Fable 3

Fable 3 takes place roughly 50 years after the previous game, with the Hero of Albion passing on and leaving the kingdom to his oldest son, and your brother in the game, Logan. Right from the get go you’re shown how despotic and cruel Logan’s rule is and it’s hammered home when you have to make a tough choice early on in the game. From there you escape and join up with the resistance in order to topple your brother’s regime and take over as ruler of Albion.

As with the previous games in the franchise, Fable 3 is all about player choice, with your actions and choices determining how your character looks and how the people of Albion react to you. Kill all who stand in your way and your weapon will drip blood, be benevolent and your weapon will be bathed in an ethereal glow. Even your clothing will elicit comments of admiration or derision from the inhabitants of Albion, all adding up to a world that feels alive and ever-changing.

The game’s structure sees players make their way through quests that are scattered throughout Albion’s regions. Where it differs from previous titles is that you do these quests in order to gain followers to aid you in overthrowing your brother. It works as a wonderful story conceit and helps maintain a good pace through the first half of the game. Progression is shown through the Road to Rule which serves as a symbolic measure of your journey to becoming ruler of Albion and also as a useful upgrade shop of sorts. Along the road are treasure chests that you can unlock by spending Guild Seals which are earned through completing quests and furthering the story, with chests offering up everything from ability upgrades to additional expressions and even clothing dyes. The new upgrade system works well, however, you do feel slightly less connected to your character compared to the previous system. This is because in the previous games you would increase your character's powers and abilities by how often you used them, shaping the character through your actions, whereas here you can merely purchase any power you wish.

While the majority of Guild Seals and followers will be earned through completing quests, players will also be able to gain popularity (or lose it) through another important aspect of Fable 3: expressions. Stepping away from the expression wheel from Fable 2, the latest iteration works on what can only be described as expression branching. Basically, you'll first select a good or bad expression, and from there more expressions will open up depending on your choice and what expressions you've unlocked. It feels somewhat restricted at first, but the options do grow as you progress and you'll soon find yourself having hilarious and entertaining interactions with Albion's inhabitants. So feel free to be evil and fart in a someone's face or try and haggle for cheaper prices by dancing with the shop owner. There’s still no stranger sight than seeing your armoured hero bartering for a cheaper pie by doing dance moves straight from dirty dancing with the shop’s proprietor.

After numerous gripes from everyone, including myself, about the atrociously slow menus in Fable 2 you’ll be glad to hear that they have been done away with. In their place is the Sanctuary, a central hub that serves as a glorified menu UI and allows you to change weapons, select your clothing, as well as view your trophies and Achievements. It's wonderfully smooth and fast to load and puts the Fable 2 menu system to shame, keeping the player immersed in the game’s world.

While the Sanctuary is a step forward, the same can’t be said for the frequent loading screens that pop up every time you travel between areas. They really grate on your nerves when you’re doing quests that see you travelling across the world from A to B and it got to the point where I’d rely on using the map to fast travel. While fast travelling still sees you being greeted by a loading screen it does mean you’ll skip out all the other loading screens for the areas you would have had to pass through. It’s a real shame as it means I missed out on exploring some areas as much as I would have liked and it takes you out of the world of Albion and places you firmly in the world of This Is Only A Video Game.

The biggest gripe many will have with this game though will come down to the sheer number of bugs lurking around every corner. If you thought Fable 2 was buggy, you ain't seen nothing yet. Your personal butler Jasper, voiced by John Cleese, who guides you through the game and stays in the Sanctuary becomes eerily silent shortly after starting the game, and other than completely restarting the game, will remain silent right until the end. There are also clipping issues galore with characters and objects frequently floating in midair. Quests can sometimes become glitched and prevent you from finishing them or even from leaving the area entirely which once again can only be solved by starting from scratch and losing all your progress. Most of the bugs will probably be sorted out with a patch in the near future but in its current form it really is remarkably poor in the technical department.

While the first half of the game follows the traditional Fable route of quests and story missions, the tone shifts half way through when you overthrow your brother's regime and become king or queen. All the promises you made to your followers during the first half of the game are now presented to you and give you the option to fulfill them and drain your kingdom's treasury or ignore them swell the kingdom's coffers. It's an interesting change to the usual style of gameplay in Fable but one that falls somewhat flat as by that time in the game your personal wealth is usually so great that any shortfall in your kingdom's treasury can usually be topped up with your own substantial wealth. Because of this it's probably the weaker half of the game but fortunately you're still welcome to tackle any outstanding sidequests and to explore the world should the grind to fill your treasury become too overwhelming.

A welcomed improvement in Fable 3 is the revamped online co-op which finally allows friends to bring their own hero and dog into your game. No more generic henchmen! Even better is that the annoying camera issues have been fixed, so rather than having to struggle with one camera view for both players you and your co-op partner can now travel freely in a region and each have your own camera. It’s also possible to marry or form a business partnership with your co-op buddy, sharing profits or baby sitting duties. The less savoury angle of marriage is also represented with the ability to divorce your partner and take half their riches, so make sure you avoid playing with a money grubbing friend.

The world of Albion is beautiful to behold with vistas and landscapes that stretch out as far as the eye can see. Graphically Fable 3 is a stunning game when it comes to the environments, with windswept deserts, snowy mountain tops and run down industrial towns taken straight from a Dickens' novel. Less accomplished are the character models on offer with poor textures and lip syncing that isn’t always up to snuff. More worrying is the frequent framerate issues that will see your character slow to a crawl as the game just about freezes at certain points. After a while it usually rights itself but if it happens in the middle of a battle there’s not much you can do other than wait it out.

The Fable series is renowned for its brilliant scripting and voice work, and Fable 3 doesn't disappoint, with sterling voice work from some of the British industries greatest, such as Stephen Fry, Simon Pegg, John Cleese, Bernard Hill, Jonathan Ross and Sir Ben Kingsley. Russell Shaw’s soundtrack is the perfect accompaniment to your adventures in Albion and stands up there with the best work done on the previous games with Danny Elfman.

I can’t say that reviewing Fable 3 has been easy. It’s a game that’s remarkably fun to play, filled with an interesting story and wonderful characters, but at the same time its technical problems and less than revolutionary take on the previous Fable games can't be ignored. Fable 3 is still Fable, however, and fans will undoubtedly relish in the opportunity to once again explore every nook and cranny of a different, yet unmistakably Fable setting. You'll just need a little more patience than before.

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