Fable III Previews

Lionhead Studios’ third Fable installment has received the preview treatment from both IncGamers and Telegraph this week, with the information most likely come from the title’s GamesCom demonstration.

A snip from IncGamers’ article:

Logan’s reign is one of terror. Through his actions Albion has undergone an industrial revolution, and there is growing resentment from the population. The familiar city of Bowerstone has changed into something akin to a steampunk monster, with the oppressed populace crammed into labor camps, overworked and underpaid. Naturally, as the saint I am, I couldn’t simply stand idly by and tried to organise a better food supply.

Once again, it’s all about choices and consequences; action and reaction. “Poo poo,” I hear you cry. “They’ve claimed this before.” I can’t argue with that, and it’s uncertain from these first few hours whether choice is something that’s a cute gimmick or whether it really will have a wide-ranging impact, but just between us, there’s a rather memorable scene very early on. Microsoft has made me promise not to tell you and I fully expect that if I even began to tap out a description Molyneux would burst through my window in a black ninja turtleneck and strangle me, so you’ll have to wait and see for yourself, but I’ll tell you this: this particular decision is one of the most intense I’ve seen in the entire series. This decision managed to be the first thing in a Fable game to make me feel reflective. Better yet, though, despite how (or perhaps I should say “for whom”) I decided, I’m still mulling ny decision over. Yes, I’m being cryptic, and no, I can’t clarify, but if you’re a Mass Effect fan, think along the lines of the Ashley/Kaiden decision on Virmire. I have high hopes that there’ll be similar scenes throughout the rest of the game.

And a snip from Telegraph’s article:

While the darkened settings of Fable III may be awful for the inhabitants of Albion, they’ve proved a boon for the developers. By adding a layer of bleakness to their once sunny fantasy world, Lionhead have not only made their game more compelling, they’ve deepened its signature mechanic dealing with moral choice. The player’s made aware of this early on. After a couple of warm up rounds involving whether or not sign a petition for workers’ rights or whether to berate or praise the palace’s kitchen staff, the moral waters suddenly become murky. The player is faced with a choice with serious consequence which has not clear cut right answer. While we can’t go into specifics, we can report it catches the player completely off-guard with both its moral complexity and its far-reaching outcome. Shortly after this scene, the player is branded a traitor by the king and is forced to flee the palace with his butler, his man-at-arms and his dog in tow.

If all of this is beginning to sound crushingly depressing, then don’t worry; like previous games in the franchise, Fable III provides the player with an awful lot of comic relief. Indeed, for this instalment the game’s sense of humour offers necessary ballast for some of Fable III’s darker moments. A lot of the laughs are generated by the talented cast; the prince’s butler, Jasper is voice by John Cleese, and since he’s their companion for a lot of the game, his dry with informs a lot of the player’s progress. Bernard Hill is also on hand as the prince’s mentor, Sir Walter and it’s not too long before they player runs into the highly eccentric leader of The Dweller’s, Sabine, who is voiced by Sir Ben Kingsly. Most of the characters the player encounters has their own tics and affectations, and all of them are mined for the maximum amount of gags. The player, too, is also the source of a lot of merriment. Some of the humour extends from the clown-like way they can interact with NPCs in the world around them; whistling and flapping one’s arms like an idiot is apparently a popular social interaction in Albion, as is, bizarrely enough, dancing the tango with a complete stranger. There are also a lot of laughs to be had in some of the quests and odd jobs the player can do around Albion, ranging from busking, pie-making and dressing up as a giant chicken and hunting down some wayward fowls.