn joke. The Actual gameplay was great. I loved it: adventuring, killing monsters, going on item hunts with my dog (whadda cute puffy-wuffy-kins you is!). All of that was great. But then Molyneaux ha=d to cock thigns up by adding his plot.
Basically, the entire game mocks you and treats you as a joke. And you are just expected to blindly follow along. You have no control over it, and the game doesn’t even act as if you do. You’re forced to do certain (stupid) things and then it acts like you’re the idiot for choosing them. If you seen the cinematic trailer for Fable 3, well, that’s pretty much the style it goes for: BIg Important Words which have almost nothing to do with the fact that you’re in a hopeless miserable pile of crap onscreen. The entire game is perfectly summed up in opening to Fable 2, as well, where at the very start of the game you are hit in the head with a pile of birdshit.
More details:
The villain is a titanic prick, his jackassery matched only by his utter idiocy. Teresa is so blatantly suspicious I wanted to smack my own character for not popping Teresa with a bullet straight off. The plot is badly told and contains so many moronic “But-Thou-Musts!” is starts to feel like a broken record. The ending is insipidl;y pointless. Al moral choices are nonsensical and meaningless. Characters whose issues could have been hugely interesting are simply not explained at all, to the point where they almost cease to be characters. Pretty much the only likable NPC in the game gets killed, for no reason. Molyneaux expects me to take his game more seriously than he does, and that’s utter boneheaded of him.
Honestly, if you just treat Fable like the action-rpg which I do, I don’t think I can find much hatred for it. Like what smiling bandit has said, the mechanics are quite well done, though the social part is a bit meh. That seems to be improved in Fable III, where instead of dancing to everywhere to gain their support, your actions are now more in context (choosing whether to help, or to be evil, towards a NPC). That’s rather Mass Effect, come to think of it.
I don’t expect anything from the story-line, and all the ‘this what makes Fables rock’ features just make me roll my eyes. “Watch your character gets old!” is just a cut-scene. There is really no complex, meaningful choices over a long period of time. It’s all binary.
But to me this is just a action RPG. No big deal. I understand how some fans feel cheated. Heck, I’ll be if I was really having those expectations.
Even if it were “just an action RPG”, you can still have an actual worthwhile non-stupid plot. Nobody gets tired of saving princesses from dragons. Unless it’s the same Princess (cough Peach cough). I’m just asking for a plot that tyakes the game as seriously as it asks me to take the game.
Now, the extraneous elements are pretty ridiculous. You really don’t need any of it: it adds nothing and is really, really stupid. Did we honestly need a fart simulator in an RPG?
For the bugs, here’s one site that has collected a few of the major ones:
Some examples:
And those are just the first two!
Bugs aside, I enjoyed the first 1/3 of each Fable, but once I realized the game was really “on rails”, and that my playing served no purpose other than to tie-together cut-scenes, I lost interest. I admit: that is a personal preference; I know there are those that don’t mind, or even enjoy, this kind of game.
Never encountered any bugs on Fable II, so I’m not sure what to make of it.
And every gamer I know now comes with a built-in Molyenoux filter. The pope is catholic, bears shit in woods and Peter Molyenoux hypes the living hell out of the games he makes. That’s been true since Black & White. You’re going to be a lot happier just ignoring him and trying the game when it comes out without any expectations.
