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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."
I remeber hearing somewhere that multiplayer was cut from the game. Did they ever get around to putting it in?
FF7
GTA3
Fable
System sellers midway through the console life. Can't wait for this one.
Peter Molyneux may have designed some pretty good games, but he's an expert at playing the media. I remember the exact same absurdist hype for the piece-of-shit "Black or White."
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
What about teaching it powers? I was thrilled when I tought my monkey how to cast fireball, and how to make it rain so he could put himself out after he lit his fir up.
It was an amazing game that forced you to actually think and teach your animal, instead of just sending off into battle with no training.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
Great job with the preview - it was well written and enjoyable to read. While the recent crop of RPGs are nothing short of phenomenal, when it comes to saving one's game, I feel they've actually taken a step back from the old school RPGs. Why is it, with the Xbox's hard drive, that both my wife and I are unable to each have our own character? Back in the day, my brother, sister and I were able to each save our own Zelda game - yet we can't do this with today's games. I want my wife and I to think of Fable as our game, not my game or her game. Please bring back the multiple save slots.
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.
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.
The Movies was on show at E3 and will be out pretty soon as far as I'm aware. It's ridiculously detailed (just like Fable). Looks really good.
"Remember when Dungeon Seige was supposed to have a Dungeon Master creating a dungeon for adventurers in a multiplayer enivronment? And then it turned out to be Sim Dungeon."
I think you mean Dungeon Keeper. Dungeon Siege was a Chris Taylor game.
Information doesn't want to be anthropomorphized anymore.
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.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
As a member of the (admittedly small) "gaymer" demographic, I feel like I should respond.
The real issue, I feel, is that the RPG genre is all about freedom to do what you want. It's one of Fable's biggest selling points ("Want to be evil, sure! Want to be good, no problem!"). But things like "sorry, no gay relationships" put up what are (IMHO) patently artifical restrictions. For me it can be incredibly frustrating to want to play a certain type of character and have the game prevent me from doing so. If you're going to make romance part of the gameplay, I should have the freedom to direct that romance in any direction I choose. Games like "The Sims" have shown that gender-neutral relationships can be done (and done well) in games.
And this may sound sick, but I wouldn't mind if you could kill children in the game, as long as consequences existed for your actions. A previous game by the same author ("Black and White") involved child sacrifice, and I don't remember people being up in arms over it.
If the game's tagline is "For Every Choice, A Consequence," then I should be able to make the choices I want, no?
Just an AC's $.02
Wow, I take it back....Gay Marriage will indeed be allowed. http://xbox.ign.com/articles/537/537930p10.html Confirmation that Gay marriage and Gay NPCs will exist in Fable. I had read a developer commentary to the contrary some months ago, they must have changed!