Former Lionhead staff walk us through the highs and lows of Fable 3's development - the threequel made in just 18 months.
  • hesusingthespiritbomb@lemmy.worldEnglish
    15·
    10 months ago

    It’s interesting. If I were a teenager today I would read this and think Microsoft ruined what would have been an amazing game by corporate greed.

    I was a teenager when Fable III came out though, so I know better.

    First game reviews from that era are completely whack. You had a ton of big name game blogs that were basically giving everything a 9/10 if it was from the right publisher. The smaller blogs weren’t really in the internet zeitgeist until Fable III, so you could compare their scores of Fable I and II for reference.

    That being said, there was a lot of discussion about how Fable II was a bit of a disappointment. People felt that the system was a lot shallower than promised, and the game itself felt extremely on rails at times. None of the endings really change the world, which wouldn’t be that insulting if two of them didn’t involve your dog dying. I think saying that Fable II was amazingly well received is kinda bs.

    I can say for sure that putting the blame on Microsoft for Fable III over promising and under delivering is absolute horeshit. The guy behind Fable, Molyneux, was famous for pulling that crap. This was an era where basically virtually every single game trailer could have been an FTC violation of anyone was paying attention, and Molyneux somehow stood out beyond anyone else for how full of shit he was. At one point he implied that he developed AGI and implemented it in a video game.

    While Boomers got a lot of things wrong, as I get older I sort of understand where they are coming from. This article paints a narrative so incorrect it’s almost fictional, and it’s being propagated because most people interacting are too young to remember but somehow extremely self assured.

  • Pratai@lemmy.caEnglish
    185·
    10 months ago

    The TLDR version?

    Microsoft fucked it up. As they do- with everting they touch. They’re the Disney of gaming.

    • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      51·
      10 months ago

      IDK, they’ve done a pretty good job with Age of Empires, and Minecraft is still incredibly popular, and perhaps more popular since Microsoft bought them (IIRC, crossplay was added when Bedrock was released). I’ve heard they’re pretty hands off with the studios the buy, so if games suck, blame the studio. Activision Blizzard was already going downhill from a respecting the player standpoint before Microsoft bought them, and 343 really was never as good as OG Bungie.

      If we’re comparing to Disney, that honor goes to EA. They’re the kings of dumbing games down and manipulating players into paying a ton for mediocre content.

    • HexBee@lemm.eeEnglish
      2·
      10 months ago

      I remember being so excited for fable 3 only to find it was not at all like 1 or 2.

  • Crewman@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    8·
    10 months ago

    I remember playing the first two and loving them. When the third came out, I heard it wasn’t even good, so I never played.

    • Daefsdeda@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      5·
      10 months ago

      Honestly, I like it a lot. Interesting characters and its fun to change a whole world as a king. It is indeed worse than II but I still enjoy it.

    • brsrklf@jlai.luEnglish
      4·
      10 months ago

      I didn’t go far into it. I remember it had a rather boring start.

      Also I was already a bit pissed at those few doors in Fable 2 that mostly only opened in co-op (except one or two) and had weird stuff hidden behind them that I wanted to see, and I got to one again in 3. It’s a minor thing but it may have played a part in the “fuck that game” sentiment.

      Seriously, talk about tacking on and forcing a multiplayer mode into a game that is absolutely not made for it.