The only Fable here is the broken promises from Lionhead Studios.
THE GOOD:
- Namely the voice acting (by several great British acters you'll know of well if you listen) and the musical score associated with it. When you first start out, things definitely feel like they're going in the right direction, and they feel solid. The problem is - that's where it all ends. The story also starts out fairly strong (albeit somewhat cliche' and typical for a fantasy tale). After that, everything else is just a disaster.
- minigames can be a fun way to make some gold as simple as they are to play them. They've also made it to where you can't wake up and find 8 million gold in your inventory like the second game, which I found to be a great thing.
- variety of environments help the story flow through interesting turns
- the humor in this game does make me laugh from time to time. You can thank John Cleese for that one.
- The story starts off with a good kick and gets you going fairly quickly so you can dive right into the action.
- Multiplayer options are much better than the prior title
THE BAD: (here we go, it's a long list)
- Aging, scarring, growing up, and customization. Lacks ALL of it. That's right, you look the exact same throughout your entire adventure, unless you account "change" for the ridiculous color options you can buy as dyes. These just make you look cartoony, and it kills any believable aspect of the game. Yes you can customize your dressware. All 5 different clothing sets. Where's my choice of ragged clothes, or unique armor or something? Anything? Same goes with facial hair and hairstyles.. nothing to see there either, move along.
- Quests just drag on, and aren't interesting. There's nothing cool to see, and certainly no extraordinary treasures to dig around for as you'll only find worthless gems and gold. Most of them are fetch quests which most of us now have had plenty of fill of that by now. It's 2010, and I expect a lot more.
- Demon doors and silver/gold chests give JUNK, and you really have to go looking for those keys. Enough said.
- There isn't any challenge to exploring. It all feels so incredibly 2-dimensional and scripted. It's all spoonfed to you, and that completely kills any exploration aspect. For example - you'll come around the typical bend where there's a fork in the road. GEE, I WONDER - one will make you walk and look for the spot to dig, or the chest to open just to find 200 gold. So surprising! In fact, it happens every chance it can throughout the WHOLE GAME. Where's that secret corner that you can't see because a tree is hiding it, or that hidden treasure inside a wall? Come on now, we've all seen better.
- Other people or characters just aren't interesting. Instead of feeling some sort of connection I'm busy trying to bypass the boring smalltalk before I have to follow them around on yet another boring task. There's a LOT of this throughout this game, so please take heed. Normally games like this enthrall you with these details, but even the superb voice acting in Fable 3 couldn't save it from some terribly boring and shallow lines.
- Enemy AI and bosses are the most unchallenging I've come across in years. I'm not expecting a Demon Souls difficulty by all means, but I can play this game with ONE hand. Why bother with sword fighting and spells when I can just shoot them with guns the entire time and roll to dodge their attacks (assuming they get close which is hardly ever)? There's also not really a whole lot of action throughout the game compared to the other two. You'll spend more time watching cutscenes and/or scripted moments more than anything.
- Lack of spell choices. I'm not a magic person in any games I play, but the choice of magic abilities is flat out terrible. You get a handful you're expected to use the entire game. How is that fun? That's great that you can mix them together but how about a little variety first?
- Lack of weapon choices. The ones you can buy aren't very good, and the ones you can find are nearly nonexistant and they aren't much better. Even with the "upgrades" they still aren't that appealing.
- Various technical glitches, performance issues, and constant over-used motion blur make this game flat out painful to play at times. Literally, I get a migrain if I play it too long and that's never happened with any other game, including the ones that implement motion blur to a much higher detail. Graphically speaking the game isn't very impressive. I was willing to ignore that for gameplay sake, but obviously that didn't fare too well either.
- Social interaction and choices are dumbed down to the MAX. Basically you hit one button and they're guaranteed to like you or dislike you (depending on which button hit). The game picks different actions for you and so I get to hug and kiss the Blacksmith if I want to be friends. Don't worry, sexual preference doesn't make a difference or anything and I didn't need to shake his hand. I'll just shake hands with the woman I want to marry instead, because that makes a whole lot of sense.
- No leveling or skill trees. It didn't particularly bother me, but the way the game is set up it creates this feeling of "whatever I use really doesn't matter" and that just isn't fun any way you look at it.
- This game does not take long to reach the end, and you're not going to like it when you get there... just like the other two games.
All in all, I didn't expect a perfect game, but I did expect the third time to be a charm. Unfortunately, I was terribly wrong. That couldn't be further from the truth. The only reason this game earns it's mere 5.5/10 is because of the musical score and voice acters did a great job. Aside from that, everything else just didn't even come close to hitting the mark. I've bought all three Fable titles, and this will be the last one I end up buying from them because the quality has just managed to hit the floor and Lionhead apparently hasn't bothered fixing many of their mistakes without making some nasty new ones.