With still a few days till Fable III finally releases, and we actually get to know if it will be just another Fable or Fable II (disappointment) or actually a game that lives up to its hype, a lot of talks have been surrounding the game- we ourselves previewed the game right here. Anyway, the Achievements for Fable III have been leaked, thanks to the awesome “detectives” at Xbox360Achievements.org.

Baldielocks  Molyneux, who has great hair, by the way, seems to have this problem of revealing bits and bites of his story via the Achievements, so those who don’t want to get their Fable III experience spoiled, DON’T READ THE SPOILERS BELOW. Those who don’t care, since Fable games have never been about story anyway (though this one seems to have a good one from what we’ve heard of it), go ahead and read the Achievement List given below:

• The Guild Seal (10) – Unleashed your heroic potential
• And So it Begins (20) – Win the support of the Dwellers
• Swift Justice (20) – Win the support of the Swift Brigade
• The Resistance (50) – Win the support of Bowerstone
• Distant Friends (20) – Win the support of Aurora
• The Ruler of Albion (80) – Become the ruler of Albion
• For Albion! (80) – Spoiler locked
• Save the Princess! (10) – Discover 50 locations
• Ghost Brothers (10) – Make sure Sam and Max get home in time for tea
• The Dark Sanctum (10) – Reinstate an ancient, evil temple
• Island Paradise (10) – Establish the island of Driftwood
• Knight Jumps Chesty (10) – Defeat Chesty at his own game
• Coronation Chicken (10) – Perform a royal judgement while dressed as a chicken
• Spellweaver (5) – Combine two gauntlets to cast a “woven” spell
• Archmage (20) – Cast all 15 possible spell combinations
• Total Warrior (10) – Kill enemies with melee, ranged and spell attacks
• Pull! (10) – Send an enemy flying into the air and kill him while he’s airborne
• Gunning for Glory (20) – Kill 500 enemies using firearms
• If it Bleeds, We Can Kill It (20) – Kill 500 enemies using melee weapons
• Wizard’s Revenge (20) – Kill 500 enemies using magic
• Super Hero (50) – Fully upgrade your Melee, Ranged, and Magic abilities on the Road to Rule
• You Can’t Bring Me Down (50) – Complete Fable III without being knocked out in combat
• My Weapon’s Better Than Yours (25) – Complete 3 unique upgrades on one of the legendary weapons found around Albion
• I Am the Keymaster (30) – Collect all 50 Silver Keys and 4 Gold Keys
• Flower Power (30) – Collect all 30 Auroran flowers
• Gnome Invasion (30) – Destroy all 50 gnomes
• Brightwall Book Club (30) – Collect all 30 rare books for the Brightwall Academy
• Digger (15) – Dig up 50 items
• We Need Guns, Lots of Guns (20) – Collect all 50 legendary weapons.
• Fashion Victim (20) – Collect every item of clothing
• He’s a Woman. She’s a Man (5) – Wear a full set of clothing intended for the opposite sex.
• Dye Hippie, Dye (5) – Dye each part of an outfit you’re wearing a different color and have long hair
• Hand in Hand (5) – Hold hands with someone
• Long Distance Relationship (10) – Get married to another Xbox Live player
• Cross-Dimensional Conception (10) – Have a child with another Xbox Live player
• Render Unto Caesar (30) – Complete Render Unto Caesar
• Online Merger (10) – Enter into a business partnership with another Xbox Live player
• Barrel of Laughs (10) – Kill 30 enemies with explosive barrels
• We Can Be Heroes (10) – Earn 1000 gold in henchman wages in another hero’s world
• Kaboom! (10) – Score 2000 on the Mourningwood Fort mortar game
• Lute Hero Tour (10) – Play in each town as a 5 star lute player
• Touched by a Hero (10) – Use touch impressions to interact with 20 different people
• Popularity Contest (15) – Make 20 friends
• Remodeling (10) – Remodel 5 different houses by changing the furniture
• Magnate Personality (50) – Build a property empire worth 2,000,000 gold
• Crime Spree (10) – Get a 15,000 gold bounty placed on your head
• Henry VIII (10) – As a ruler of Albion, get married 6 times and kill 2 of your spouses
• Chest Grandmaster (40) – Unlocked all of the chests on the Road to Rule
• Tough Love (10) – Save the maximum amount of Albion citizens
• Adopt or Die (5) – Adopt a child

Wow, 80 points for becoming to ruler of Albio, and just 5 for adopting a child? How shallow of you, Lionhead!

The story of the Fable series is incredibly interesting- it is a tale of crushing disappointment, bitter resentment, and unfulfilled promise on the one hand, and a charm that appeals to everybody, a satisfaction with what one has, and a fairy tale allure on the other. Funnily enough, the adjectives used above could be used to describe not only the overarching plots of the Fable games, but also about their general perception amongst the gaming public.

From famed game designer Peter Molyneux, the Fable games have always been ambitious, striving for concepts that are almost always ahead of their times, and which almost always never make it into the final game, or, if they do, are heavily truncated and stripped down. The result is that he Fable games- which are extraordinarily good in every conceivable way- are always marked down, because the final product is never equivalent to the ambition that conceived it.

Twice now, gamers have burnt their fingers, thanks to Molyneux’s hype machine. Twice now, they’ve got less than they were promised, way less than what they bargained for. Will they fall for what appears to be the same routine the third time? Or is there an underlying grain if truth to it all this time around?

Will Fable III be the game it is being pumped up to be? In other words, will it be the game the first one should have been, nearly a decade ago now?

THIRD TIME LUCKY?

Even the most hardened cynic will accept that the Fable games have a certain charm to them. Also, beneath all that hype, you can find always the seed of those ideas that should elevate the games to the level of greatness, but that somehow almost always are buried unde what looks to be generally shoddy execution and an overall feeling that the game was rushed.

What can be the reason for this? Can we assume that Molyneux simply isn’t talented enough a game developer to realize his artistry? Or are we to understand that Microsoft always rushes the games to the market?

As I would believe, it is none of them. Have a look at the following:

Thanks Gamecam!

Does any of that look like the work of a developer who lacks talent, or who was rushed into his job?

It is my opinion, and I may be very wrong here, that the Fable games are always done in by their ambition- Molyneux has some great ideas, which are unfortunately limited by the constraints placed on him by the technology of the day. His ideas- including a Morality system which actually has some consequence, assigning a particular outcome to every interaction and deed you perform in the game, building up not only your character’s stats, but his life in general, with attention paid to his family life, infidelity, and even any diseases that he may contract, to his overall appearance, which is affected even by the kind of food you have, and the frequency with which you have it- all of these, if made good upon properly, should make the game in question the greatest ever created.

The problem however is, as has already been mentioned numerous times in this preview, that that never happens. Because of the fact that Molyneux’s ideas are almost always ahead of the curve, they are bound by the parameters of present day technology, and are therefore never quite implemented properly. This makes his games a shadow of what they potentially should have been.

With Fable III, however, things look different. Here, have a look:

Thanks IGN!

You see, all of the problems that have plagued the past Fable games- shallow combat, juvenile character development and interaction, lack of finesse and polish to the game’s graphics, morality systems that have no lasting effect on how your character truly turns out- they’ve all been addressed to some degree. Molyneux, it seems, has taken all the complaints to heart, and he seems determined to get it right the third time.

And he very well might. You see, after two games of laying the groundwork, we can expect Molyneux to have spent all his time on perfecting and refining what already exists. Indeed, Fable III feels fundamentally different from past titles in the series simply because of how much more polished it seems from the get go. After two games of striving for something that was then out of reach, for the third installment, Molyneux seems to be perfecting what he has, to make his game as polished as it can, so that it actually comes off as a high quality title for once.

IT’S STILL FABLE

Is that necessarily a good thing, or a bad thing? Or is it both?

Being a Fable game means that the game bears the baggage of the past two games in the series having ‘failed,’ and yet, it also means that it has to appease a huge, rabid fanbase of the series. There may be many out there who might be fearing that Molyneux might be trying to make his games like The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, or Dragon Age: Origins, two games that did get concepts like morality with consequences and branching character interactions correct. However, the problem with those wo games, great as they were, was that they lacked Fable’s fairy tale charm.

Well, never fear. Molyneux’s signature touch is still there, as noticeable as ever, in his latest:

Via Machinama

So what do we have here? We have a game that not only might just live up to its ambition for one, but we also have the humor and the charm that many would argue was the series’ only redeeming quality so far, and something that truly differentiates these games from the others on the market, who just appear to take themselves too seriously. If done right, Fable might even become Microsoft’s very own Legend of Zelda. And Fable III looks to be the first step towards that end direction.

THERE’S MORE TO IT THAN JUST THE SAME OLD

Thanks G4TV!

Fable III wouldn’t be much of a game, though, if all it did was get stuff right it should have gotten right the first time around- stuff that other games have already done pretty well already by now. No, there needs to be a catch, Fable III’s very own draw, you might say.

As Molyneux explains, most games end at the ‘happily ever after’ scenario. They never actually get into the details of what actually happened in that ‘ever after’ period. Fable III changes all that by allowing you to be king of the kingdom you sought to liberate, and by letting you rule it as you should see fit. An RTS element enters the fray here, as you must not only concentrate on military conquests, but also on your nation’s economy, infrastructure, and on the people’s general perception of you as a king, lest you face rebellion.

The point is, more likely than not, this particular element might be botched up in Fable III- maybe it’ll be too simplistic to actually simulate something as complex as being king of a kingdom, or maybe it’ll be too unbalanced. However, even if it is messed up, in conjunction with the other features o this game, which Lionhead appears to have got right this time, we’re sure the game will definitely be worth playing, even by the series’ detractors. Maybe this time, Molyneux might even get it right the first time. Who knows?

The story of Fable has always centered around loads of promises, which were never fulfilled. Will Fable III actually live up to the hype for once? We have just about a month before we find out. As always, you can expect to find a conclusive review on the game here on GamingBolt.

Molyneux says the original Fable III Kinect prototypes were not “what people expect Kinect to be in a game like Fable,” therefore, instead of being an in-built launch feature for his upcoming RPG, it became a post-launch feature.

Just look at his hair!!! Oh wait, he doesn't have any.

“We did some prototypes and we had those back in March, April, May, but then we were looking at those prototypes and I just asked myself — and I blame myself for not putting it in, to be honest with you — and I just said to myself, ‘Is this what people would expect Kinect to be in something like Fable?’ And the answer, quite frankly, was ‘no.'” Baldielocks Molyneux said all this to Joystiq right here.

“We’re still working on that stuff, we’re still adding stuff to it and, as I said, I think the future for Kinect and Fable is probably bright.”

Bald guy Molyneux has been in news a lot lately. And if he ever is again, we’ll let you know.

“Where there’s still a huge problem – a massive problem I have – not so much with Fable because Fable’s a proven franchise now, but with this other thing we’re working on, and anything new I come up with, it’s getting people to see what you’re trying to do, what you’re trying to invent or create, before it’s actually done,” Bald Molyneux said. “That is insanely hard to do.”

Wow, that's a lot of Molyneux's

“The best analogy is if I had invented the bicycle. Let’s say you’ve never seen a bicycle before, but you were funding me. I say, ‘I’ve taken all your money and I’ve invented this thing. You sit on this saddle and you balance on two wheels and you go 16 miles an hour, and it’s going to be the most universal mode of transport around the world’. You would look at me as if I was crazy.

“Even if you saw the bicycle, you’d still say, ‘No way am I going to go on one of those.’ It’s not until you sit and ride the bicycle that you realise this idea is going to work. So often with big ideas, whether they’re parts of a game, like in Fable III, or whether they’re entire games, it’s hard to get people to see the pictures in your head.”

Peter Molyneux is currently working on Fable III, which is due out this October on the Xbox 360 and the PC, and Preoject Milo, which has no official release date yet.

He told GameIndustry.biz this: “Fable, because it is part-simulation, part-role-playing game, part-action-adventure… it’s got more voice acting, a bigger cast, more musical scores, a bigger, freer world – more so than any other game in the whole of Microsoft Game Studios’ portfolio, full stop.

“It’s got more bugs, more active bugs, than any game that MS has ever had in its history – and the team of over 100 people are working insanely long hours, and they’re coming down. That’s the way it is.”

Fable III will be out for the Xbox 360 and PC by the end of October 2010. Watch out for it.

In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Molyneux chatted about the core 360 hardware and architecture, and how his team was coming up with more and more ingenious ways to harness the power under the Xbox 360’s hood.

When asked whether familiarity with the architecture had made production more efficient, Molyneux said: “You’d think that would be true, but the problem is that with great knowledge comes great opportunity – and there’s your problem.

“If you know the GPU so intimately well, you’re not going to say: ‘Oh, that’s not any problem any more.’ You’re going to push it harder, and that’s what we do.”
When asked whether familiarity with the architecture had made production more efficient, Molyneux said: “You’d think that would be true, but the problem is that with great knowledge comes great opportunity – and there’s your problem.

“If you know the GPU so intimately well, you’re not going to say: ‘Oh, that’s not any problem any more.’ You’re going to push it harder, and that’s what we do.”

When asked whether familiarity with the architecture had made production more efficient, Molyneux said: “You’d think that would be true, but the problem is that with great knowledge comes great opportunity – and there’s your problem.

“If you know the GPU so intimately well, you’re not going to say: ‘Oh, that’s not any problem any more.’ You’re going to push it harder, and that’s what we do.”

“There’s always this curious thing that happens with consoles – you tend to find that the most spectacular looking games and tech comes after the end of the generation,” he added. “We’re still yet to discover where the 360 can go in graphical resolution. We’re still inventing stuff.”

Molyneux commented on how Lionhead Studios was still trying to test just how far the 360’s graphical fidelity could go.

Molyneux heads Lionhead Studios, which will be releasing Fable III, the third instalment in the acclaimed RPG series, later this year on the Xbox 360 and the PC.

So says head of the Xbox department at Microsoft, Aaron Greenberg. “Last year we unveiled the Project Natal technology, we showed a bunch of technology demos as part of that,” Greenberg told TV show Good Game. “And obviously [Milo] is a technology demo that continues to exist, but right now it’s not a game that we’re planning to bring to market.”

That kind of pisses me off because as recently as last month, Lionhead kingpin Peter Molyneux was maintaining that it was a full blown retail game still under development.

What adds to the confusion is the fact that apparently, Molyneux is all set to demonstrate a newer version of the ‘game’ at a TEDGlobal seminar next month, which he has claimed will be ten times better than the E3 2009 tech demo was.

Well, that sucks. Not that I care two hoots about Kinect and anything to do with it anymore anyway.

Molyneux said, “I think we realised is that when you come to something like Fable, you want to surprise people absolutely and that’s the one word; we want you to feel powerful.”

He also stated that the next game in the Fable franchise will feature less Natal support than was previously thought;

“What I can say categorically is you play Fable with a controller, it’s not a Natal-based game in any way. But I’m not saying that Natal doesn’t feature in Fable.”

It was also stated that the game, releasing in time for Holiday, will not have a HUD.