Destiny screenshots show a vast alien world

The next game from Bungie, the studio behind Halo, is set in futuristic sci-fi universe where players take the role of a Guardian of the last safe city on Earth, fighting mysterious alien foes on Earth and beyond in a bid to reclaim mankind's lost territory.
Bungie also recently released a larger set of Destiny screenshots showing a broader selection of people and places from the ambitious open-world shooter.

The Destiny release date has been confirmed as September 9 worldwide. Additionally, the studio has announced that the Destiny beta will kick off "in the summer of 2014" and will be available first on PS3 and PS4.
Access codes for the beta are being sent to customers that pre-order the game at "participating retailers worldwide". In the US, these retailers include Amazon, Best Buy, GameStop and Walmart. In UK, the list includes Amazon, Smyths, Tesco and Blockbuster.
Bungie has said it's treating the Destiny beta like a full product launch in many ways. According to community manager Eric Osborne, it will include more than just a few maps to play on.

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Battlefield 4

 EA Games label executive VP Patrick Söderlund has further discussed the circumstances surrounding the troubled launch of Battlefield 4 and indicated the learning experience will benefit future titles such as Titanfall.
In a meeting with investors, transcribed by Seeking Alpha, Söderlund was asked if there were "lessons learned there that give you confidence that you won't have similar issues with Titanfall".
"When Battlefield 4 launched, it was a very complex game, launching on 2 entirely new console platforms, as well as current-gen and PC," Söderlund replied.
"We were pushing innovation heavily and we're delivering 60 frames per second gameplay for 64 players plus the ability to connect via mobile tablet as a commander into the product, coupled those with some very innovative features in the gameplay side.
"Based on our pre-launch testing, our beta performance, we were confident the game was ready when it was launched. Shortly after launch, however, we began hearing about problems from our player community, and the development team quickly began to address the situation.
"So what have we done since we encountered the problems is we were fortunate to have an architecture in place that allows us to adjust and update the game rapidly, and that's actually what we've done."
Söderlund continued on to say the challenges DICE and EA faced with Battlefield 4 were somewhat unique, and a result of launching a game on a massive scale.
He also said that the publisher is "taking multiple steps" to use what it has learned to make future game launches much smoother.
"The challenge that we've faced with Battlefield 4 were different from anything that we've seen before with other games," he said. "There were different issues that only manifest its scale in the post-launch live environment.
"We're taking multiple steps to evaluate what occurred and incorporate those learnings into our development process for future products, so we don't experience the same problems again."
Respawn Entertainment head Vince Zampella

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WWE

On Monday and Tuesday we shared the first 17 matches included in WWE 2K14's 30 Years of WrestleMania mode. Now it's time to show a little bit of attitude.
After Hulk Hogan dominated the early years of WrestleMania and a "New Generation" of Superstars stormed the scene, the WWE had a new feel largely driven by the presence of "Stone Cold" Steve Austin.
The man known as the Texas Rattlesnake embody the edgy, in-your-face style that helped the WWE win the Monday Night Wars over rival promotion World Championship Wrestling (WCW). From WrestleMania 14 to 17, the Attitude Era was on full display.
In today's reveal, the best matches from those four WrestleManias take center stage. Take a look at the latest bouts revealed as part of the 30 Years of WrestleMania single-player campaign.

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Grand Theft Auto V review

 
Grand Theft Auto V's three antiheroes feel as though they were torn straight out of Sigmund Freud's structural model of the human psyche. The wild, feral Trevor represents the id: a psychopath led by instincts and urges without any consideration for others. Retired criminal Michael is the super-ego: the critical, realistic, moral force that strives to keep the id in check. That leaves young Franklin as the ego: an organized, realistic partner that mediates between the desires of the id and the super-ego--or, in this case, two psychopaths that always seem to be a hair away from strangling each other. Throughout GTA 5 you'll swap between the trio, seeing San Andreas through the eyes of three wildly different personalities, each of whom brings their own breed of psychosis to one of the most exciting games of this generation.
As is the case with the human psyche, these different parts work together to create something stronger than the individuals ever could be. Whereas previous Grand Theft Auto characters have struggled with maintaining an interesting personality as they were tasked with slaughtering innocents for gameplay's sake, breaking the campaign into three parts makes for three better characters. They're all exceptionally written, and play off of each other well. Instead of forcing one character to climb his way up his own slice of the criminal underworld, GTA 5 does a remarkable job of providing each with their own motivations, their own missions, and their own personas you'll come to love as you swap between them.could possibly hope. At almost any time you can jump between them, zooming the camera out for a moment before warping back, showing what the characters have been doing since you last played as them. You might find Franklin walking out of a bar, only to be called by a panicking friend who needs to be bailed out of a dumb situation; and swapping to Michael could have him sitting by the pool and smoking a cigar before heading off to do yoga with his cheating wife. Trevor is typically found passed out in an alley or picking fights with strangers, and his missions are usually the most ludicrous--you'll be blowing up trailer parks and hijacking cargo planes as you see the world from his warped, chaotic point of view. Some side characters even jump between stories, making the world feel incredible cohesive.
Along the way you'll find ample distractions to keep you exploring San Andreas, ranging from random activities to wholly optional side missions. At times the staggering amount of content can be overwhelming; there's so much to do that it's easy to be paralyzed with indecision. Whether you're exploring the upper-class suburbs of Rockford Hills as Michael, the beautiful and scenic Vespucci Beach as Franklin, or the hillbilly-filled Blaine County as Trevor, you'll struggle to drive three blocks without finding something interesting to do--be it preventing a robbery or helping a paparazzo take salacious pictures of a teen star. Some will lead to interesting side plots, while others simply exist to give more life to the colorful world. Though they don't all have satisfying conclusions--with some sort of whimpering to a close--they work to flesh out the characters and provide more context to the satirical paradise Rockstar created.
Though you'll be pulled in a few directions at once, it won't take much prodding to get back to the main campaign. The narrative is exciting and exceptionally-written, and story missions, which have always been fodder between cutscenes, are now explosive set-piece moments amplified by the ability to swap characters. In one mission, you need to fly a helicopter above an office building as Trevor, rappel down the side of it as Michael, and provide sniper support as Franklin. It's thrilling, and provides an experience totally unlike anything you've played before--and it's hardly the best usage of this mechanic.
It also helps that just about every mechanic is a marked improvement over previous iterations. The most noticeable improvement comes with the visual overhaul that makes GTA 5 one of the best-looking games currently available on consoles. But this improved fidelity comes at a cost. The game's massive, sprawling, detailed San Andreas is obviously pushing the hardware to its limits, so don't be surprised to see framerate drops or objects popping into existence as you speed down a highway. Other changes have only positive impacts to the game--gunplay is extremely strong thanks to improvements to the aiming, and while the driving controls are looser than they are in some other open-world games, they make for some thrilling chases.


These mechanics come to a head in the game's heists, which take advantage of every improvement Rockstar has made to its franchise. You're not just showing up to a question mark on the map and taking part in a bank robbery mission, you're an integral part of the planning process of awe-inspiring cinematic moments. Being able to choose between two wildly different plans, deciding on the getaway car, picking from a handful of different teammates--you're in full control in a way no other game has ever attempted. When the mission actually begins, you're able to see your hard work unfold, with different outcomes depending on your planning and actions.
Rockstar also made sure to create an economy that actually makes sense, instead of just dumping money into your in-game bank account without any real purpose, as was the case in past games. You're able to customize every weapon and vehicle in the game, and there's a robust real estate system with dozens of different properties around San Andreas that can be purchased. Some feed more money to you, while others actually open up new tasks and missions. There's even a dynamic stock market that actually reacts to in-game events, letting you make even more money by researching missions before you complete them. The number of moving parts in GTA 5 is astounding, and you'll be amazed by how well they all work together.
Five years ago, it looked as though it would've been difficult to make a bigger, more impressive game than Grand Theft Auto IV, but Rockstar didn't just settle for improvements to visuals. Instead, it polished and iterated upon every single element of the game--and the genre. The world is massive and detailed, the gameplay is damn near perfect, and though there are some lackluster side missions, the actual story is filled with memorable personalities that feel more fully-realized than even the best of GTA's previous characters. It's a remarkable example of open-world gaming at it's finest, and while it doesn't reinvent the genre or do anything all that new, it does so much so well that it's hard to find flaws in Rockstar's massive blockbuster.

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Killzone

There I was, gleefully shooting red-eyed Helghast to bits when I came across a regular Helghast citizen whose dead wife was draped across his lap. He sat there, crying his unmasked, normal-looking eyes out, going on and on about how all of this--the fighting, the dying, the being alive--was just so goddamn pointless. He looked up at me, with next-gen tears streaming down his next-gen face, and begged me to put an end to his suffering. So I did.
My decision didn't have any effect on Killzone: Shadow Fall's resolution, nor did it shower me in morality points to let me know that what I did was the Right Thing To Do. The scene simply existed alongside others like it, each aimed at making the player feel more invested in the ongoing conflict and its collateral damage. Not all were successful--some felt more forced than sincere--but they lent a surprising amount of humanity to an all-around enjoyable first-person shooter, something many of Shadow Fall's competitors lack.
Set some 30 years after the events of Killzone 3 (which SPOILER ALERT ended with the Helghast's home planet getting casually nuked into a lifeless rock--yay, war!), Shadow Fall creates a palpable sense of tension with its Cold War narrative. Helghast survivors now occupy half of Vekta, the same planet that houses those responsible for the death of, oh, about a billion Helghast lives. Despite a shaky peace treaty between the two sides, both constantly poke at each other with sneaky espionage tactics, and as Shadow Marshal Lucas Kellan, you'll be doing the poking--er, shooting/stabbing--for the Vektans.
Not that you'll mind. The gunplay is great, even though most weapons take the form of samey assault rifles and rocket launchers, while impressive first-person animations imbue every action with a sense of weight. The gameplay here offers mostly excellent pacing thanks to its varied level design, ranging from open-ended arenas to linear space station corridors. The former is where Shadow Fall is at its best, as Kellan has access to a variety of tools that make the more expansive levels far more interesting than the comparatively bland "walk forward and shoot everything that moves" segments, which are made even more dull by occasionally shoddy AI.


Kellan's ECHO system is used to unveil and mark enemies, even from behind walls. With this, you can hide in the shadows and map out each enemy soldier's patrol route--it's an invaluable tool for planning your attacks, providing a welcome amount of strategy that many shooter campaigns neglect. Then there's the OWL, a small robot companion that stuns and attacks bad guys, places defensive shields, and deploys an unlimited number of zip-lines at your command, further adding to your offensive and defensive options. All of these things come together to create some truly awesome experiences throughout the campaign.
For example, while on a covert op in a forest, I jumped off a ledge and onto a Helghast soldier, buried a knife in his neck, wrenched it back out, and threw it with pinpoint accuracy into the eye of his BFF. THEN I zip-lined to a nearby tree stand and used my ECHO to locate a cluster of enemies chatting on the ground. After stunning them with my OWL (Jesus, these acronyms), I served them a perfectly cooked grenade. It was an immensely satisfying experience, one that can't be duplicated with a corridor jammed full of explosive set-piece moments.

Almost half of Shadow Fall's levels, though, feel too constricting, especially after stepping foot in the larger environments. With limited space to maneuver and just the occasional alternative route, the ECHO becomes largely useless outside of finding nearby items. Some of these levels--such as a mega creepy spaceship full of mysteriously dead, charred bodies--make effective use of atmosphere, placing a larger emphasis on intrigue than on strategic opportunities, but others feel painfully generic, especially in the story's final stretch.

Next-gen audio diaries

You've no doubt heard the playback of hundreds of audio diaries by now--we all have. But when I picked one up in Shadow Fall, one thing I did not expect was it to playback through the speaker built into the controller. It freaked me out the first time it happened, but I grew to really enjoy it. The audio came through loud and clear, and it's a surprisingly different experience (in a good way!) to listen to an audiolog from a sound source separate from your TV.

Speaking of the g-word, Kellan's evolution as a character is marked by flimsy radio exchanges with his equally boring mentor. Both have fleeting moments of greatness, but these are drowned out by apathetic conversations about which conflicting superpower--the Vektans or Helghast--is in the right. More convincing are collectible audiologs and the aforementioned vignettes you'll encounter throughout the eight-hour campaign, both of which do an unexpectedly great job of world building.
Shadow Fall's multiplayer offering will keep you entertained after its 25-minute credits marathon comes to a close, though it's unlikely to permanently rip you away from genre mainstays. All the standard modes--team deathmatch, free for all, capture the flag--are present, though Shadow Fall's Warzone mode, which randomly rotates objective-based goals, is the main attraction. As ever, this mode will keep you on your toes as it transitions from Search & Destroy to Capture & Hold, among others, and each of the maps provided an interesting mix of routes to prevent bottlenecks.
Custom Warzones are a new highlight to Shadow Fall, allowing players to create and play their own shareable rulesets, providing a nice alternative to the official modes. In multiplayer, I played a custom mode called "Paranoia in the Park," where every player had a sniper rifle, an invisibility cloak, and a single life. It was a drastically different, tense competitive mode compared to the rotating objective Warzone mentioned above.

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Battlefield 4 review

Sadly, despite the increased likeability of the characters, Battlefield 4’s overarching story blunders from one set-piece to another, ignoring the gaping holes torn in its plot and taking little care to explain what the hell is actually going on (that's war, I guess?). At one point, right near the end of the game, I leaned over to a fellow reviewer to ask about the identity of a character in a cut-scene. Turned out he was the entire reason I’d been shooting the teeth out of Chinese and Russian soldiers for the last six hours (the length of the solo campaign).
It’s a real shame, because great efforts have been made to capture the magic of multiplayer during the solo mode. One huge criticism of BF3’s story was that it’s totally divorced from multiplayer. Not so here. There are epic moments to behold, like dams bursting and frenzied tank battles inside savage tropical storms. You unlock kit, and accrue points for kills--just like you do in multiplayer. It’s like a beautiful-looking training mission, with chatting. And on that note…

Multiplayer has evolved, too. I’m sure DICE would like me to write that it has ‘levolved’, but I’m not going to. All joking aside, levolution makes a huge difference to online play, as does the reintroduction of ‘proper’ destruction. While bringing down the skyscraper in the Siege of Shanghai map is a visual novelty, it genuinely changes the shape of the map. Other stages alter more dramatically, really forcing you to shift the way you play. The typhoon that starts to rage half-way through the Paracel Storm map looks incredible, and ups the importance of naval combat. Meanwhile, when you flood the whole city in Flood Zone, it significantly intensifies the conflict on the rooftops and small patches of dry land.

Next-gen destruction

PC players will notice some step forward in terms of visuals and destruction, it’s console players that get the biggest leap. The PS3/360 versions only support 24 players, which makes a vast difference in bigger modes. Maps scale to fit current-gen counts, so games still feel balanced, but there’s a lack of detail in the current-gen versions. Maps contain fewer objects, destruction is more simplified, and the draw distance is shorter.
Perhaps the biggest difference is the frame-rate, though, as current-gen is still locked to 30fps. As such, that slick, well polished gameplay enjoyed by next-gen is sacrificed. Our advice? Make this a next-gen purchase, if you can.

The fact that levolution is such a success is testament to the incredible level design in BF4. Most maps have multiple layers and areas, which means you’re often mixing up land, sea, and air combat with close-quarters firefights. In other words, the majority of maps will suit any playstyle, and allow you to get creative with the destruction. Yes, I drove a tank through a house, and collapsed it. Yes, I beached a jetski to roadkill a man. Yes, I sat on a tower with a sniper-rifle and shot a man out of a helicopter. Moments. Memorable moments.
There are some sour notes. Defuse, a new 5v5, one-life-per-round mode, designed to draw in the Counter-Strike crowd, falls flat because it puts tense twitch-shooting ahead of smart tactics and specialised warfare. Seriously, if you want to camp in the corner of a room for 10 minutes a) fuck off--that’s not how Battlefield works, and b) you could always play Call of Duty for that kind of nonsense--I’ll be enjoying Conquest, thanks. Commander mode is… a little dull. It’s a novelty to tactically influence the battle from a bird’s eye view, but when I sat there tapping away at my iPad, I was desperately wishing to be part of the battle down below.
Another new mode, Obliteration, is a fun single-bomb game type that feels different enough from Rush and Conquest to justify inclusion. Amusingly, everyone seems to chase the guy with the bomb like school-kids running after the ball in a game of playground football. All maps scale to fit each game mode, adapting to accommodate differing team sizes and objectives; another triumph of smart design.


Overall, multiplayer feels quicker and more aggressive, although--don’t worry--Battlefield 4 hasn’t turned into a COD-style twitch shooter. Classes are well balanced, and as far as I could see (and I played for hours with everything unlocked), there was no super-gun / kit that lets you murder everyone. And again, there’s no single class that dominates any single map--there’s room for everyone during each session.
Now, a bit of tech-talk. Don’t be scared. The game’s quickness is largely thanks to the fact that the PS4 and PC versions are locked to 60 frames per second, making both the single- and multiplayer modes feel smooth and lethal. Even when firefights get intense on smaller maps like Operation Locker, or huge levolution moments rock an entire map, like the dam breaking in Lancang Dam, the game stays slick and beautiful. I’m no tech nerd, but I can appreciate what a polished marvel BF4 is on PS4 and PC.

As a package, this is the best Battlefield ever created. While the single-player is far from perfect, it bottles enough multiplayer lightning to garner my rather faint praise of ‘worth a quick play through’. As ever, though, it’s online where BF4 shines brightest. You may not appreciate just how brilliantly designed the maps, modes, and classes are until you experience those trademark moments. Like when you’re charging around an abandoned factory on Golmund Railway, trying to fend off three tanks at once, mortar fire raining down on you from above, shaking your screen and creating unbelievable mayhem. Then--and only then--will you truly fall in love with this game like I have.

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Hitman to return to its roots as IO reveals first details on PS4 & Xbox One project

IO Interactive has revealed the first details on its next-gen Hitman project, confirming that the series will be heading back to its non-linear, sandbox roots for Agent 47's next adventure.
Currently in development for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC, the next game will see players taking control of "a globetrotting Agent 47 at the prime of his career - the apex predator stalking his prey across the world, with the support of his long-term handler Diana Burnwood and the whole of the ICA."
According to IO, "the game concentrates on the core Hitman fantasy of using a wide range of tools to take out a diverse group of targets across expansive, exotic locations around the world."

It's also being built on Absolution's Glacier 2 engine and uses "what we have learnt through Hitman: Absolution," while "drawing inspiration from past titles like Contracts and Blood Money to fulfil the core Hitman fantasy."
It'll be more like the original games than 2012's Absolution, then, with IO promising to "pack in an extreme level of detail on the largest levels we have ever built for a Hitman game.
"We've adopted an open, non-linear level design approach to the game, ensuring the game will play out across huge, checkpoint-free, sandbox levels. Our aim is to create living, breathing and believable levels which will allow gamers to play around with the AI to create those unique moments every fan of the Hitman franchise loves."
Contracts Mode is set to return, too, where players will be able to create and share their own hits, while 47's "magic pockets" have been removed as well. "We believe that's all we need to say about that subject," says IO.
"As we get further into 2014, we will reveal more and get into much closer contact with all of you," the developer continues. "There are so many things we have planned and we are extremely excited for the future of Hitman".
A release date and title for the game have yet to be announced.

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Crystal Dynamics considered creating new story content for Tomb Raider

Crystal Dynamics considered creating new story content and introducing new gameplay features for Tomb Raider's PlayStation 4 and Xbox One Definitive Edition, but was told not to by executives at Square Enix, executive producer Scot Amos has revealed.
Discussing the development of the next-gen port during a GamesRadar livestream, Amos revealed that "there [were] things that we talked about [doing], even from the beginning. When somebody says you've got another year, let's go do something, we're like, let's add. Let's add this feature, let's add that storytelling, let's add that moment."

But unfortunately, that didn't work out.
"It was actually surprisingly early on when we started putting the constraints around this," he continued, "because our boss, Darrell [Gallagher], who's the worldwide head of studios, he looked at us and we're like, we can add all this stuff. And he's like, 'no, you don't want to change what's good. We know this is good. Let's leave that alone'.
"But instead, because this was driven from the team saying we want to do this, we want to step up and make it look better and we want to make it play better and we want to add more content and we want to extend the story, we really had to put a clamp on ourselves and say, you know, we're focused on the future of Tomb Raider, we have another big story to tell, we're worried about that for what our next game will be. So for this game it was, okay, let's put ourselves back in Pandora's Box a little bit, we have all this kids in a candy store feeling of all this tech."
He continued: "Fortunately we have a very sensible and very senior team, so looking at ourselves we know what we can and can't sign up for."
Crystal Dynamics announced that it was developing a sequel to Tomb Raider last year, prior to the announcement of Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition. And while Amos chose not to reveal what content was kept back for the sequel, he did suggest that bigger environments may play a part in the next game.
"I think that Skyrim's a good analogy," he teased. "If you see it, you can get to it and go out there, and that to us was what the promise of this is. Now that we've seen what we can do [with] Definitive Edition, it starts opening up our eyes of how much further can we push ourselves. What [are] our next steps towards let's get out to that mountain now, how do we get out there, how much bigger can those spaces be, and that's for the future."
Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition launches on Xbox One and PlayStation 4 next Friday, January 31. A release date for the sequel has yet to be announced.

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New Driveclub footage shows off latest progress

New gameplay footage of delayed PS4 racer Driveclub has appeared online, showing off the latest progress made to the delayed PS4 racer.
The new footage shows racers drifting around two different tracks and appears to show big technical improvements over earlier builds, showcasing impressive lighting and visual effects. It also offers a brief glimpse at minor vehicle damage.
The footage follows a rumour from earlier this week suggesting that the game may not be due to release until as late as June 2014.
Sony has yet to respond to the rumour.

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Mario Kart 8 is 'Wii U's last chance', claims retailer

Mario Kart 8 is the Wii U's "last chance", an online retailer has told MCV, suggesting that the console's days may be numbered should the upcoming racer fail to rejuvenate sales.
Speaking under condition of anonymity, the 'top buyer' at an online games store is alleged to have said that "there is only one real last chance for Wii U and it is Mario Kart 8. It could still be the game that sparks interest in Wii U, but it would need to be combined with a more mass market retail price."
Other retailers appear to be in agreement, too, with one calling for Nintendo to release a £199 hardware bundle featuring the game.
Nintendo announced last week that it had slashed its fiscal year forecasts for Wii U from 9 million units to 2.8 million units. Both Amazon and Argos later dropped the price of the Wii U Premium to £179.99.
Mario Kart 8 is due to go on sale this spring.

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Dead Rising 3's DLC doesn't support co-op play

Co-operative play will not be supported in the four planned Dead Rising 3 DLC episodes, executive producer Josh Bridge has confirmed.
"No, there's no co-op for each of the four episodes," Bridge explained in an interview on Xbox Wire. "We chose to do that so we could really drill down on a single-player experience and really tell that character’s story.
"We see and know that everyone really loves co-op, which is why all of those weapons and vehicles and stuff you get in the episode can be brought into the main game for co-op as well. So, say, in Nightmare mode, you can go into the weapons locker and vehicle garage and find that stuff there. "
Released tomorrow, the first DLC, Operation Broken Eagle, will cost £7.99 and feature a new mission, five new weapons, one new combo weapon, one new vehicle, a new clothing outfit, plus additional Gamerscore and the ability to carry experience points back to Dead Rising 3.

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7 thoughts about Fable: Anniversary

A fair question to throw at Fable: Anniversary is 'Why?'.Visual upgrade aside - and it's not that great - players could always just get hold of the original or even The Lost Chapters, an expansion that bundled in a crap-load more content.
While there are plenty of retorts one could muster up, the smartest may come in the form of the frame rate. It may not have been that noticeable at the time, but Fable stuttered like someone buffering a video on a 56k modem - trying to play it now would be nigh-on impossible. It's bizarre, then, that Fable: Anniversary's steadiness isn't that... steady.
It's certainly not unplayable, and we must be nice and add the caveat that this isn't finished code we're toying with. But honestly - if that's not locked come February, something has gone seriously awry.

Why does it take forever to get going?

Probably due to when it was released, Fable takes an age to get into its stride. 10 years ago I remember lovingly embracing the journey from young boy to fearless adult warrior, but in 2014 it felt incredibly painful. Nothing more than a horrendously dull tutorial, it's a matter of patience more than skill. The Guildmaster continually walks all over the place before slowly teaching you the basics of combat. It's as if he thinks he's trying to teach a monkey.
Now, if you've never played Fable before this is a necessary evil. Knowledge is power, and all that. However, if this is your excuse for a nostalgia trip, or you just fancy going through it once more, why are you forced to do it? Why hasn't a handy 'Hey, you may have played this before. Fancy skipping the worst part of the game?' prompt been included with the upgrade?
There's literally no reason for that not to exist.

Combat is really… janky

I never remember having a problem with Fable's combat when I originally played it in the mid-2000s. In fact, my fond memories fuelled my appreciation and excitement for the Anniversary edition. Either I've changed or my memories have lied to me, though, as combat is nowhere near the smooth joy I remember.
Dedicating each attack to a single button makes sense - your melee, ranged and magic are easy to both locate and instigate - but there's no flow to it whatsoever. Locking on to and then shuffling around an enemy is finickity at best, but then it's just a case of smashing the hell out of the buttons. You can, of course, be more meticulous, but Fable always feels like it's pushing you in another direction. Peter's fantasy was always to have streamlined and easy to understand combat - so your mum could play, or something - and there's more than a hint of that. It just hasn't aged that well.

It does look nice, but…

Well… it quickly loses its charm. When you first get plonked down in Albion the visual sheen on offer is certainly enough to make your eyes flutter. Fable has such a unique and cartoony style that seeing it in HD is really rather lovely. In motion, though, a large part of this appeal fades.
It's easy to forget the strides video games have made in the looks department, and it's hard not to be that guy and pick up on the odd fuzzy texture here and there. It doesn't take anything away from what's been achieved - this is Fable as it would look on the Xbox 360 - but the initial wave of loveliness isn't as long-lived as some may have hoped.

Be good. Or be bad

Slightly wonky combat aside, there's little point taking potshots at Fable because of how it plays. It's a game from 2004, so saying it doesn't do what 'Insert far newer game here' does is ridiculous. They're from completely different eras, and what this managed to do at the time was very successful in its own right. If it weren't for Fable, many other titles may not even exist.
That said, the passage of time has made the mechanics that were there from the start look old. The good/evil system in Fable is without doubt a tick in the plus column, but it does get a little tiresome - the choices are so black and white. Obviously they build and become more important to the narrative as the game ploughs on, but the very first one you come across is still indicative of the series as a whole.
A local man asks you to watch over his crates as he goes to the bathroom. You agree, but while he's away the most annoying child in the world™ tries to goad you into destroying these worthless boxes instead. So… do you beat the crap out of them or not? Hmm...

Was a straight up remake the best idea?

I'm more than aware that trying to inject ideas from Fable 2 and 3 into the mix would turn Anniversary into a completely different game, but after playing the two sequels it does make the original in the series quite tough to go back to.
As is the case with all franchises, Lionhead developed and evolved many concepts as they went along, and while the third may've missed more than it hit, Fable 2 was exquisite. It took everything that had made its older brother a success, made it better, and then added a ton of extras on top. Admittedly the amount of work required to adapt a game never suited for such ideas is no doubt difficult, but there's still an argument to be had that it would've made things far more interesting than just a standard remake.
Of course, those who want nothing more than a blast from the past hit will be in a wonderful place.

The Britishness is nice

Although it's probably lost on many - especially if you don't live on British shores - having a game that apes the likes of Monty Python is a nice change from the usual nonsense that gets thrown in our direction. It occasionally enters quite dark territory, too, so if fart gags aren't your thing there's certainly a more sinister side in Fable's arsenal.

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Lionhead is developing a non-Fable game

Lionhead may be beavering away on Fable Legends and Fable Anniversary, but it's also got a third non-Fable game in development, it's been revealed.
Eurogamer claims to have learned of the new game during a recent trip to the studio, where work on the game is currently underway on an out-of-bounds upper floor.
"I'm not allowed upstairs," reads Eurogamer's report, "where developers are making Fable Legends and other, unannounced games."
But while Lionhead admits that it's working on "other games" besides Fable, it remained coy when quizzed on the type of projects it may or may not have in development.
"We're working on other different sorts of games as well that we're not talking about right now and won't be Fable-esque," Lionhead boss John Needham teased.
While Lionhead's recent work has been largely devoted to Fable (it hasn't released a non-Fable game since 2005), it has created multiple other IPs in the past.
Its most famous, perhaps, was Black & White, a God game that saw players rearing a huge beast to protect their citizens and lead into battle. It also released The Movies, a strategy game inspired by Hollywood.
Its next (and presumably last) Xbox 360 title, Fable Anniversary, releases on February 7, with Xbox One's Fable Legends expected to follow later this year.

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