Fable III PC Review
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User interface, or lack thereof These sorts of completely avoidable and stupefying design decisions define Fable III as much as its good qualities do, and these extend to the user interface just as much as they do the game's main story hook. Like much of Fable III, Lionhead has gone with the mantra of (simple is better) and largely attempted to eliminate menus, maps and other interface elements in order to involve the player better in the game world. This attempt has resulted in the Sanctuary, a sort of pocket dimension which serves as the player's home base and pause menu, where rather than selecting options from a list, the player runs from place to place, interacting with "physical" objects. Instead of an inventory, there's shelves, racks and display stands for your clothing and weaponry, which at first comes across as a neat way of visualising the player's equipment. The problem with this, though, is that there are so many items available and so little space in the Sanctuary that there is no way it would be functional or intuitive to hunt through fifty different clothes racks to find the one outfit you like. The solution? Yep, menus. Lionhead, in their quest to eliminate the interface, ended up having to resort to menus in the end anyway, but because of the way the Sanctuary is broken up into several rooms, it's actually far less efficient than even the poorly-designed list inventory in previous games, especially given that the need to visually display everything can result in more time wasted as objects must load in, and only a few can be shown at once before the player must turn to the next "page" of items anyway. What starts out as a reasonably interesting feature quickly reveals itself as poorly-thought-out, and ends up being a chore to use rather than a convenience. Interfaces have always been a necessary meta-element in games, and players accept that. The Sanctuary, in concept, isn't an awful idea, and would have been great as an optional feature, but as the only way to exchange gear, spells, clothes and so forth, you'll ironically find yourself using and swapping out far fewer of them because doing so is just so clunky and time-consuming.
Fable II turned some heads back during its release when it eliminated the mini-map in favour of breadcrumbs, basically a GPS system made for a fantasy game, which displayed a glowing trail guiding the player to his or her next quest objective. This system returns in Fable III, but the lack of quality world or level maps makes it even less bearable than in Fable II yes, there are maps available, but in a counter-intuitive move, they are highly abstract and don't even accurately represent the locations they are meant to depict, thus, there's no real reason they should exist in the game in the first place. The breadcrumbs are marginally effective in bringing you to the right place, and fast travel helps mitigate some of the problems, but these have their own issues to boot. First, the breadcrumbs are white, rather than yellow or some other colour, which means in certain situations you will actually struggle to see where they're leading you (mostly a problem in snowy areas of the game). Second, they can only point to one objective at once, and thus can't be used as a general wayfinder because they only point you in a direction, rather than give you an overview of an area like a map does. Third, half of the time, these map replacements don't even work. There were numerous, far-too-frequent occasions where the game would fast-travel me to the wrong location for a quest, only to point me across an entire region of the map to get to the correct place, which I could have fast-traveled to anyway. Sometimes the breadcrumbs couldn't even keep up with how fast I was moving, or led me in the wrong directions, or even circles in one instance. While I appreciate the feature, and it has its place as a component in the game, it's just that a component, not a replacement for a proper world map or mini-maps. Much like the Sanctuary, the lack of functional maps seems like a small thing, but it eats away at you and compounds with other problems over the course of the game to the point where sometimes getting from point A to point B can be a hassle even if you've visited those locations in the game world a dozen or more times over. Combine that with certain interior areas which feature multiple levels, multiple entrances and exits, and levels with a severe lack of visual landmarks, which all make mini-maps a near-necessity for proper navigation, and you have a recipe for a game where the player is dependent on half-functional systems that should only be there as ancillary convenience features, rather than replacements to tried-and-true methods.
There are a number of other minor problems plaguing the interface. Just about everything has been made context-sensitive, which means it's impossible to check how many health potions you might have until you're actually in combat and need to use one, or to check your finances without either teleporting to the Sanctuary and running into the treasury, or trying to buy something. There are certain items, such as trade goods designed to be bought and sold for a profit, and gifts and toys for your family members, which simply aren't visible in any way unless you try to actually use them. The game will also give you handy icon pop-ups related to your family, quest status, and so on, but these aren't always accessible easily and only seem to appear when the game decides you need to know, not when you actually want to know. While these little issues are less a problem over the course of the game, they're just slightly annoying enough to grate on one's nerves from time to time, and once again shouldn't have passed playtesting, or, frankly, even the first draft of the design document.
On the other hand...
I realise I have spent quite a bit of time ranting about Fable III, and many of its shortcomings. It is frustrating, whimsical and unsure of what it wants to be, and at times absolutely bone-headed in some of its decisions, and I believe it deserves to be called out on many of these things, because they are problems which have embodied the Fable series, and to a lesser extent all Lionhead games, for many years now. I also want to stress that Fable III is not, contrary to my ranting, a bad game. If you are able to look past these problems with Fable III, you will find a highly enjoyable and lengthy game with witty and occasionally hilarious dialogue, a stable of celebrity voice-actors who inject a good deal of personality (including John Cleese and Stephen Fry), lush and even beautiful visuals, intuitive controls (interface excluded), some excellent music (the desert theme stands out for very good reason), and more than enough content to keep most players satisfied for the 40-50 hours it should take to find all the game's secrets and complete all its quests.
Fable III's world is also quite large, and varied, and does not suffer the same problem previous Fables did with their (objects in mirror may be bigger than they appear) levels, nor does it feel bloated or inflated beyond what is necessary, and there is very little obvious filler to be found (at least if you accept the social sim side, mini-games and so forth as legitimate game elements). There's even a few quests and new areas that open up after the main story is finished, meaning players who want to see everything will have something to look forward to after the credits roll, with the world bearing the scars of the final decisions made on the throne. And, if you have a friend with the game, Fable III almost begs to be played co-op, as there are even certain game features which aren't accessible without a friend. As much as I was upset at all of the problems in Fable III, and as much as they ultimately harmed the game for me, it is still impossible to deny that Fable is fun to play. The problem is that all these problems are in spite of the issues I have detailed above, which largely stem from Lionhead's ill-fated attempts to reinvent the wheel. They say the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, and I think that statement applies quite well to Fable III.
