The Fable series has come another step to being brilliant, only to trip on its shoe-laces.
You play as the son/daughter of the Hero from Fable 2, and since that hero's death, your brother, Logan, has taken the throne and become and evil tyrant. Unlike the other games, you start off as an adult and receive your training from an old soldier named Walter. After witnessing some terrible acts at the hand of your brother, Walter, Jasper (your servant) and yourself leave the castle in order to start an uprising against your brother and bring true leadership back to Albion.
Gameplay: This game somewhat moves away from tradition fable in that you are not seeking to destroy one bad guy, you are out to gather followers. To do this, you visit several towns across Albion and help them out in order to get them to follow you, along the way doing side quests to help those in need.
One large change to the series is the removal of experience points. To replace them, your character receives Guild Seals by completeing quests or interacting with locals. These guild seals can be used to open chests containing expressions, new levels of a profession, or additional bonuses to your melee/ranged/magic damage.
Magic and ranged combat seem to be the best to use given that you are more likely to come across large mobs of enemies, rather than the 3 or 4 you would come across in past Fable's.
Graphics: A great improvement on the 2nd Fable's graphics. The environment looks great and unique across the world, even your dog companion looks furry and cuddly.
Controls: The Fable series have kept one thing continuous, the controls.
A = interact
X = melee strike/block
Y = Ranged attack
B = magic
This means the controls are easy to get a grip on for new players, and feel familiar to returning ones.
The good: One of the major fallbacks for the Fable series is the length of the game, this game is well and truely longer than its predecessors.
The new morphing weapons system is interesting.
The ability to combine two spells also adds for new found diversity.
There is great humour to be found in sidequests and the other main characters.
The sancuary offers a good and interesting way to set out all your stuff, instead of just a menu.
The bad: While you may love your morphed weapon, chances are anything you pick up from a blacksmith will be better.
The lack of moral choices for a significant part of the game makes it a similar game for most of the experience, given you dont make friends by being evil.
The moral choices you do make do not permanently change your appearance, it only shows while performing a flourish.
In the end the moral choices do not change the experience or final result at all.
Occasional and random frame rate issues will slow the game to almost a stop.
Still no difficulty change for those finding the experience too easy/hard.
End game experience is repeditive, yet random.
Seemingly no intergration between Fable 2 and 3
Overall: Despite these setbacks to the game, it is still a wonderful game. It is nice to have one of the Fable's in the series have a significant length of main story with plenty of humour to be found all around. For the individual's who have played the past two games, you definately should try it, but be aware of its setbacks. For new players, the references made throughout the game may be difficult to pick up on, but if you've ever wanted to lead a revolution and become king/queen, should definately give this game a go.