Fable III Preview

There’s a short four-paragraph preview of Fable III up at OXM, which means that I’m about to quote half of the entire hands-on article below:

What was the first thing we noticed during our session in a small section of the game’s bustling town center? The ability to change up our wardrobe on the fly by entering a Pause menu that plops you straight in your dressing room. Guided along by Monty Python’s John Cleese, we picked out a rather fetching hot-pants number we opted to play as a female and then promptly wandered the streets looking for folks to impress via different expressions like handshaking and chatting. If you start up an exchange with a townie, you can keep the string going if they’re receptive enough; different expressions become available the longer you keep up the interaction. But no one was biting, so we moved on, only to stumble on a heated argument between a married couple.

The wife pleaded with us to help her get a divorce by seducing her husband and tricking him into signing the papers. We could’ve waved her off, but instead we pursued her hubby through a quickie courtship: buying him a ruby from a nearby stall, taking him on a handhold-y date at sunset, then finally sealing the deal by asking him to propose. The outcome? Your new fiancée discovers your ruse. Heartbroken to learn his wife was the mastermind, he asks if you’d be so kind as to murder her. Now it’s your choice: do him a solid and shank his wife for her deception, or leave them to sort it out among themselves. We left the couple alone and exited the house. A nifty Epilogue button prompt let us eavesdrop through the window to learn the conclusion of the tale man realizes he loves his wife after all, shortly before being jilted as she ditches him for a new life (and takes their kids with her). Ouch.

Just over 5 days left to go on this one. The busy season is upon us.