Review: Fable: The Journey

Words by: Dave Burns | Posted: 8 months ago | Filed under: Game Reviews, Retail Games.

Fable: The Journey has been a long time coming, Lionhead teased us with Milo utilizing the Kinect technology so when they announced Fable would be getting an on-the-rails title I was a little more than excited. But what is it actually like?

Graphics look wonderful with the Unreal engine

From the outset it’s pretty clear that the graphics have seen a major improvement, Lionhead have taken on the Unreal engine making the Fable universe look a lot sharper and fresher than we’ve seen so far, everything looks so vivid and the character models hold a lot more depth.

After a fairly lengthy intro you start by riding a horse and it’s a lot harder than it looks, under-steering and over-steering a horse should be impossible but happens extremely often, it was a huge annoyance and to top it off cut-scenes seemed to be dragged in on a constant basis, this prevented me from really getting into each section I was playing although I feel this may have been designed like this to give you a rest but as a gamer I’d like the option to rest when I want, not when the game dictates.

After a short while you are thrown into a combat tutorial, using your main hand (the hand you choose at the start of the game) to shoot a bolt and your secondary hand has Push/Pull, the tutorial was tedious at best and detracted from the game.

Heading on further in to the game and I was still searching for reasons to carry on, the story was bland and offered no real emotional attachment to the characters, the fighting was boring and often left me feeling underwhelmed.

Spell casting can be extremely tedious

I thought I was being a little to harsh, was searching for more reasons to dislike the title so I asked my wife to have a go, she loved the last 2 Fable titles and isn’t generally a gamer, although she loves Kinect with Angry Birds and Kinect Sports, she struggled to get to grips with the controls and she also found the game very boring to handle and felt no attachment. Just like me she didn’t take to the game the way it was promised to gamers.

It’s hard to find anything good to say about the game apart from the graphic engine, the pace seemed to be a real issue throughout the time I played the game, I really wanted to enjoy it as a Fable fan but I constantly thought how much better the title would be if I could use a controller. I have no doubt that some players will enjoy this title but as a core fan of the franchise I’m left wondering if the game was created for the fans or just to push sales of Kinect.

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About Dave Burns

Dave created Xboxer360.com back in 2008 and now runs it alongside Rich. Dave also runs a Web Design business and writes for Xbox.com