Aside from Halo , it's difficult to think of too many IPs that contributed as much to the early success of the Xbox brand than Fable . Two sequels and a number of remakes and spin-offs have followed in the years since the first Fable game released in 2004. Other than a free-to-play card game in 2017, however, fans haven't gotten a new Fable game in almost a decade now, although there is one in the wo

A game that is just as creepy as it was when it came out in 1999, System Shock 2 perfectly blends RPG elements with action gameplay into a survival horror sci-fi setting. If players don’t mind some rough graphics and glitches, System Shock 2 is a wild ride with an even wilder st

Fast forward many years and the man becomes absurdly wealthy thanks to an inheritance from a relative and, um, becoming a corn magnate. As in, he sells Corn Flakes, popcorn, and corn chips thanks to the corn he grows on the land he owns through his inheritance. I told you it was bizarre. He lives in a huge house, has a small army of live-in servants, is married to a supermodel, and has a daughter he loves very much. One day while walking the streets of Venice with his young daughter, he sees her smile and earnestly believes it to be the happiest he has ever been. That’s when the Stand stri

While Bug Fables' post-game content is not as robust as some other RPGs, it is supplemented by a large amount of side content that most players may have missed as they pursued the story. With all this in mind, there are still quite a lot of things to do in Bug Fables once the main story is compl

It is also the single best RPGs implementation of cause-and-effect relationships I have ever seen in a game. A lot of this has to do with the Pratchett-esque liveliness of the characters, but it can at least partially be attributed to how ambitious its long-term consequences are, too. You’re given a year to raise the arbitrary sum of 6.5 million gold, and you can do this by selling out allies, refusing to build hospitals, or working as a legitimate business owner in a cutthroat early capitalist industrial regime. No matter what you do, you’re going to be bitten in the arse somehow, which is always refreshingly real in the most tongue-in-cheek way possible.

Taking the body of his daughter, the Stand returns, plunging her young fingers into and through the skin of his neck before giving him a challenge that can, possibly, save his life. Flick a piece of popcorn high into the air, above the nearby streetlights, and then catch it in his mouth, three times in a row. Failure results in him losing his head. He fails, but that’s not really the point here: what fascinated me was the popc

Let’s also remember that Fable 3’s dog companion extends far beyond the contemporary "Can you pet the dog?" phenomenon that seems to have been adopted as a marketing tactic for new and upcoming games. In Fable 3 you can teach your dog tricks, and 30 seconds later it will rip an enemy’s throat out. This disparity is par for the course for Fable 3, which is a game that seems to have amassed every existing genre into its massively hodgepodge makeup. Fable 3 is The Sims. Fable 3 is Dishonored. Fable 3 is Grand Theft Auto. You can use your magical affinity to protect innocent people from hordes of vindictive monsters, or you can pump the rent prices in Aurora up so high that people can’t even afford to buy vegetables in the worst place on earth. You can marry someone, absorb their assets, and then file for immediate divorce. They won’t be happy about it, and the game’s morality system will have its due impact on you — but you can do it. It’s a life simulator, a fantasy RPG, a tycoon management game, a rom-com, and every single thing in between. Sometimes it’s too much — how do you even begin to reconcile all of that in a coherent way? But most of the time it’s actually genuinely smart. It’s just not Fable 2, and people — including 14-year-old me — hated that.

Instead of murdering people in the middle of Bowerstone and growing big devilish horns, you had to manage a kingdom and decide whether it was more important to build a school or a brothel. This structure is excellently designed, mind, and went on to define similar systems in other games like Dragon Age: Inquisition. But the magic of Fable’s chaotic mayhem was rechanneled into something a bit more serious, a bit more grounded. While I vastly preferred the old versions of Fable, this wasn’t a bad thing. Fable games are anything if not ambitious, and once a game tries something new that’s genuinely worthwhile… well, I don’t care all that much if it’s not up my street — even failed experiments can help steer progress. Now that a new Fable game is confirmed to be in the works , I’m immensely glad that Fable 3 exists, because for as much stink as people talk about it, it’s a smart, audacious, and important game.

Those people were left disappointed, however, with neither game getting even a mention during the 40 minute conference. It wasn't all bad news for Final Fantasy fans, though, as two new projects were announced, including HD remasters of the series' first six mainline games. Still, compared to Final Fantasy XVI and Final Fantasy VII Remake Part 2 , Stranger of Paradise and the Pixel Remaster collection were a little underwhelm