Fable 3 Concept Art

Some new concept art for Fable  3 was released by Lionhead yesterday http://www.lionhead.com/Fable3/images/bws_industrial.jpg. I don't think anyone should get excited by concept art as it shows little or nothing about the gameplay. However it does offer a good indication of the setting of a game, a relevant point for the Fable series, given 500 years passed between the first two games.

I loved both of the previous Fable games, particularly the last one. Peter Molyneux receives criticism for selling gamers the stars but only delivering the moon but, to extend a metaphor to breaking point, when you're on the ground the moon looks pretty good. In fact, as far as Fable II is concerned, I don't think that there was much over-selling in the preview stage and any flak aimed at Molyneux was more as as a result of his track record than of actual 'missing' content in the finished game.

The concept art, which is of Bowerstone, the main town (maybe now a city) of Albion, suggests an industrial setting, with Victorian-style warehouses lining a river/canal. Maybe an industrial revolution has hit Albion, though one that still required the bearing of swords, judging from the chap in the right-hand corner ? Baseless conjecture, of course but then the Internet is the home city of that isn't it (twinned with the town of Unfounded Rumour)?

Albion often reminds me of Terry Pratchett's Discworld and that series has also radically  developed its period setting from when it first started - compare the more traditional fantasy setting of The Colour of Magic with that shown in the later books, Making Money for instance. This has done no harm to Discworld (on the contrary, the books have improved) and hopefully the same will be said of the Albion of Fable

Of course, I might be talking rubbish (wouldn't be the first time) and this could be just a glimpse of the industrial side of Albion that Fable II didn't touch on but I await the next drop from Lionhead's dripfeed of information with interest.

There is good and bad, in everyone

I'm currently playing inFamous, the PS3-exclusive action adventure. Your character, Cole, for tenuous and borderline silly reasons, gets electrical superpowers following a huge explosion at the start of the game. I'll probably review the game after I've completed it, so won't describe it in great depth here but for now I want to discuss its 'good or evil' dichotomy.

Like several other games in recent years, it asks you to make decisions relating to certain actions, with a 'good' or 'evil' outcome. Last year, this was used to good effect in Fable II and had earlier been used, less effectively, in its predecessor. It was also a staple of the KOTOR series, with its choices between the light and dark side of the Force.

So, a well-established gaming concept. Its execution in inFamous however, seems a retrograde step, certainly compared to Fable II. The choices in inFamous are stark and are either deepest black or Persil white. For example, on the first of the game's three islands (that together form Empire City, the game's setting), quite early on you have to prevent a device from pumping poison into a residential building's water supply. You have two choices - to break the pump, thereby pumping a lot of additional poison into the water, or to turn the pump handle in such a way as the excess poison squirts you in the face, temporarily blinding you. Can you guess which one is the evil choice? Other good/evil choices are similarly pitched.

I'd have liked some shades of grey, something that Fable II was moving towards in certain parts. An ability, perhaps, to force one of the bad guys to turn the pump and have the poison squirted in his face - maybe not what Superman would do in the same situation but probably at least what The Punisher would do. Maybe an option of forcing an innocent bystander to turn the pump? A darker shade of grey, admittedly but still a move away from the game's toggle switch moral choices.

I'm not advocating that all games should be turned into a succession of deep philosophical choices but if a moral compass is to be implemented in a game, I would like more points on it than 'Lone Ranger' and 'moustache-twirling silent movie villain'.