Fable III (Xbox 360)

Fable III is a very fun game, that is definitely worth it.
This is my first review so just keep that in mind :) and I first posted this review on the website Trueachievements.com.

Graphics: The graphics in Fable III are gorgeous, and an improvement from past games in the series. The people's actions and reactions feel more fluid, and "real" meaning that they act like people are meant to act. The scenery at some parts is actually quite beautiful, and is meant to be looked at. The only problem is that there are still a few graphical glitches, which in an open-world game is probably the most difficult thing to fix. But that's the graphics from my perspective. I'm sure that there are people who do not believe that the graphics are fantastic, but this is my review, so I'll say it from my perspective.

Experience and leveling-up: Fable III has completely redone the experience system from Fable II. Now, this game has The Road To Rule, which is basically a long path with wrought-iron gates that become opened on your way to kingdom/ queendom. By doing quests, performing expressions, killing enemies, and making friends, you receive "guild seals", which is the currency for the XP system. I found that this XP system was much better than Fable II's because it allowed players to focus on their favourite combat style and still max themselves out.

Weapons: Now, weapons (which consist of swords, hammers, rifles and pistols), have damage counters that scale to your level. Gone are the generic "iron" and "steel" weapons, as all weapons in Fable III are legendary. Each weapon has specific challenges that, when completed, can add better bonuses to your weapons, such as fire damage, or the ability to earn guild seals faster in combat, for example. I myself like this weapon system much more than Fable II's, and although this is not new to the RPG genre, it still fits the game quite well.

Story: Once again, Lionhead Studios as made a wonderful and compelling storyline, that is good for more than one playthrough. You are the prince/princess, child of the last Hero who was, incidentally, your character from Fable II if you had one, and sibling to the tyrant king Logan. Logan is a king who rules through the use of fear, and punishment, and Albion is looking for a rebellion. Your duty: to spark that rebellion. But whether or not you do so in a good, or evil manner is entirely up to you. Will you become Albion's saviour? Or destroyer? You decide.

Expressions: The ability to interact with citizens once again returns in the consistent form of expressions. But gone is the expression wheel from Fable II. Instead, you now select "interact" with a person, and are given a few random choices to act upon. One will always be good (shown by the white sparkles), or evil (shown by flames), and sometimes there will be an ugly expression tossed in there as well. I found that although this worked well, the choices were much more limited than they were in Fable II.

Multiplayer: Fable III does not have a pvp style of multiplayer, or a large team based multiplayer. Instead it has co-operative online play that takes the same form it did in Fable II: a player can enter into another person's world, and play along side them. BUT: Fable III vastly improved on this system by making the "henchman" be able to take over his own character from his own game. In Fable II, the henchman was just a generic character, that had to choose from generic weapons, and got hardly anything out of it. So in that aspect it greatly improved. But of course the multiplayer could still be improved on, and made more unique.

Pause Menu: Normally, this wouldn't be worth stating in a review, but in this case, I think it does. Instead of the normal, freeze frame pause screen, Fable III introduces it in the form of the Sanctuary, which is basically your home away from home. Here, your character can free-roam through the different rooms, that have your clothes, weapons, achievement progress, etc. in them. This is very innovative, and never been done before, but is nowhere near perfect. The worst part is the map. It is lacking a waypoint system, which is in my mind a necessity for a free roam game, because it makes traveling much easier. And also, the map is usually very confusing to understand.

Combat: The basic controls from Fable II remain the same, with buttons assigned to melee, skill, and will. But in Fable III, it is much more fluid and easier to switch between different combat styles. Even petty little things like holstering your weapon looks better (your character does a badass twirll with his pistol before putting it who-knows-where. Flourishes, which is the charged weapon attack, remains the same as it did in Fable III.

Overall Fable III was a very good experience, especially for a die-hard Fable fan such as myself. Personally, I gave this game 5/5 stars.