Fable 3 Limited Collector's Edition unboxing

My blog has turned into a bit of a Fable III fan site over the last few weeks, with news of the game slowly being released, together with the launch of the Fable III Kingmaker smartphone app.  That trend continues with this post, as I received - a day before the European launch - the Limited Collector's Edition of the game in the post today (thanks shopto.net).

It's a lovely package, similar to the Alan Wake Limited Edition of a few months ago, in that the box is fashioned like a hardback book, with an outer slipcase.

Internet purchasers - it doesn't fit through a letterbox

It really is very 'bookie'

Inside the 'book' is the game box itself, sitting on a shelf that divides the inside in two.  Extra content is included in  a hidden drawer that is pulled out from underneath this shelf.

 et voila

The drawer reveals a pack of Fable III cards and a large, heavy, metal, coin that has a 'good' and an 'evil' side, ideal for assisting with all of those tricky questions in life.

The obverse

The side that isn't the obverse

The playing cards have Fable characters portrayed on the court cards, the aces and the jokers.

The illustrations are lovingly-reproduced

And there's a game as well!  As is usual with these packages, there is some exclusive content available for download - a new region (Hunter's Lodge), which contains a unique outfit from the land of Aurora, a  new breed of dog (the Boxer) and an exclusive quest (in which the player can earn the legendary sword, Wolfsbane).

The package in full

And now I'm off to play the game (having booked tomorrow off work)!

Fable III: Kingmaker. Seen in Gorblimey, yesterday

I was in London/Gorblimey yesterday (for non-UK readers, 'gorblimey' was a common (in at least two meanings of the word) exclamation of surprise in 19th Century London, derived from 'God blind me') and, while strolling through Bloomsbury,  walked past the McCann Erickson building.

The advertising agency always displays its wares in a large picture window by the entrance and the current one is Kingmaker-themed (it has the Microsoft account) -

There's treasure worth 2000 gold here. Win!

The main display has two inset monitors, with each displaying flag-planting auto-tweets from the two factions.  I planted a couple of flags while I was there but I didn't see mine pop up - even though the onscreen tweets were coming in thick and fast, there must be plenty backing up.  

Microsoft gave a press release a couple of days ago that said there were 60,000 users who between them had planted over a million flags.  I think this is pretty good going, particularly given that, for the first week or so of release, it didn't really work.

Rebel scum are everywhere

I've currently 'earned' over 30,000 gold, to be put to good use once the game is released in the UK on 29 October.  

Fable III: Kingmaker - iPhone review

Just when I was beginning to think that it was itself a fable, the Fable III Kingmaker app was released on the iPhone yesterday.

As I've written before, the app is part of the Fable III marketing campaign. The app credits state that it has been developed by McCann London, the uber advertising agency that holds the Microsoft account (and whose beautiful art deco offices I walk past on the way to work).

Players register and are then allocated to one of two teams, the Rebels and the Royals (representing factions in the game). I'm a Royal, which would not have been my natural inclination - what with rebels being cooler -  but I figure if players were allowed to choose, we'd all be rebels.

The aim of the game is to have your faction control the most 'territories' (compartments of real-world locations). Each player can aid their team by 'planting' flags on their phone, with that flag equating to their location at that time. The faction with greater number of flags in a territory controls it.  Each day, players are given 10 flags to plant in the 'real world'. I commute between 'Middlinglande' (Herts & Beds) and 'Gorblimey' (London - all regions have comedy names bestowed upon them) for work and spread my flags around them both.

As well as aiding your faction, each flag you plant gains you gold, which you can upload to the game once it's released (and once you've linked Kingmaker to your Live ID). The flags are worth 50 gold each but that increases by multiples of 50 gold if the player links their Twitter and/or Facebook accounts. The app does then tend to spam your accounts, so you may prefer to link them to dummy accounts.

There are additional treasure sites, which the player can visit to claim the booty (first 100 players only at each location though). All of these are in GAME stores, possibly the first example of treasure being found in those locations. The app tells you where your nearest treasure site is - mine is 45 km away!

The app has been a little bit buggy for me at times, kicking me out while logged in and occasionally not calculating my gold properly (my last two flags today were only awarded 50 gold, rather than 150).









The app allows you to monitor how many flags you've placed and how many are remaining, together with an update on who controls the most territories.









There's further detailed analysis available from the Kingmaker website , (I'm currently rated 2435 for gold collected, apparently).










There isn't really much else to it but, for a free download that will provide an in-game benefit, I think it's a nice little app - kudos to Lionhead for coming up with it.

EDIT 17 October

I've had a few days to play around with the app now and think that it has serious problems with its functionality.  My app is linked to my Twitter and Facebook accounts - so, each flag should deliver 150 gold - but, after doing this for a couple of days, it has returned to only giving out 50 gold for each one.  The 'treasure' tab to the app - showing pots of gold near to the player, where a planted flag will deliver 2000 gold - no longer works (nothing appears when it is selected).

I still think that  the app is a good idea but it would have benefited from far more testing prior to release.  That begin said, I would sooner Lionhead concentrated on getting Fable III itself bug-free, than on using finite resources in polishing an app that only European smartphone owners can use.

EDIT 19/10/10

I've noticed that the 'Treasure' tab works  fine in Gorblimey (London) and I used it to rinse 11,000 gold during my lunchbreak.  It seems the streets of London are paved with gold, after all.  On returning to Middlinglande (Herts) it stopped working again.

FINAL EDIT (hopefully) - 20/10/10

The app updated this morning and now everything works - the extra gold for Facebook/Twitter linking; the Treasure tab in all regions; locations of all treasure shows up in the Treasure tab and the log-in/log-out process is streamlined.

Eurogamer Expo 2010

Between 1-3 October, London's Earl's Court played host to the third annual Eurogamer Expo, organised  by the eponymous gaming website.  I'd been to the previous two and thought that  this one was probably the largest so far, certainly in terms of the size of the venue.  I was not sure that it was the best, though.

I booked my ticket months ago, before many games had been announced (all three days eventually sold out, as they had done in previous years, so it paid to think ahead).  Up until about a month ago, there still weren't that many games that I was interested in - some great titles, no doubt but nothing that really grabbed me.  However, over the three weeks prior to the show that changed - Fable III was announced, as were Kirby's Epic Yarn and Little Big Planet 2 and all three were on my 'wanted' list, particularly the first.

Fable III was the game that I most wanted to see and it was as good as I had expected, though it did look, graphically,  VERY similar to Fable II (no bad thing in my book but I wonder if that is indicative of the fact that the 360 has been taken as far as it can in terms of graphics), although the Albion being depicted is now that of an industrial era.  I'd already pre-ordered the game  and booked a day off work for the day of its release (as it's released during half-term, all that remains to be done is line up the grandparents for child-minding duties) so I'm not the most subjective reviewers.  One criticism though -  I completely failed to get one of the Fable III t-shirts that were being given away by Lionhead staff.

PlayStation Move and Xbox 360 Kinect were demonstrated but I find it very difficult to care about motion tracking devices/games.  I own a   Wii, so I consider that that particularly itch has been well and truly scratched and nothing I saw at the Expo changed my mind.  I'm sure the technology in both new pieces of kit is better than that housed in the Wii but not so much as to make me care. More importantly for Sony and Microsoft, I don't think that their target market of casual gamers will care enough to about upgrade from their Wiis  either. With rumours of a 'Wii2' around the corner (though I think Nintendo will have a job itself in convincing Wii owners to upgrade, even as market leader) the Sony and MS offerings look a little desperate.

There were several games exhibited that were sequels in series that I don't really care about - Gran Turismo 5, Gears of War 3, Killzone 3, Medal of Honor, Motorstorm Apocalypse - and a couple where the previous games are still uncompleted in my Pile of Shame - Fallout: New Vegas and DragonAge II.  I've no interest in playing the former and I don't want to 'skip' a game to play the latter, so these, undoubtedly well-executed, polished products, didn't interest me that much.

There were some surprises at the Expo - games that I hadn't really thought about but have now moved onto my wanted list.  inFamous 2 and Castlevania Lords of Shadow both fell into that category.  I enjoyed the first inFamous game, although it wasn't without its flaws  but the sequel, despite seeming to have a default camera point closer to the main protagonist (a revamped Cole), looked more polished than its predecessor.  Cole still has his cool electrical powers but not to the extent of using them to 'encourage' the developers - its about a year until this is released.  

Castlevania Lords of Shadow looked absolutely gorgeous. I've never been a Castlevania fan -  I had Symphony of the Night special edition on PS1 but never really liked it and  sold it to fund my 360 purchase.  Lords of Shadow isn't really that much like a Castlevania game, to its credit (with me, anyway).  It's a third person action adventure, heavy on the (whip-based, naturally) combat and - from the excerpt at the show anway - huge bosses. Win!

Most hilarious stand was that for DefJam Rapstar - watching geeks karaoke rapping was as fantastic as it sounds. Also the noisiest - the MC didn't seem to shut up the whole show and certainly earned his money. 

Not legal tender.  Cooler than the Ben Franklin, though

The most intriguing stand was that for Nintendo - part of the stand was cordoned off and shrouded in blackout curtains, with a snaking line of gamers queued up outside. I reckon you could show anything in such a way at a show like this and get a queue outside of it but this one was probably merited a queue.  The game that was being previewed inside was Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, latest in the long-running series.  I didn't queue up - I hate queueing for anything - but I now wish I had, as I found the  level of secrecy intriguing (and I'm a fan of the Zelda games).

There were undoubtedly some stellar triple-A titles being shown at the Expo - unfortunately, with a few notable exceptions, those triple-A titles weren't the ones that I was interested in.  I also found that, while slicker, the move to the larger venue left it a bit 'colder' than in previous years - last year's venue, at Old Billingsgate Market, with its labyrinthine layout was more enjoyable.  That being said, I reckon I'll be back next year...

For what it's worth, the 30-something gamer Eurogamer Expo awards!

Game of the Show - Fable III (please see note on lack of subjectivity above)
Meh of Show - Move, Kinect
Mystery of Show - Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
Yuck of the Show - Saw II
Disappointment  of the show - not getting asked for ID by the bouncers on the 18+ zone
Headache of Show -  watching monitors showing 3D gaming without 3D glasses
Surprise of Show - Castlevania Lords of Shadow

FIFA 11 Scramble

The new FIFA came out last week and, as is usual with 'big' games where large retailers are expected to undercut specialist retailers at launch, there was considerable speculation on the Internet as to what supermarket would have the best deal.  Obviously, the shops themselves weren't giving that information out to the public (and so to their competitors) but, slowly, rumours (some true, some false) filtered out, ahead of their 'official' advertisements in Thursday's papers, ahead of Friday's release of the game. The  deals available weren't as good as some of those from last year but I ended up going for the Sainsbury's one (£24.97 when you spend £30 on booze groceries).

I've written about this phenomenon before and I'm sure it will continue for a while yet (there's a new Call of Duty out in a few weeks, after all).  But I think that its end is in sight and that speculating on how much Tesco's will be selling FIFA 2020 just will not happen.  A digital download only future will kill this type of undercutting (I wonder if the supermarkets even made a profit on some of the deals available) and scanning newspapers adverts in the days before a big release will go the way of tape-loading, dial-up internet and, well, newspapers themselves.