Molyneux's Fabled Fable Finally Close To Release

Rainier Wolfecastle writes "A couple weeks ago, we had the opportunity to visit Peter Molyneux and Simon and Dene Carter in Guildford, UK, for some hands-on time with Fable, their highly anticipated, finally ready for release Xbox action-RPG." Kikizo admits "Fable has been a long time coming, and for better or worse the media has elevated expectations considerably", but likes what it sees, calling the September 14th-due title "huge, gorgeous and a joy to play." Eurogamer also weighs in with impressions, expressing some reservations despite "feeling relatively upbeat" about the title, explaining: "As much as we enjoyed our time with it, it's the sort of game - typical of Peter Molyneux really - that we can't really assess piecemeal."

Comments

Re:Publicity god

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

If I remember correctly, and I think I do because I own Black & White... Black and White was an amazing game that added a whole new way to play games. When it came out it was nothing short of amazing. Black & White 2 is coming out soon, and looks to be even more amazing than the first.

If you didn't like it because you couldn't figure it out, that's one thing. But the critics loved B&W.

Morrowind

[Flyboy Connor]

When I read the reviews, I cannot help thinking Fable will be a LOT like Morrowind. Perhaps with a few extras, like the ability to marry and changing appearances, but also with a lot missing, like Morrowind's ability to create your own spells and a toolset to add to the game.

Of course, Morrowind is already 2 years old, so we might expect some advancements. But on the whole, I get the feeling that Fable will be not as revolutionary as it is hyped up to be.

Peter Molyneux's reputation

[RogueyWon]

I read a lot of "Peter Molyneux sucks/doesn't deliver/is nothing but a shameless self-publicist comments in this thread. I have to say that I disagree entirely.

It is, I feel, beyond all doubt that Black & White was not a very good game. Indeed, it was a pretty damned awful game, with tedious mechanics, some serious flaws in the camera system and an underlying concept which turns out not to have been as much fun as it should have been. However, it *was* a serious attempt to be innovative and to do something different. How often do we get heartfelt pleas in the comments threads on slashdot for games designers to be more innovative? How often do we get rabid fanboys shouting "I only play Nintendo/Sony/Nintendo/X-Box/Nintendo/iD/Nintendo games because they're the only people who innovate"?

This is why so many designers are reluctant to innovate. Innovation is an easy thing to get wrong. The over-riding impression I got while playing Black & White was that it had come very, very close to being an excellent game, but had somehow gone awry just inches short of the goal and detoured into the land of awfulness. I don't blame Molyneux for this; as I say, innovation is hard to get right.

I hate it when people pre-judge a game before it appears and I'm a long way from being a Molyneux fanboy, but you have to admit that other than Black & White, the guy has one hell of track record. Look at Populous, Magic Carpet and Dungeon Master; all games which did things that nobody had done before and none of which were surefire commercial hits. Molyneux may have made mistakes, but nobody could reasonably accuse him of being a Derek Smart figure, built entirely on bullshit and never having delivered a decent product. You can't even accuse him of being a John Romero figure, with most of the notable successes being based on collaborations where many now feel the real talent was in the other partners. I say give the guy an break and go into fable with an open mind.

Re:Peter Molyneux's reputation

[imr]

i play video games since taito's space invaders and my opinion of peter molyneux comes from having played all his games since the first populous and having followed his carreer.
That said you can't accuse him of being anyone else tham himself so your point about him not being Romero is weak (and btw you don't do Romero justice either, as well as pretty much everyone on the internet).
The bad opinion about him comes from experience and it is a fact you have to accept. Peter Molyneux delivers incredibly good speeches, where he displays incredibly attractive videos of ingame footage, which are followed by a game which is in noways close to the speech or the video. It's all about hype.
And his game interfaces suck most of the time, because they try to much to be innovative instead of being efficient. (sometimes it is the same for the gameplay like in b&w, but some other times, his gameplay is quite nice and novator, like in populous).

Now that I said all that, I can make a parallel between carmack and romero. If they are being attacked as they are, it's because they impersonnate a very popular trend among video games:
compagnies that delivers hype, burn a lot of cash and fail to deliver the basics of what makes a game PLAYABLE.
Most of the time, there is nobody to blame but a faceless entity. "EA games suck. Atari licenses based games are really shitty! ... etc etc". With those 2, it is possible suddenly to have a "real person" to blame. That makes us, the crowd of disappointed gamers, rush for the killing. Sorry, we're only human.

The real problem with living on hype is that once you have built a negative hype on yourself you just CAN'T ask people to "try your game with an open mind".

Re:A system seller for me...

[gl4ss]

yeah well.. good that you know beforehand that it is a 'system seller', because games never disappoint..

Critics don't know shit

[SmallFurryCreature]

All the reviews where glowing and then a few months late one by one the mags and websites had to admit they had forgotten to review the game as a game. Sure the critter was nice but you had very little control over it. Often you were punishing it or rewarding it for the wrong action as the interface blew chunks.

The micro management of the villages was another gigantic screw up forcing you not to be a god but an accountant.

The worst mistake was that I tried to be a nice player. Then a I planted a house wrong. It was on a slope with the door underground. So when I destroyed it it turned out I had just torched half the village as a hord of people that had been stuck inside streamed out.

The mouse gestures was a nice idea but while it works in opera it sucked in the game. Apparently nobody told the devs how your mouse works. Namely that it only records certain points and even less if the computer is busy. Meaning a circle drawn to fast becomes a square.

But peter has admitted the mistakes, he himself says that version 1 was not good. Now he wants us to shell out for number 2 again. Kinda like with the dungeon master game?

No peter has some nice ideas but he needs to get some people in his team who actually play the games and have the power to tell him that it sucks.

A good game has you battling the AI and the odds. Not the interface. If I wanted that kinda challenge I would just break my spine and control the game with my tongue and blinking. What next, a racing game where you can only steer left? Oh wait I forgot, nascar.