WELCOME, MY FRIENDS, to an all new episode of the (not all that) popular, (not really) amazing and (the anti-thesis of) much anticipated ijffdreviews. Today we look at... wait, wasn't I going to do portal 2? Really? oh! Hrm? Yeah, I guess that would be unfair. My conscience has just informed me that it would be unfair to give portal 2 a review without doing coop, so I'll just have to do fable III instead. So, today we look at fable III. No real unmarked spoilers beyond what was revealed in the announcement. As the title might suggest, fable III is the sequel to fable II. In this game you play the son/daughter of the hero of fable II, who had become king/queen, and fathered/mothered two children before his/her death. The basic story of the game is this: your brother, the king, has become a repressive tyrant in recent years. He extorts the people, represses the roamer culture, hired a madman to run his industries and is mowing down the forests. When he murders your sweetheart/group of protesters (you get to choose ), you are finally sick of it and run away to start a rebellion. During the organization of the rebellion, you have to make a number of promises to the rebels you recruit. Can you keep your promises when you finally have the power of a king? Or will you have to become an even worse tyrant than your brother? Usually, I start out a review by telling it's strongest point. With this game however, I can't do that. This game doesn't really have a strong point. Everything in the game is just half-assed. Sure, the concepts are very cool, but the execution ranges from mediocre to horrid. Hell, even the save screen is executed poorly. That takes effort. For example; one of the main selling points of this game is supposed to be making choices with a significant impact. Within the first three minutes of playing, you already have to make choices about life and death. When you rise to the throne, your choices will actually impact the very face of the continent. Except that in a game where choice is supposed to be central, you are often forced into decisions. The greatest example of this is that you can't actually choose whether you make a promise or not, the game just says "press 1 to promise" and stops you from walking away. And when you finally reach the throne, you are often forced to choose between "dumb" and "evil", when you can think of several better options. The most obvious example of this is having to choose between turning a former orphanage into a *****house (evil option), earning the state 1.250.000 gold, and turning it back into an orphanage, costing the state 50.000 gold. The biggest purchasable building in the game costs 200.000 gold. As you have probably realized, by doing some math, you could actually do both things and still end up with a 1.000.000 gold, which is an absolutely massive amount game-wise (enough to purchase every item in every shop in the world). After being king for a while, you just feel like an idiot. Money is also handled poorly. Basically, you need large amounts of money once in the entire game, and the game is built around being able to earn that ridiculous amount of money. But every single item in the game is ridiculously cheap compared to this. I automatically earn 200.000 gold every 5 minutes. The most expensive legendary weapon in the game costs 20.000. I can actually earn several thousand gold for a few seconds of work by making frigging pies. Pies I tell you! Social communication is handled poorly as well. You basically have three options every time " random good interaction", "random interaction that people who like you like and people who hate you have", "random bad interaction". It really amounts to "press this button and I will like you. This is despite the game actually having all the emote and personality options to make for at least a decent social system. Let vulgar thrusts (already implemented in the game) be 80% chance of positive if you have a higher-than-normal attractiveness (already implemented in the game) and the person you are talking to is raunchy (already implemented in the game) and attracted to your gender (already implemented in the game) and be negative to everyone else. Let only children be impressed by burping. Let patty-cake and dancing only work positively on people who are attracted to your gender. Don't just give shaking hands and romantically dancing the same freaking effects. The inventory: Poorly handled. Instead of the usual inventory screen, you have an extradimensional fortress you can access at any time. But you can't see how much food, potions, trade items or furniture you are carrying, except when you are in a pawn shop. You can't switch between food types in your fortress either (you only have access to one food type during combat and this type automatically changes to whatever you purchase). Multiplayer: integrated way too smoothly to the degree where it is done poorly. Your extradimensional fortress has access to interdimensional portals that allow you to contact alternate versions of yourself accross the multiverse. I am not making that up. That is actually how they explain multiplayer. Also, there is a demon door(a portal to another world that opens if you do something specific, like fully upgrade one of your weapons, entertain one of your children or become really ugly) that you can actually only open by interacting with another player. Very jarring, very annoying. The pc port: poorly handled. nothing was changed except the number of women you need to sleep with for two weapons to upgrade. This game could have really used a hotkey for quest lists, or to directly access the weapon room from the game world, or to go directly to the road to rule instead of the sanctuary. Weapons: cool concept, poorly handled. The weapons you start with can pretty much help you through the entire game. I never had to actively look for a better weapon, which is a shame in a rpg. skills: poorly handled. You actually need to organize a rebellion and gain dozens of supporters to unlock something like "owning a house", "dying your clothes pink" or "making a frowny face". Pretty much every standard feature of the game needs to be unlocked over the course of the entire game, making two-thirds of the game feel like a tutorial. Map: poorly handled. Maps are very inaccurate and don't actually indicate where the hell you are, or where the hell a road leads. ending: Spoiler What the hell!? Where is the invasion? Do you mean I had to spend six and a half million gold to fight of a single dude, and I still have to kill that dude myself? Where the hell is the invasion? How the hell did that guy get to the market district anyway? What did I spend the six and a half million on? What the hell was that thing anyway? What is it's origin? Why does it want to kill me? Why didn't it destroy Aurora? . And then I had nothing interesting to do in the rest of the game. the dog: barking at hidden treasure: handy! Barking at treasure in plain sight: annoying. Using the same bark for both things: STOP BARKING, YOU STUPID MUTT! I will end on a positive note: The game is really freaking hilarious. I mean really really frigging hilarious. This can cause a bit of a mood whiplash, but man this game can be funny. Ending score: 5.75/10. I had some degree of fun playing this, due to the game's humour. In every aspect where the game tries to be serious however, it is pretty much a failure. If you can obtain it for a very low price, I advice you to play it once for the laughs, and then never look back. Up next: the review for portal 2 (if I can get co-op done), half-life: decay (if I can get someone to play) or otherwise a morrowind vs. oblivion thread as preparation for skyrim.
