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Denver, 5:38 AM
Sun Nov 15
21 posts in the last 24 hours
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09/29/09
And, I think this is a good idea.
09/29/09
Really think about it. It was garbage.
09/29/09
Seriously, using the AAA rating tier to evaluate a game is the weirdest thing I've ever heard, especially if you don't think the game belongs there.
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09/29/09
Playing through the game, beginning to end, was a unique experience. One that should be praised on its own merits right from there. But I can't escape the conclusion that it's all reward with no substance. It's like candy without meaning. There was hardly any challenge to any endeavor, and the majority of the "moral" choices created only aesthetic changes. Beating the game, I had not "died" once. The only times I was nearly knocked out were when I failed to spam "Raise Undead" quickly enough or just for a change of pace tried the half assed melee combat system. That lack of challenge follows through with just about every quest or venture in the entire game. Getting someone to marry you can be achieved just by farting enough times in public and seeing whose heart turns red. And if you're beloved by enough people, generally by being a decent fellow, you'll have a gaggle of onlookers and hangers on that you've NEVER talked to wondering why you haven't given them a ring.
This last bit seriously is a huge gripe. And I wish I could lock the door to my own house. Nothing in this game filled me with such dread as watching from the window of my modest home as a horde of lovestruck idiots came walking my way. Eventually, they'll stuff my house and my doorway with no way for me to push past them in a polite or simple manner. It's enough to make you want to MURDER every single person in town. (The fact that you can do this, hasn't escaped me and is to the game's merit that you have this kind of choice.) But never before has being a nice person been rewarded with such lunacy. It doesn't help that your spouse and your children have the brains of a goldfish. As long as you remember to feed em from time to time, they'll love you as the sun and the moon.
It's easy to sing the praises for its huge linear main quest, the sheer breadth of its many long side quests. But most of those things consist of getting from "a" to "b." They're still fetch quests, no matter the dressings layered over them. The great music, and the wonderful colors help lend it a true fairy tale feel. The demon doors are indeed fun characters, even if their rewards are rather useless by the time you get to open them. That said, the flaws seem too many and too numerous for me to call this game anything but a time sink. I've spent many hours in it, doing quests, getting my wife her favorite pie, hoarding gold as if it represented some sort of real value. And yet for some reason, I bet in all my time "not" playing it I've probably received more gold than I ever did in the hours going from "a" to "b" in Albion.
But then, I could just be giving it too much thought. And maybe I could just appreciate a fun game for what it is. But it's still just candy, all rewards with none of the work, and none of the satisfaction of a story well fought for, forged by the trials of a tough but fair experience.
09/29/09
09/29/09
Yeah I think I'll pass.
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09/29/09
Oh no, did it double post? Now I'm gonna get it lol
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09/29/09
Hey you! Some of the achievements were super hard, like getting the Hero dolls or even worse, getting the Colourist Achievement. In where you need to score exactly 1985. That was a pain. Easy my ass!
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09/29/09
I'll wait for the Franklin Mint commemorative plate edition of gaming.
09/29/09
Mah mufflah needs teh shine!!
09/29/09
No announced price point for the other 4 chunks of gameplay is kind of frightening though...
09/29/09
That, and for all of Molyneux's faults as a hype machine, he seems to be willing to try out all sorts of different things to see what sticks.
Besides, it is a good game, so it's not like they keep ramming crap down our throats.
09/29/09
Yeah, it is a decent game (wouldn't go as far as to call it 'good' - no Hero voice acting?! What is this, Zelda?) but like I said I would prefer to see other great first-party titles get this treatment over Fable. Gears or Gears 2 would work with their 5 Act story structure. Halo would too, but with more missions. Fable was just so overwhelmingly average to me that it continues to blow my mind that people actually found enjoyment with the title. Great for them who did, but I just don't see the attraction is all.
09/29/09
Granted, it was kind of an RPG-lite, but that might have been some of the attraction. It was kind of a low-skill hacker with just enough RPG stuff to keep you interested, but not an overwhelming amount.
I like deeper RPG experiences too, but at times I get fed up with the stat and inventory management sucking up so much time. Fable 2 streamlined that process so that you spent more time playing and less time in menus or at shops.
Far from perfect, but a solid game.
Probably a lot better too if you hadn't heard about it and knew nothing of the Molyneux hype machine.
09/29/09
"Probably a lot better too if you hadn't heard about it and knew nothing of the Molyneux hype machine."
Quoted for the truth!
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09/29/09
The end in Fable wrapped up the story and brought closure. It was purely an element of the plot, and it worked just fine for me in that regard. In fact, it is also amusing in how anticlimactic it was (although I'd argue that the climax was *getting* to that point, not the actual resolution).
From my standpoint, the final "boss" was the mission to reach the resolution. The baddies got harder, there more of them, etc...
Purely comes down to personal taste, though. I have disdain for final bosses that huge and ridiculous just for the sake of being harder with more hitpoints. I'd much rather be going against the forces of a more cerebral enemy, where the resolution is in getting to him/her, not any actual mono-y-mono showdown.
09/29/09
The big fight on the beach was not that exciting either. I totally agree with you that I would also prefer to go up against a more cerebral army. This has bugged me for the longest time in games. Whenever you crank up the difficulty, enemies just have more hitpoints and the player character has less, instead of like making the AI more intelligent with more advanced tactics for example.
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09/29/09
Nope, one-fifth of a free game. The other four-fifths the price gets jacked to compensate.
It's like Buy 2 Get 1 Free. All they do is raise the price of the first two to cover the loss on the third, but as a consumer most people see "Get 1 Free" and think they've struck gold!
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09/29/09
RTFA. It says all of the achievements so surely they're the same.
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09/29/09
Oh. Well I supremely doubt it. That seems dubious and kind of odd. How would they represent the digi-achievements opposed to the physical media achievements?
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09/29/09
Or is it 1000 total, and you can get as many that aren't related to the story as possible?