Fable III

It's extremely interesting to see how Fable has changed over the years. The first Fable game released on the original X-Box was mainly an RPG. When Fable 2 was released, it went more towards an action adventure style game, and it has done the same with Fable 3. Before the release of Fable III, I was worried. I hadn't actually heard much about the game and i knew there was an embargo until the day of release. Luckily, i purchased the game at a midnight launch event and was not turned off by the reviews before i bought it. Although the game has been simplified greatly, it is still something worth experiencing.  
 
You start the game off as a prince (or princess), son (or daughter) of the Hero from Fable II. Your brother, Logan, is the king of Albion. There is a problem though: He's going mad with power and becoming a Tyrant. The game is all about overthrowing a tyrant, and becoming king. It's about starting a revolution. There's something magical about this because what you do really seems like you are making a difference in something. There's not many games that exist where you can start a Revolution and overthrow a king.  

One of the great elements of the game is choice. You have a clear choice of whether you want to do something good or bad. The game even starts off with this, within 30 minutes of starting you are faced with a very tough choice to make. For most choices, you simply hold down A or B and choose the good or evil choice, and depending on what you choose, there may be consequences. 
  

Another feature of the game that Peter Molyneux babbled on about was the "touch feature". When i first heard of this i assumed it meant something to do with Kinect. (It isn't, there is no Kinect support in Fable III). Basically, you can grab anyones hand and have them follow you. At first it seems cool, but it ends up being rather useless. You will probably only use it if you want to drag someone you marry to the bed and have sex with you. Speaking of which, you can have multiple wives, children, STD's, and even adopted children. In order to get a wive, they will have to fall in love. To do this, you have to do some nice gestures to the person (which has been simplified for the better from Fable II), do a fetch quest, and then a date. After that all you will need is a ring and propose marriage. You can choose what type of marriage you want and the prices will vary, and options will vary depending on the house you choose to live in with your wife. 
 
One of my personal favorite things about the game (other than choice) would be the start menu. Peter Molyneux, this is a stroke of genius, and i hope to see this in more games to come. You may not even consider it a start menu. When you press start, you go into a room where you can walk around and change your armor, weapons, save, anything you could normally do in a start menu. I hated in Fable II where i would have so many lists to go through. This works really well for clothing, as you have manequins lined up with your different outfits. 
 
In combat, you use the buttons X , B and Y. Each control either your melee, ranged, or magic skills. You can buy new weapons and use "Guild Seals" achieved from quests and combat to level up your magic. The guild seals take place of the experience bar. Anytime during the game you can access a special area called "Road to Rule" where there are treasure chests. You use guild seals to "purchase" the treasure chests which range from increasing your blacksmithing ability to increasing your melee damage, magic damage, or even new spells.  
 
Online play has been greatly improved. You can take your own hero and earn guild seals helping others in their game, or have someone join your game. You actually get to use separate cameras in Fable III as well, unlike in Fable II. You have the ability to marry and have kids with your friends over xbox live. You can also form business partnerships where you share your money. The online play will actually add replay value for me in Fable III. I can see myself helping friends out trying to get more guild seals and finish unlocking the highest level skills.
 
Fable III is not without flaws. They somehow managed to actually dumb the dog down. Most of the time my dog would simply bark saying there is treasure somewhere, only to be blocked by a wall and running in place. Sometimes he did work properly, but i found him rather useless. Also one time when i was playing with a friend in his game, we divorced then the game froze and we couldn't move, and all of my clothing, hair, and weapons were removed. I exited his game and joined my own to find i was still naked, and i had to re equip everything. Another time, i was in my friend's room full of gold and he added gold to the room and i got glitched under it and had to re join. 
 
After i beat the game, i had invested 19 hours total into it. If you just went straight though the main quest, it could probably be finished in around 8 hours. I loved the story and especially a lot of the choices i got to make near the end of the game. The game seemed just easy to jump in and play, which is something that most RPG / Action adventure style games were never able to accomplish. If your looking for a hardcore RPG, look elsewhere. If you're looking for a Action adventure RPG with the ability to make some awesome choices, then this game is definitely for you.