Fable 3 sure looks awesome....
Fable 3
They say that those who don’t learn from history are bound to repeat it. Not me. I’ve been burned before. Twice.
So before we start storming Gamestop to place our pre-orders, let’s review five reasons not to get our hopes up for Fable 3.
1. Do you really want to role play a violent clown?
Not all games need to sport the conversational sophistication of a Bioware or Obsidian release. But in a game that includes dialogue, I expect to be able to participate using human, as opposed to primate, language. This is not the case in the Fable games. In the Fable games, only other characters get to talk. Your character gets to fart. And burp. And make heroic grunts. This is never explained, but I’m a creative guy, so I’ll try. Maybe you are Albion’s most violent clown. You make funny faces. You dance. You put ink on your face. You kill people. Not buying it? Me neither. It’s just stupid.
2. This is an RPG, right?
Look, it’s pretty clear by now that Molyneux’s heart isn’t in the role playing genre. The guy still wishes he was making Populous, or Black & White, but Microsoft demands Fable sequels instead. Molyneux is a sim guy, not an RPG guy, and for this reason, the focus of the Fable games always seems to be on simulating shit that no one cares about. Whether it’s simulating a medieval economy in Fable 2
Dungeon Keeper -- A classic. Not an RPG, but a classic.
3. Albion has the depth of a paper plate.
Albion just never feels like a real place to me. It feels small, and linear, and empty. To be fair, it’s probably no smaller or more linear than the explorable areas of the Mass Effect or Dragon Age games, but it feels that way. Town leads to forest (with only one path through it) leads to scenic cliff-side leads to another town leads to a demon door leads to another town. Is Albion just one long street? At least Final Fantasy XIII had pretty cutscenes. One of the joys of RPGs is exploration. Delving into strange and dangerous locations and finding terrible monsters and glittering treasures. Fable doesn’t deliver anything close.
4. Do I need glasses?
In a game where customizing your appearance is one of the supposedly big draws, why is it so hard to see myself? You need to do an awful lot of wrestling with the Xbox 360 pad’s analog sticks to try to get the camera to zoom in on your scarred, tattooed clown face — why bother buying clothing (which, unlike clothing in other RPGs, has no effect on your defense stats in Fable 2), or seeking out a barber or a traveling tattoo artist, when you’re never more than a blurry bunch of pixels? And while I’m on the subject, you can’t zoom in on the other characters either? Are you serious? How am I supposed to choose a wife when I can’t tell if she’s a beautiful woman or a dog’s breakfast? (By way of contrast, by the time I finished Mass Effect 2
And the map? It’s hidden in a Fable 2 menu and marginalized to postage stamp size. This is an RPG, Peter! RPG gamers need their maps like crackheads need their rocks.
5. British humor is not funny.
Okay. It’s better than Japanese humor. But that’s not saying much. For me, the “funny” bits in the Fable games fall flat. Even worse, these bad jokes clash with the epic aspirations of the series. How can I take a story seriously when the Assassin’s Guild is like a high school production of a Monty Python movie? They’re assassins! Imagine if the Dark Brotherhood in Oblivion
Fable 3 fashion invades my nightmares.
Am I excited for Fable 3
I’m glad I read this, I was a tiny bit excited about F3 but then my brain kicked in and I remembered the others… You say basically everything needed to be said about Fable 3; don’t over-hype it Molyneux (yet we know how prone you are to this,) it will just fall flat. Fable games really do feel very claustrophobic, I’m pleased you said that because that has been one of the sticking points for me.
Not so glad however about the British humour – you could maybe construe it as a very bad parody of English humour but it isn’t. It makes us Brits cringe at least as much as anyone, if not more, mainly because it jars with us especially. Its a bit like somebody putting Team America in a game saying they are representative of all Americans, and knowing other countries probably believe that too, depressing.
Thanks, EvilSam. And my apologies for the British humor generalization. I had not thought of it this way before, but I like the way you put it — the comedy in Fable is like a parody of British humor.
Yeah, I barely made it through Fable 1. It was alright.
I was mostly enjoying Fable 2 but got distracted by a friend moving into our place for a few months, and then never went back to it.
There’s an audience for the Fable games. I find them passingly amusing.
But honestly I was hesitant about buying 2, and I’m pretty much certain that, at best, I’ll borrow 3 from someone.
Molyneux has admitted that he doesn’t consider Fable 3 to be an RPG, so I expect it will be even less RPG-like than the first two. I guess we will find out in a few weeks.
I’m so glad someone brought this up I liked the Fable games until i finaly picked up a Bioware game and I’ve never really felt the same about Fable if i had a choice between all the fable games or a Bioware game I’d probably go for the bioware game. but that just my opinion
really good rant 😛
Thanks, Brandon. I’m glad you enjoyed the post. With Fable 3 coming out next week, I guess we’ll see if anything has changed for the better.
I would like to point out a few things if I could. One, your character does talk in Fable 3. I am not saying you are going to get epic speeches from your character like Shepard, but so far it is working really well and the story has surprised in how good it is compared to its previous games. I will have to agree with you on the seeing your own character part, but they really have upgraded that in this one. If you cant see your character and others in Fable 3, you really do need glasses! Lastly, I dont know maybe it is just me, but Fable does get a chuckle from me every now and then. I will agree with you on one last part to though. Mass Effect is more immersing than Fable, but I dont think it is because Fable did a bad job, I just think Bioware does an AMAZING job.
You need to really control the commentary at this site
Yes, having a bit of a spam problem. Working on it. 🙂