Yes, hold hands.

A quick look at the controller layout and I noticed there was a button for ‘hold hands’ – I had to look through the manual to see what use this would have. For the most part it was for sex, though it would have other uses later in the game. Sex according to the manual sounded rather easy, you just hold someone’s hand, take them to your bed and press the green button.

In the interests of a good review and my sheer disbelief that sex would be so easy, I decided to give it a go. I hooked up with a nice girl from the village and took her to my recently purchased home, showed her the bed and hit the green button.

‘What kind of girl do you think I am,’ she muttered, ‘you aint getting non of that till we’re married.’

A certain amount of relief rolled over me. But a challenge was born.

What makes Fable III a little different however is not the holding of hands, but rather the thin layer of politics that drive the story-line along. To be able to overthrow the King you must have enough followers to start a revolution. Once you’ve done enough missions for a particular group of people you be transported to the “road to rule” where you will get to progress through a gate an unlock a number of character upgrades – the number available to you will depend on what additional tasks you’ve done – these can be as simple as greeting people and giving money to the poor. If you want to have sex, you’ll need to unlock the romance upgrade. There are however many much more useful upgrades available.

The whole affair seems a little more streamlined, a little easier to jump into and enjoy. This may disappoint some hardcore fans but for a casual gamer like myself, it’s brilliant.

The road to rule is only part of the game however, and once you overthrow the king, things get a more little interesting. I’m not going to spoil it for you, but suffice to say, you’ll have to make some of the toughest decisions a video game has ever asked you to make. How these decisions effect the rest of the game I’m not sure yet as I’m not 100% through the game yet – I’m just hoping that my decisions so far have been wise!

As I mentioned before, the game-play is easy to jump into, but the game is still a challenge. Fighting is fairly basic, with a number of options available to you, but it’s all in how you use offense and defensive moves that will decide how any encounter will end up. Rush into a group of bandits doing nothing but frantic button mashing with your sword and you’re likely end up dead.

Graphically the game is brilliant with some stunning vistas to marvel at and a whole range of scenery from snowy mountains to city sewers. There are a few instances of late pop-ups with the scenery and a little frame-rate tripping if you try and run through a crowded area, but for the most part the game plays smoothly. Collision detection, as with any open world game can be an issue form time to time, but this is just par for the course. The one minor irritant with Fable III is the glittering star trail that you follow to get to you next side quest. It works well for the most part, but every now and then it falls over and dies, leaving you unsure of where to go and sometimes leading you in the wrong direction, at least temporarily until it seemingly resets itself.

There’s lots to see, do and explore, with plenty of hidden items to find. Listen to your dog – who is with you always – as his has a knack fro finding treasure, buried or lying around in chests – that you might just walk by.

Now a word of warning. Do make the mistakes that I did, trying to figure out just how far you can push certain limits. I ended up getting married and having sex. This resulted in an instant baby and regular payments for ‘up keep.’ But was I happy in this monogamous relationship? No, I wanted to see how far I could go and in no time had three wives and three kids. Not only was a big chunk of my rental income going towards keeping them happy, but trying to keep all three of them happy whilst at the same time going on quests to further the story-line was impossible.

In hindsight it was probably foolish of me to marry three girls from the same village and put them up in neighboring houses. The end result was my second wife becoming unhappy and divorcing me and my first wife getting killed by a gang of bandits as I took her on a much needed date. I had foolishly assumed she would be safe and all I had to do was kill the bandits one at a time. That left me with only my third wife, a lady whom I only married to fulfill a side quest.

All in all, Fable III is one of those rare games that I would gladly play all over again after completion, learning from my mistakes and taking my time exploring rather than rushing to be king.

Related

I never really got into the original Fable and didn’t bother with part two. But with a story-line that sees you at the beginning of the industrial revolution, attempting to overthrow the ruling King and take his place, now that sounded like a bit of me.

For one, there would be guns – the absence of guns has kept me away from the RPG genre for the most part, Fallout 3 being the first game I ever really enjoyed in the genre – and secondly the setting was at a time of change, with the industrial revolution promising that this could be a little different.

Ironically, even though I had a gun, my main source of offense was to be magic, the one thing that really put me off Fable in the first place.

The game is pretty much the same as the first Fable in that to progress along the story-line you have to go on quests, fight people, animals and mysterious beings. At the same time however, you get to explore this massive open world environment, meet people, earn money, spend money, invest in real estate and hold hands. 

Yes, hold hands.

A quick look at the controller layout and I noticed there was a button for ‘hold hands’ – I had to look through the manual to see what use this would have. For the most part it was for sex, though it would have other uses later in the game. Sex according to the manual sounded rather easy, you just hold someone’s hand, take them to your bed and press the green button.

In the interests of a good review and my sheer disbelief that sex would be so easy, I decided to give it a go. I hooked up with a nice girl from the village and took her to my recently purchased home, showed her the bed and hit the green button.

‘What kind of girl do you think I am,’ she muttered, ‘you aint getting non of that till we’re married.’

A certain amount of relief rolled over me. But a challenge was born.

What makes Fable III a little different however is not the holding of hands, but rather the thin layer of politics that drive the story-line along. To be able to overthrow the King you must have enough followers to start a revolution. Once you’ve done enough missions for a particular group of people you be transported to the “road to rule” where you will get to progress through a gate an unlock a number of character upgrades – the number available to you will depend on what additional tasks you’ve done – these can be as simple as greeting people and giving money to the poor. If you want to have sex, you’ll need to unlock the romance upgrade. There are however many much more useful upgrades available.

The whole affair seems a little more streamlined, a little easier to jump into and enjoy. This may disappoint some hardcore fans but for a casual gamer like myself, it’s brilliant.

The road to rule is only part of the game however, and once you overthrow the king, things get a more little interesting. I’m not going to spoil it for you, but suffice to say, you’ll have to make some of the toughest decisions a video game has ever asked you to make. How these decisions effect the rest of the game I’m not sure yet as I’m not 100% through the game yet – I’m just hoping that my decisions so far have been wise!

As I mentioned before, the game-play is easy to jump into, but the game is still a challenge. Fighting is fairly basic, with a number of options available to you, but it’s all in how you use offense and defensive moves that will decide how any encounter will end up. Rush into a group of bandits doing nothing but frantic button mashing with your sword and you’re likely end up dead.

Graphically the game is brilliant with some stunning vistas to marvel at and a whole range of scenery from snowy mountains to city sewers. There are a few instances of late pop-ups with the scenery and a little frame-rate tripping if you try and run through a crowded area, but for the most part the game plays smoothly. Collision detection, as with any open world game can be an issue form time to time, but this is just par for the course. The one minor irritant with Fable III is the glittering star trail that you follow to get to you next side quest. It works well for the most part, but every now and then it falls over and dies, leaving you unsure of where to go and sometimes leading you in the wrong direction, at least temporarily until it seemingly resets itself.

There’s lots to see, do and explore, with plenty of hidden items to find. Listen to your dog – who is with you always – as his has a knack fro finding treasure, buried or lying around in chests – that you might just walk by.

Now a word of warning. Do make the mistakes that I did, trying to figure out just how far you can push certain limits. I ended up getting married and having sex. This resulted in an instant baby and regular payments for ‘up keep.’ But was I happy in this monogamous relationship? No, I wanted to see how far I could go and in no time had three wives and three kids. Not only was a big chunk of my rental income going towards keeping them happy, but trying to keep all three of them happy whilst at the same time going on quests to further the story-line was impossible.

In hindsight it was probably foolish of me to marry three girls from the same village and put them up in neighboring houses. The end result was my second wife becoming unhappy and divorcing me and my first wife getting killed by a gang of bandits as I took her on a much needed date. I had foolishly assumed she would be safe and all I had to do was kill the bandits one at a time. That left me with only my third wife, a lady whom I only married to fulfill a side quest.

All in all, Fable III is one of those rare games that I would gladly play all over again after completion, learning from my mistakes and taking my time exploring rather than rushing to be king.