Fable III Previews

Both GamesRadar and Play.tm are offering up new previews of Fable III, which one would presume are based on the build shown at this week’s Develop conference.

A snip from GamesRadar’s article:

Fable has always been a haven of likeable, funny, lifelike characters, however cartoonish they may be, but Fable III looks to add little tweaks and improvements across the board. Character animations for expressions are now more convincing and full of personality, the emphasis on one-to-one interaction and touch allowing your hero to be more directly involved with NPCs in more overt, more intimate ways. The aforementioned farting, for instance, now ends with you grabbing the hapless villager by the head and pulling their face right down to your enthusiastic gas pipe. Dancing culminates with a showboating Dirty Dancing-style lift of your partner.

And on top of the improved interactions, heroes are now voiced. Obviously this should finally create a sense of actually being involved in the major plot points, unlike in Fable II, which forced you to dumbly stand around like a spare part watching other characters discuss what was going, often seeming to ignore your main man (or woman) completely. And simply in terms of basic NPC interaction, the little verbal asides already on show create a sense of real interaction, immediately quashing the feeling of separation that Fable II could occasionally give you, even when performing to a large crowd.

And a snip from Play.tm’s article:

The first of the two playable chunks was Brightfall, a tranquil, cobbled village immediately recognisable as belonging to the chocolate-box world of Fable. Set half a century after the climax of Fable II, Brightfall gently bustles with the rhythms of village life. Children frolic around, while blacksmiths and market traders go about their daily business. Taken from an early stage of the game, its a welcome return to the series characterful charm.

Similarly, Fables quirky humour remains intact, as evidenced by the first mission we encountered. Following the now familiar fairy-dust navigation trail, we were led through the square to a small chicken run tucked away in a corner of the village. Here we met the owner who, unsurprisingly, has a problem. All of his chickens have gone missing.