Jun 2011

FableA tale of dissapointment

Of course, it is not very surprising for a reader if the conclusion of the story is already in the title. But let us compare this to the movie Titanic. We all know the ship is going to sink, it's just a matter of how will we get there... (And incidentilly, it's just as superfluous to the story).

Fable has, at the moment, three installments and, because of my distinct lack of xbox-related devices in my house, I have only played one and three. So I cannot judge for part two, but I doubt it will be much different.

The Fable series is conceived by Peter Molyneux, a man who likes to promise us the world and then deliver a pizza...slice.

The premise, an Role-Playing-Game (RPG) where every choice alters the story and you. While this, at first glance, appears to be the case. If you go through the game, most important events have no real effect on the story.

Here be spoilers

So you strive to become king. Yay! You become king. Yay! You have to decide things for the kingdom... eh... yay?

So, there is a big bad... Yay! I mean, boo! But at least it means something to work to, something to fight. And you have to make some difficult decisions for either money or happiness. Money means more soldiers so less people die, and happiness means less 'boo-ing' in the streets.

But you don't notice much of it. Over a million people died, supposedly, in my game. But it had no effect, at all that I could see.

Similar for the final fight. So we have a big bad... And I'm being 'evil'. Well of course I could have been evil, taking all the money, but I don't feel like it would have made a difference. Anyway, I win, and... Apparently I'm just a normal hero. Kingdom lives, etc. My castle may have red carpet, but it makes no difference.

And this is wat seriously irks me.

Yes, they are trying to let you have freedom and stuff. But nothing I chose had any effect. The big bad was defeated, some people I don't know(and one I did) died and that's it. Roll credits.

And this is why I feel it's such a dissapointment. There could have been different endings based on how evil you were. Becoming the great evil, for example. Could have been fun?

This makes me wonder, is it technically possible to make a dynamic plot...

Anyway, rant over, time to get back to weird things.