Fable 3 is a stupendous adventure for long-time fans and newcomers alike.
User Rating: 9 | Fable III X360
In Lionhead Studio's newest game, Fable 3, you once again take on the role of a hero who must save Albion. Continuity in the series has you playing as the son, or daughter, of the hero from Fable 2. Albion has changed tremendously since that hero took over as monarch, and fifty long and industrious years have passed. However, your older brother, Logan, has become the king since then. Logan is a demanding and vicious tyrant, which is the perfect reason to have a revolution! When the game starts, all seems well in your place among the royalty, but a startling and heartbreaking twist in the story launches the game into outer space. When the action from the beginning finally simmers, you suddenly realize that the game world has opened its doors and surrendered its purity, leaving you free to exploit its wonders with some added continuity for those who might recognize it. By now, players have realized that the action in Fable 3 remains to be simple yet complex, with its leveling up system being just as deep as it is shallow; neither the action or leveling system are disappointing, but remain tantalizing and refreshing. Albeit the game takes its time after the "intro", the game finally lets go of your hand. Eventually, it becomes clear that you may have been mindlessly playing the game because it sucked you in so cleverly, and you have gone without doing some much needed exploring. During the real meat of the game, players can do what feels like a billion times more than the past two "Fable" titles, and it doesn't take much time to notice that completely maxing out your character and buying "everything" in the most literal sense might take some time. This aspect is not a burden, but rathermore a welcome invitation to many hours of gameplay.
The length of the game is very much up to each player's liking, and most players will realize this when they are deep within the very meat of the game, because the story in Fable 3 takes a firmer grip on the gameplay than the previous games. The story is riveting, exciting, and every bit of magical as one might expect. The characters are wonderfully memorable and are full of "jammy" fellows to keep the belly-laughs and guffaws to a high maximum, not-to-mention one very sexy female ally by the name of Page. When the player finally hits the metaphorical atmosphere, the game fulfills its promise of letting you get the full taste of being the ruler. But being King is nothing quite so jolly as it seems so in "The Lion King"; in fact, it's very difficult. By the end of the game, players will see just how epic the tale of Fable 3 is, when they finally come to self-realization about how important decision making is. All in all, Fable 3 is masterful. The only problem is that it could stand to be a bit longer; other epic adventure titles like Mass Effect 2 beat the pants off of Lionhead's newest game, but Fable 3 is an epoch all on its own that surely takes the gold with its storytelling, heart, and its ever-changing portrait of a Hero.
