Game:

Fable games have always been defined by the promises they fail to keep and Fable III is no different. For a good long stretch of the game the predominant feeling is likely to be one of deja-vu. Graphically all-but identical and stylistically very close to Fable II, the main difference that immediately stands out is how much seems to have been taken away from the player.

The process of streamlining began in the previous game, with the removal of the HUD, and has been extended to include the removal of all forms of overt levelling and all but the simplest of directly controlled mechanical choices. The process of interacting with the game world seems to have become rather weightless and simplistic, a feeling not dispelled by the game’s flatly schematic main story, which sees the player once again travelling to request help from a series of powerful allies who then dispatch him on a couple of basic fetch quests in order to test his heroic worth.

Lionhead’s stated ambition to remove all menus and statistics can bear a great deal of the responsibility for this lack of dynamism. Direct management of levelling up is now gone, replaced with the Road to Rule. This other-dimensional area contains chest which you unlock with guild seals earned through combat and quest completion, inside each of which are a set of skills. Walk up to the chest marked ‘melee level 2’ and you will level up all of your melee weapons. Simple and easy to understand it may be, but it is also disempowering and removes any real sense of worth that might have been attached to the new skills had they been directly tied to some tangible action or achievement.

This sense of harmful streamlining carries over to the interesting yet also deeply annoying decision to do away with the previous game’s clear and simple menu system and replace it with a physical location in the form of The Sanctuary. An interesting enough idea in principal, and one that gives your items and clothing a certain amiable physicality, it soon becomes deeply tiresome to have to physically walk up to something and manipulate it every time you want to change your outfit or weapon or to fast-travel to a location. In the end it amounts to a menu system in all but name, but one that has to be physically navigated at minor but persistent inconvenience to the player and which serves to make opaque the achievements and progressions that have been made so far.

Though now more limited in scope, there is a greater level of physicality in the relationship actions. Many now involve hugging or dancing or swinging people around by their hands, which is always amusing to try out on passing policemen, who invariable titter girlishly and call you a dreamboat.

Also sadly de-emphasised are the social and property features of the game. Social interaction now boils down to simply holding one of three buttons to perform and arbitrary facial expression and then repeating the process until the character likes/hates you. Facial expressions can no longer be equipped or in any way selected and interactions are limited to one individual at a time. The much-vaunted ‘touch system’ amounts to little more than being able to hold a character’s hand and physically drag them somewhere, a system that soon wears out its welcome due to poor collision detection and an irritating tendency to slow the player down to strolling-speed. There are only so many times you can be forced to reload a save because a companion has got stuck behind a door before you decide that the strong man really is mightiest alone.

Property management is one area where improvements have been made, mainly in the ability to buy properties and manage their rates and states of repair from the map screen and a good couple of hours can be happily whiled away attempting to gentrify a slum area through a program of building repair and the selection of tasteful dressing tables.

Ultimately these flaws come from whittling too much away from the mechanics of Fable II, which in many other respects survives here intact. It’s from the previous game that Fable III also inherits most of its great strengths, chief among which is the world of Albion, which remains a feature-packed and characterful playground unlike any other in gaming. A sort of Legend of Zelda as imagined by Monty Python, this deeply English fantasy world is still a place in which players can get lost for hours on end, supplementing the slim pickings of the main story with a life and career entirely of their own making. Despite being decoupled from overt character progression, distractions like becoming a wandering minstrel, rounding up crooks for the local guards or managing a property portfolio are just as whimsically entertaining as ever and will likely provide the majority of memorable experiences for most players.

Rather than instructing people to follow you, you now grab them by the hand and drag them where you want them to go. Sadly, this is pretty much FABLE III in microcosm.

The game’s story threatens to become more interesting in the final act, when you become king of Albion and must set about governing the land with either a velvet glove or a fist of iron, or possibly even a fist of iron inside a velvet glove. While some of the dilemmas presented here are fairly compelling, they are ultimately undermined by their lack of nuance. No decision can ever have side-effects, existing only in either black or white.

(Editors Note:Those that want to avoid spoilers may wish to skip the following paragraph)

Each piece of gold in the treasury represents one citizen who will survive the final invasion. Keep your promises to your allies at the expense of the treasury, and you will earn short term popularity at the expense of later physical devastation. What of the possibility that having more allies might help to repel the invaders? That building a scientific academy might result in the invention of new weapons? That better nourished, less over-worked people might fight harder? None of these are a consideration. The choice comes down to either cake or death. You can let the people hate you, or you can make them happy and they will all get killed.

While the physical changes your decisions effect on the world of Albion are more compellingly realised than ever before (draining Bowerstone Lake to build a mine, for instance), the whole thing is spoiled by a perfunctory climax completely free of jeopardy or any sense of permanent consequences delivered in the form of exactly the same kind of rote fight scenes that were done better earlier in the game before ending with – what else? – vague promises of bigger things to come.

The new magic system sees you equipping magical gauntlets, which can be mixed to create different combinations of spells such as fiery tornados or icy blizzards of electricity. It’s an interesting change which sadly sacrifices the flexibility and variety of the magic available in Fable II.

Review Round-Up

GRAPHICS – 3/5 - Perfectly functional but not what anyone would describe as a beautiful game. Some persistent issues with framerate drops and texture pop-in, as well as NPCs who are completely invisible until you get within a few metres of them. The fairytale art style is as pleasant as ever, especially now it has been applied to the seedy glamour of an early industrial revolution.

SOUND – 4/5 - Fable’s usual Danny Elfman-esque soundtrack of roaming choral tunes makes a welcome return and the voice-acting is packed with good-quality performances from a variety of name actors including Simon Pegg, Bernard Hill, Naomi Harris, John Cleese and Sir Ben Kingsley. Hill carries the lion’s share of the dialogue, putting in a very amiable performance as a slightly daft and paternal old sword-fighter who accompanies the player throughout the game. Special mention must go to Sir Ben, who delivers an eccentric turn as a half-mad, explosives-loving, old gypsy king in a manner which suggests an extended piss-take of Anthony Hopkins.

GAMEPLAY – 3/5 - The basic underpinnings and accessible gameplay with a small twist of skill as laid down in Fable II remain here essentially unchanged, but a commendable desire to streamline seems to have gone so far as to rip out a chunk of the mechanics that kept players tethered to the game. The persistent feeling is of uncertainty and of rewards too easily won, with new abilities simply bought outright rather than being the result of real effort directed with a purpose. Similarly, with the exception of one brilliantly ghoulish choice right at the beginning, dilemmas presented to the player are rarely carried through to the limits of their implied consequences, with good and bad decisions rarely delivering particularly different rewards or penalties as the game retreats at speed away from anything which might test the player’s patience or courage in anything but the most superficial way. The time spent on Albion’s throne at first seems to offer something very different, but unfortunately backslides into simple choices between GOOD and EVIL before ending the world not with a bang, but with a whimper.

LONGEVITY – 4/5 – The real worth of Fable III, as with the previous two games, will come in the weeks and months of play that follow the initial completion. Replayed with knowledge of how the game works and what is to come, Fable III yields up a flexible and engaging experiences that eclipses the rather thin and disappointing first playthrough. Albion is a wide and deep game world that yields up new pleasures and surprises long after the story is finished, and it is here, in the business of messing around and of building up the elements of a virtual life that the game truly begins to breath and come alive.

OVERALL:  3 Royal Chickens out of 5

Once again Peter Molyneaux and Lionhead studios have promised us the world and delivered Sweden. Fable III does very little to expand on the formula established in Fable II and many of the alterations it does make are actively harmful to player engagement and empowerment. However, it has also kept most of what was lovable and charming and genuinely joyful about Fable II and married it with the most expansive and well-drawn game world so far. The new Ruler mechanics are hesitantly implemented and ultimately disappointing compared to what might have been, but they provide enough scope for replay and experimentation to justify their presence for now. Ultimately, as with every game Molyneaux has ever made, Fable III is a truly brilliant sequel waiting to happen.

- Elliot Mears

At this years Eurogamer Expo we were fortunate enough to sit down and get hands on with the next installment in Microsoft’s flagship role playing series, Fable 3. Immediate impressions were strong; the game’s trademark visual style remains intact, with a beautifully designed environments and crystal clear graphics.To start our demo we found our hero standing in the middle of a dark and foreboding forest. From the get go we were chucked head first in to the action, after a few seconds of wandering the woods we were ambushed by a small army of hollow men – the reanimated skeleton enemies from previous Fable games.

Armed with a gigantic hammer, combat immediately felt familiar; pressing the X button performs a melee attack, in this case swinging the hammer, Y fires ranged weapons, and B performs spells. The spell we were armed with in the demo summoned a whirlwind of blades that easily eviscerated the opposing forces. Holding the X button for a few seconds powers up your melee weapon, performing a devastating attack that kills most enemies in one hit.

The Hollow Men have had something of a makeover

This also causes the game to slow down, producing a Matrix-style slow motion effect, allowing you to admire your handiwork for a few seconds. As fun as this idea is, it quickly became tiresome, especially when performing a power attack on a group of enemies, who invariably obscured your view, leading to you staring at undead derrière for a few seconds.

One noticeable difference to the Hollow Men is that a number of them now carry riffles, meaning they can shoot you from a distance. This is a big change to the combat in Fable because in previous games the Hollow Men were fairly brainless and only capable of performing basic melee attacks. Another new addition is a larger armoured Hollow Man who casts lightning based spells. This means that in combat you need to keep one finger poised, ready to press the A button to dodge incoming fire.

Another immediate difference is that in Fable 3 there are no on screen HUD (heads up display), which means that there is no health bar on screen. When you have taken a lot of damage, a health potion logo will appear at the bottom left corner of the screen prompting you to press a direction on the D pad to instantly consume a health potion. As you get closer and closer to death the health potion logo will begin to flash more vigorously, indicating the severity of the situation. It is not a massive change, and seems to have been brought about to make the screen as uncluttered as possible, but it did take a little getting used to.

Switching to ranged combat is a little slower than switching between melee and magical combat.

Once the Hollow Men were disposed of we were tasked with digging up an ancient evil book; following the glowing breadcrumb trail, which remains unchanged from Fable 2, we were taken to a general area in which the book was located. From here we had to follow the lead of the dog, listening out for his bark which indicated where a buried object was. Standing next to the barking dog leads to a prompt to press the A Button to get your shovel out and start digging.

As soon as the book was found it was back on the breadcrumb trail again, and another group of Hollow Men to dispatch of. This time we experimented more with stringing together melee, ranged, and magical attacks. In Fable 2 there was a slight disconnect in performing a combo if you switched between melee weapons and ranged weapons, and that remains although to a lesser extent. Having said that, there seems to be an improvement to the fluidity of switching between melee combat and spells; tapping X twice and then B lead to me swinging the hammer left, right, and then firing out a burst of magical blades almost instantly.

Upon dispatching the final hollow man the breadcrumb trail lead me out of the woods and in to the docks of a town; standing by the river I could see large trading boats moving up and down through the river. As we walked through past the river we saw a beggar and stood in front of him. We were prompted to press either the A button to interact, or hold the left trigger to hold hands with the hobo.

Deciding to interact with the hobo we were treated to another one of the big changes in the game. In Fable 2 you have to hold the left bumper to bring up a menu of expressions to use; in Fable 3 when you choose to interact with another character the camera angle changes to a side on view, and rather than showing a menu, different button icons float over the head of the character you are interacting with. For instance, a floating A, X, and Y were above the character’s head, and each had a different action associated with the button, such as tickle, fart, and dance. The action you choose to partake in will change how that specific character views you, which is reflective of your entire reputation.

The way people think of you is reflected in your appearance

Having just met the hobo we choose to dance with them instead. Simply pressing the button will perform a short animation and yield a small bonus, to get the most out of any given action you need to hold the button down until prompted to release it. What followed was quite a touching dance that seemed to bring real joy to both the hobo and my character. Following that we chose to tickle the hobo, and I quickly realised that I had just made a friend for life.

At that point we were forced to end our hands on due to other commitments. Needless to say we were left suitably impressed by Fable 3 – the development team have managed to bring about a number of interesting changes that improve on an already strong game franchise.

Fable 3 is due to be released on Xboc 360 on the 29th October, with a PC version set to be released before the end of the year. Stay tuned to The Newb Review for our review in the coming weeks.

- Luke Mears

Everybody loves achievements, right? Be they the achievements on Steam, World of Warcraft, the Xbox 360, or the Achievements covered in tin foil that are known as PS3 Trophies. The concept of the high score is nothing new to gamers, any one that spent their youth hanging around arcades trying to get on the leaderboards of games like House of the Dead, Street Fighter 2, or Crazy Taxi can attest to that.

With the release of the latest generation of consoles, and the introduction of achievements, the entire concept of the high score has changed. Now rather than just showing off how good we are at one game, we get to show how good we are at games in general, and can compare scores with not only our friends, but the entire world. So yeah, achievements are great. But achievement farming can be a real chore, and there is nothing sadder than playing a bad game in order to get those precious easy achievements – trust me I’ve been there! So, in light of the season, and to follow up on tom01255′s “Confessions of a Trophy Whore”, we here at Newb review thought we would share with you, our beloved readers, a list of games that have easy achievements/trophies, that are also a lot of fun to play. Because while achievements are great, having fun while playing is more important than anything else.

** For the purposes of simplicity I will be mainly talking about the Xbox 360 achievements, however in most cases they are the same for the PS3 trophies and Steam/Games For Windows Live achievements**

BATMAN ARKHAM ASYLUM (PS3/360/PC)

Arkham Asylum may be a horrible place filled with all of Gotham’s most terrible villains, but there’s also a fantastic game with a number of easily achievements. The majority of the achievements are awarded for playing though the story mode and discovering the Riddler’s riddles, which are all easy enough to find when switching on Detective Vision. There are very few challenging achievements in the form of earning all of the Medals on the combat challenges and beating the game on the highest difficulty. Even when playing on the highest difficulty there was only one instance where I had some difficulty in proceeding. The simplicity of the achievements are only made sweeter by the fact that this is such a well designed game, with a well written story and excellent voice acting to round it all off.

EASY ACHIEVEMENTS: Approximately 500 achievement points are awarded for game completion on Normal Difficulty, with a further 160 points for solving all of the riddles. There are a number of other assorted achievements that you will earn during the single player which will easily bring your total close to 800 points.

DIFFICULT ACHIEVEMENTS: Earning all medals on the combat challenges will take a lot of practice, as will performing a combo that utilises every move in Batman’s arsenal. Once you achieve this, beat the game, find all Riddles, then you will earn the 100% completion achievement.

ASSASSIN’S CREED 2 (PS3/360)

Taking place in the near future, you control Desmond Miles a man who has been placed in a machine called The Animus, which allows him to relive the memories of his ancestors. This time Desmond controls his ancestor in Renaissance Italy, Ezio Auditore, as he seeks revenge on those that betrayed his family. It is a little convoluted, sure, but does that really matter when it is such a well put together game? What makes this sweet game even sweeter? Easy achievements.

EASY ACHIEVEMENTS: On my first play through the game I unlocked a whopping 930 achievement points without putting too much effort in. Most of the achievements are unlocked through playing the game, although there are a few side ones that you should be able to unlock pretty easily.

DIFFICULT ACHIEVEMENTS: Collecting 100 feathers that are strewn out through the world is more time consuming than hard. Once you find all 100, you earn a special cape that is required for unlocking another achievement. Finding all 20 glyphs in the game may take up a little time, but it is not particularly difficult.

FALLOUT 3 (PS3/360/PC)

Bethesda’s post apocalyptic RPG may seem a little dated to some, but it is hard to argue against the game’s quality in terms of achievements! With the release of 5 add ons (Operation Anchorage, The Pitt, Broken Steel, Point Lookout, and Mother ship Zeta) the game now has a total of 1550 achievement points on the 360. If you do not already own the game then it might be worth picking up the Game of The Year edition, which includes all of the add ons. Check with your favourite retailers to see if they have a decent deal for it.

EASY ACHIEVEMENTS: The majority of the achievements are earned through completing missions, with a few achievements awarded for killing set numbers of enemies, and hacking computers or picking locks. Essentially, you just need to play the game to unlock most of them. Having said that, this is a game where it is possible to clock up over 100 hours of play time.

DIFFICULT ACHIEVEMENTS: The hardest achievements in this game are the collection achievements, particularly the Vault Tech Bobble Heads, as a number of them can only be obtained at a set time. If you miss them, then that is it, you cannot get them again without loading up an old save. Which really, really, really, sucks.

BIOSHOCK (PS3/360/PC)

Venturing in to the deep sea city of Rapture, overrun with mask wearing disfigured junkies, can be a frightening experience at times, but these easy achievements will more than make up for any frights you might have. With the addition of a free piece of downloadable content, the game has a total of 1100 achievement points available, with the vast majority of them being pretty easy to obtain. On the PS3 there is a challenge mode downloadable add on that will add about a dozen bronze trophies that seem to be reasonably achieveable.

EASY ACHIEVEMENTS: At least 300 points are awarded to you just for playing through the story missions, with a good 250 to 300 points that you will probably unlock just through playing the game. The other achievements revolve around photographing your enemies enough to learn everything about them, which is not really particularly challenging.

DIFFICULT ACHIEVEMENTS: There are a number of 100 point achievements that you earn for completing the game without using any Little Sisters, and for beating the game on the highest difficulty without using a vita chamber – which essentially means beat the game without dying. It’s not as hard as it may sound – all you need to do is save regularly, and if you die load up an old save.

FABLE 2 (360)

The latest game from British industry legend Peter Molyneaux, Fable 2 is a game where every choice you make has a consequence, be it a change in your own appearance, or the economic fate of a town. As well as being an entertaining fantasy game with light role playing elements, the game also features a ton of easy achievements. Two downloadable add ons have been released which bring the achievement total to 1350. If you purchase the game of the year edition, which includes both add ons, then you are potentially looking at a big pay off from playing this game.

EASY ACHIEVEMENTS: There are dozens of simple achievements that award 5 or 10 points each ranging from shooting rabbits to making love 25 times. Beating the story mode without playing any more side missions than necessary will earn you approximately 400 points, but it would be almost impossible not to pick up a few other achievements along the way. You do not even have to do the achievements yourself in most cases, all you need to do is play a co-op game with someone and have them perform the necessary deed, and the act of witnessing it alone will grant you the achievement.

DIFFICULT ACHIEVEMENTS: One achievement in particular is especially difficult, the doll catcher achievement requires you to trade online in order to own all six in game collectible dolls. Each profile can only unlock one doll and in order to trade you will need an Xbox live gold account. It is incredibly frustrating without first making the proper arrangements online in forums or what have you. The game also includes achievements that are rewarded for destroying 50 gargoyles (and find their hidden treasure), collecting 25 silver keys, and earning all abilities, pet tricks, and expressions, which may take a long time.

And there we have it! A small selection of decent games that will (hopefully) increase your gamerscore as well as bringing you extreme joy. This is of course just a small selection of great games with easy achievements, so if you have any other games to recommend then feel free to leave a comment below. Let us share the love.