ThespianHunter's Ramble - 24th Jan 2013

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.” Albert Einstein

Hello my followers, welcome to a ramble. This is where I post my thoughts n' shit. I like to just put thoughts to paper every so often and just let you guys know what I'm thinking.

Firstly. Thank you to everyone who has supported the blog. I know it's being viewed and I reach about 30 views a post ish. Which is brilliant, I know this blog won't rapidly take off, but it's good to know people are getting enjoyment out of it. HOWEVER. how blogs work on Blogger could be improved. From what I find I get most of my non Facebook viewers via Google search. Which is by no means a bad thing, It means I'm covering things people want to know and to find info about. In fact you put ThespianHunter into Google it swarms with my stuff which is fucking amazing. However in terms of being followed by people on Blogger itself... It's more difficult. You see... Blogger, to what I understand, works like Youtube. You comment and like the Blog, I gets higher in the listings, it get's higher in the listings people actually read it. Which is what I want, I love you guys, but I would adore more people to enjoy my Blog. It's just the nature of it. I don't receive anything from this Blog other than the satisfaction that I'm entertaining people.

Second. I would love more feedback. I crave it. The magic of Blogger is that I've signed into Google+ which is also what your YouTube account is linked to. Honestly, you'd be surprised how much a little comment on the end of the Blog helps gain viewer ship. It would also be great to hear from people who don't necessarily know me other than from this blog. Would be awesome to hear your views.

Thirdly. Sorry that above sounds like begging. I just want to get something out of this Blog. It's understandable right?

Fourthly. Should I continue the Kabals of Thespious? It got a grand total of 6 views. It's the weakest thing I've posted. If people really like it, I'll keep it. Let me know.

Fifthly. If I did some sort of written account of a lets play, would you guys be interested. It would be a lot less analytically and the writing will be some what in the form of the section from my review of Assassins Creed 3 Multiplayer. Again if you guys would read it, I'll do it.

Lastly. I'm taking suggestions of what you guys would like to see in the form of reviews. When the new UFC game comes out, I'll be buying it on release and I'll give it a review pretty much in the week.

So... now my convocation to you, fine reader, I'm going to listen to some music I really shouldn't be listening to at the age of 20.

My Names been ThespianHunter, with the power of my face, I can make you feel awkward and I'll catch you next time.

What I think about: The Fable Series Part 2

Hello and welcome to ThespianHunter Blog. Where I chat shit about games, films, table top games and a whole bunch of useless crap we call entertainment. Last week we talked about my second favorite game of all time; Fable and it's rather poor sequel Fable 2. Tonight we're entering Thespianhunter horror land. Where everything that Callum loves and enjoys is torn apart by vicious animals and shat out like Play-dough through a straw (enjoy that image). Welcome to my thoughts on Fable 3 .. Please note I may use particularly strong language during this post. I do my best to bl***t it out, however you guy's arn't idiots so it's clear what the words actually are. I'm sorry in advance. 

Fable 3 The Worst Chapter

For this I thought it would be useful to firstly list the things I liked. Therefore I leave more room for me to bitch about the game. However the only plus for this game that I can think of is the cast of Voice actors. Michael Fassbender brilliantly captured the bastard brother role and was generally a detailed character. John Cleese as the butler, even though it's a no brainer, was a match made in heaven. and the list goes on and on and on and on and on. Honorable mentions are given to Simon Pegg, Sean Pertwee and Ben Kingsley as well as reprisals from Stephen Fry and Zoe Wanamaker. And that's the only good bit.. now for bad...

• The southern continent was REALLY not my taste. This is an example of you can't please everyone. If this was a review I would have left this out. However this is an opinion piece, "What I think about" and I thought Aurora was kinda bland. The addition of ancient giant statues and temples would have interested me more if the player was told more about them. Nevertheless those structures acted only has center pieces and some eye candy to make up for the pretty bland areas of Bowerstone which was, to be perfectly honest, the worst looking bowerstone to date. It kinda looked like a bastard child of Fable 2 and Jack the Ripper, some more interesting building types would have been good, rather than reused buildings for entire streets. Aurora missed an opportunity. To be something radically different from any Fable game ever imagined combining elements of the Shadow court that had not been driven out by the Hero of Oakvale temple of Skorn like elements bringing back the generally scary feel that the temple gave me in Fable 1. The music also missed the mark, making me feel more like Indiana Jones than someone fearing for their life on the brink of death, or someone walking through dangerous uncharted desert.
• Lack of Weapon variety. You best like Hammers and Swords kids. Cause that's all you're going to see in Fable 3. Where as in Fable 1 we had a decent selection of weapons (9 weapons types as well as different levels of craftsmanship as well as legendary for each type) in this game however. They seemed to listen to the whinny little brats who moaned for "more legendarys" as a result we got less types of weapons (2 Close combat and 2 ranged) and about 10 legendary versions of each in different peoples games, meaning that you had to trade to get all of them (+ there were those downloaded via DLC) This made the gotta catch them mentality grow exponentially at the sacrifice of diverse combat. In Fable 1 every weapon felt different. A sword was an all round decent light weapon where as the Pick-axe sacrificed damage capability to be faster to block with and to hit with. In Fable 3 the only differences were what you do more damage to. Furthermore the apparent 'shifting weapons' is so unpredictable and contrived it makes my head truly shake. You'll end up getting a sword that has a weird bone hilt because when the game went over your stats it found that you killed 1 more guard than you did bandits and there's no going back to change it other than starting a new game or praying the game didn't autosave (which you cant turn off)
• The most evil thing is man! So, remember Trolls, Krakens and even spire guards that were in the previous games? Ditched. What has replaced them? 3 types of Aurorian stuff one of which is pretty much the Highway men from Fable 2. Remember Balverines? You don't encounter them in the story till the 2nd act and you don't encounter them in the wild until the VERY END OF THE GAME. Hobbs are still in the game however I will be honest and say that I preferred the ones Fable 2 (they got rid of the ones wearing stilts for lord sake.) Bandits come in only 2 forms Bandit and fire ball throwing bandit (which I liked). The undead make a return however they're very repetitive and hold no challenge for the player past the first encounter of them. But where's the other types of enemies? what about boss creatures? well there's ONE unique boss character/creature in the entire game. ONE! Fable 1 had (from the top of my head) SEVEN Fable 2 had two. The end boss (SPOILER) is a character introduced to you in the opening MINUTE of the game and he puts up next to no fight what so ever (Still better than Lucifer though)

• The Dog. Why Peter? Why did you put the dog in the game? It serves no relevance to the plot. In fact a character interacts with the Dog ONCE. ONCE! In the entire fucking story. said interaction lasts for three seconds. There's no emotional bond to build with it, there's reason to care what happens to it and there's not even a point to paying any attention to it other than when it acts like a fluffy metal detector. Even then it's path finding is broken so bad that you're better off looking for the treasure yourself. Seeing this dog had one good effect though. It made me want to stop playing the game and take my Dog for a walk. Even if it was raining outside. What would have been cool? If you had created some sort of creature that followed you around and acted like a creature in black and white. Casting spells and shit. That would have been cool. Barking constantly and making you want to stuff cotton wool in your ears isn't cool!

• I lost all connection to character and his story in the first few minutes of the game. It may possibly be a record. You see the thing is. Fable 3 assumes at points that you've already played the other Fable games. This is evident by nothing resembling a tutorial and no explanation the fundamentals that a new player would need to the story (about the Heroes guild, The Court of Shadow, Hero of Oakvale, how Hero abilities are preformed, why Heroes have an urge to eventually control etc. Luckily enough I know these answers. But I expect my character to ask these questions or at least be told about them, as we spend every waking hour with this character for what we're believed to be the stretch of about 2 years. In this time, none of the above is mentioned. Not even by Theresa how has literally been there since the beginning. And don't get me started on Hero blood line. (I'll talk about it anyway) When even one of your parents is a hero YOU BECOME A HERO. It doesn't skip children and it doesn't skip generations. Even in Fable 2 every single one of your kids would have the line "Daddy(/Mummy) Why can I do things the other children can't" A reference to the will powers evident in all his children. So why doesn't Logan have the power of will? It's a question that will never be answered however its a JOKE that the writers skipped over this fact and enraged me more than you would believe. I didn't believe for a second that the Prince/Princess in this story was a direct decedent of Scarlet Rose. Not for a second. On this note. Why doesn't the blood line ever get brought up again after Fable 1? In this characters blood there is the power TO END THE WORLD! even Theresa has the power to summon up from the void dark conjurations from the Old Kingdom and why doesn't she help with the events of the story. Other than being now over 700 years old. I feel that these sort of continuity errors (my best way to sum it up) have almost made the game unrecognizable as a Fable game. They should have just made it under a different name instead of tainting the original story like how it has been.
• The cock tease that was the Crawler. So there are some speculations that that the Crawler and Fable the Journey's Temptress are supposedly agents of The Court of Shadow, however this is just mere speculation as they both seem to have Shadow minions under their command. There's also speculation that they're agents of William Black (the first Hero, First Archon of the old world, creator of the Spire, Original wielder of the Sword of Aeons and the distant relative of the Hero of Oakvale. However this is also just speculation and is never touched upon in the actual games. Gamer's and Fable lore nerds like me have been praying for the return of Jack of Blades or other members of the Shadow Court. Instead we're presented with the Crawler. Now he does have some cool moments, resembling Banshees from Fable 2, which in turn resembled Screamers which were in turn, servants of Jack. However you never actually fight him, he's scared of light and he has next to NO power over a Hero. And this was supposed to be the main bad guy. The most evil thing since Jack? Yeah... I'm not very convinced. He was very disappointing and seemed to be a huge fucking middle finger to those of us who wanted to see Jack again.
• EVERY POINT made in the Angry Joe Show's video "32 reasons why Fable 3 sucked" I recommend that you watch it as there are actually 32 reasons why he hated the game. Such things include awful Co-Op, combat being too easy, the character not being able to die, the lack of menus, so many loading screens and many many more. Again, I highly recommend that you watch that video. It doesn't cover some of the points raised in this blog however. 

 On a side note I'm now on a total of 39 reasons why I didn't Like Fable 3. and there are so many. Including my issues with Fable 2.
I'll be honest with you, reader. I almost had a tear in my eye at how bad the Mass Effect 3 ending was. However this is a pale shade at the upset that I had at Fable 3. I know it's only a game. But to me it's also my childhood. Fable was how I interacted with my uncle whilst he was away with the navy. I used to level up his character, collect gold for him (I didn't realize how annoying that can be at the time). When I had a bad day at school, when depression got the better of me when I lied about things I shouldn't have and had to escape from the world. Fable 1 was my turn to game. It was escapism of the umpteenth degree for me. Some people have music, or books. I have video games and my own head. When someone RUBS SHIT into a story that you love and have a deep connection to you, you get pissed. Yes. I'm biased. Yes. Lion Head studios is effectively no more and there will be no more Fable games past this point unless someone has the balls to try and improve the cluster fuck if a mess this game is in. But this is a Blog. It's personal. When you destroy something that is dear to me. You make it personal. That's why I don't just Dislike Fable 3. I hate it!
... The Following picture is of a Cat.. I need to try n' cheer myself up! Tune in next time for Part 3...

 

Even the Lion is sad :(

Thanks for reading, If you have a positive or negative response let me know. If you think Sad Lion is Sad... let me know that too. I've been ThespianHunter... I'm going to cry in my pillow or some shit. I'll catch you next time.

What I think about: The Fable Series Part 1

Hello and welcome to ThespianHunter Blog. Where I chat shit about games, films, table top games and a whole bunch of useless crap we call entertainment. Tonight's post is a subject that is very dear to my heart; Fable. Let's not waste any time! Grab your Hobbs and let's pounce in like a Balverine.

Fable was created by the infamous LionHead studio, and at it's head was the notorious Peter Molyneux who in turn is famous for being head of Bull Frog studios, famous for bringing us games like Dungeon Keeper and Theme park. The games take place in the mythical land of Albion, roughly based off a combination of different Angelo Saxonesk Fables (hence the name). The world is dark dangerous and at times lawless in most of its regions with Bandits, the undead and Hobbs (small Goblin like creatures) plaguing the land. The original installment of the series was released in 2004 for the original Xbox and received pretty decent review  from critics and raving review from gamer's and quickly became a cult classic ... and eventually the subject of the curse of Lion Head - but that's a story for later.

In the original fable (and Fable the lost chapters, an expansion to the game adding extra story elements as well as a number of improvements to the vanilla game) focused around the Hero of Oakvale; a powerful, selectively mute (as he only talked during social expressions and never during combat or in the story) Hero who as a child witnesses his entire village being raided by Bandits and his family butchered where they stand ... or so it seems. The boy is saved by a Hero from the Hero academy (a place where gifted individuals are trained to do the tasks normal humans are unable to accomplish and we then follow his path to vengeance and, more importantly, his path to unlocking the secrets of his family.

That's the bare bones however as many of you will know... this is my number two game of all time. So if you would forgive me, I'll delve into the finer details... If for some reason you wish to not read spoils, scroll down to the next picture. 


It soon becomes clear that the Hero's sister and mother survived the attack. His sister had her eyes cut out and became a blind seer for the Bandit king of Albion and his mother has been locked away in a deep dark Prison by the evil Jack of Blades (my favorite video game villain of all time)  It later unravels that Jack is after  a sword capable of apocalyptic power known as the Sword of Eons and wishes to bring the end of the world into fruition. To do so however he needs the blood flowing in your family veins and he intends on collecting by force. It even later unravels in The Lost Chapters that Jack is in fact a being a far darker origin and has in fact been in possessing those who wear his fated mask and has existed since the dawn of time. Once defeating him a first time, you must defeat him in his true, dragon form. Along the way you'll be betrayed, ambushed , and even imprisoned for up to 60 years if you fail to escape when a chance arises. You do everything from fighting in a coliseum, defeating the Kraken and even communicating with the divine.

For those who are wondering... why is Jack my favorite villain in video game history? Well firstly, its the original voice. I was perfect. Not one interjection was out of place, every pitch, every breath every single letter seeped with conniving evil. His outfit is also stunningly brilliant, with the masquerade masks on the face as well as the armor itself. Furthermore EVERYTHING he does makes you want to hate him. He does everything an antagonist should do. He's the barrier from you achieving your goals, he's the force you wish to defeat (even if you're evil) and he's frigging evil incarnate. You can't get much better than Jack of Blades.

As well as having a fantastic story line. There are also so intuitive mechanics to back it up. Firstly is the  alignment mechanic. It allows you to play the game ether as a Hero or a Villain. Will you save people from the dark forces that lurk in the wild? Or will you be said dark force in the wild? It's totally up to you and there are tons of opportunities to reflect your chosen alignment in meaningful ways. Fundamentally the choice is yours and that's the major advantage to the game. 

Secondly is the combat, and oh lord will you be doing a lot of it. The combat stiles are separated into 3 categories. First is strength, you gain experience from killing things will swords and axes n' shit and it governs how much damage you can take in combat, as well as how heavy of a weapon you can wield and how much damage you can do with each swing. The next is skill, you can skill experience from killing this with bows, stealing from shops and villages houses as well as generally being as quick as an elf. Skill not only governs how fast you are in combat but also how sneaky you are and how much damage you do with a bow. Then finally there is will. You gain will experience from going Gandalf/Palpatine/Jesus on people's asses. Will is all about spells and how many spells you can cast on people in succession. Such spells include turning into the incredible hulk, casting lightning bolts from your finger tips, surrounding yourself with magical swords, teleporting behind people ... the list goes on. You can choose to be a jack of all trades kind of guy, focus on one or two or even just focusing on the one and becoming a killing machine in your chosen field. Although in cases the game goes out of its way to try and stop you from doing anything but broadly leveling up. This is due to missions that involve the only way to killing an enemy being via range attacks and even a mission where you have to sneak past bandits. This can sometimes be a kick in the teeth however to be fair, you'll be wanting to have a lot of tricks up your sleeve.
 However with every success, there's a complete and utter chain of fuck ups. However the motives were pure. There was an out cry via fans of the series for a new Fable game, this time to feature on the Xbox 360. We longed to return to the land we belonged. To do battle with the creatures we knew and loved. We wanted Fable 2.

Thirdly, and what works to the games advantage is frankly, just the amount of stuff you can do on the side. You can do side quests for people (of which there's not enough for this to keep you unlimitedly occupied) Join fight clubs, steal from people, gamble, go out into the wild and kill shit at your leisure as well as minor stuff like unlocking demon doors and getting silver keys to unlock chest. You can even be a landlord of a pub... if you kill the original owners first of course. This allows for hours upon hours of entertainment and keeps players coming back for more, and even re-rolling a character to see how things could go differently if they, for example, didn't murder everyone.

What we got was... "Fable" 2

Ah yes! That fated trailer that made gamer's everywhere call to arms in ready to return to their fated home. And oh how it let us down.

Now to be honest Fable 2 wasn't awful game, it just was't as good as we were expecting. The story takes place through the eyes of a decedent of the Hero of Oakvale. In this dark Victorian themed future heroes have been driven out and all but exterminated. Individuals with heroic powers are very rare. However you have the powers in your blood line and through a cruel series of events. You're left almost dying and forced to become a Hero like your ancestor.

There's a return of the Hero of Oakvale's sister as well as star appearance from Stephen Fry and Ron Glass as well as a return of the series classics such as Balverines and Hobbs. There's also a return of the 3 point skill window however it seems very much simplified compared to Fable 1 and basically as a squeal. 

The problem is however so gleamingly awful that it spoils the game for me. Almost everything they added to the formula was shite. Here's a list I like to call:

Shit added to Fable 2 that was crap!

1. Mans best friend. George Lucas put its right when he says that "you must be able to hear the emotion in your characters voice, by hearing this you can emotionally connect with the character yourself". It's why he flipped a lit when the makers of Force Unleashed originally wanted to make a game about a Wookie. It sounds strange given how we can relate to a Wookie but not the Dog in the Fable games. The reason being, that there's no advantage to looking after your dog. Not only this but the ways in which you do look after your dog are ether non-existent, awfully implemented or plainly too much of a hassle to carry out. The leading story from where we meet the Dog as a pup is quite heart warming and allows for some connection to the "character" however via combination of "You wouldn't go save Navi from a monster!" This, what was advertised as a leading feature, one which would "change how we play games forever" was crap. Cheers Pete.
2. Death on two legs! The fact is. It is IMPOSSIBLE to die in Fable 2. You cannot die. It will never happen, You will fall to the ground and then kick the living shit out of everything around you. This means that there's NO suspense of any kind, no point in having to train your character to face what is to come and I'd even go as far as creating little or no point to doing ANYTHING other than progressing through the main story. THIS IS NOT FUN! An analogy if you would permit it. You're chatting up a girl. However it becomes obvious that not only is she not really that nice of a person but she also plays for the other team and isn't sexually attracted to you in any sense of the notion. You wouldn't go and buy her flowers, learn about her likes and dislikes and you wouldn't bother asking her out to lunch or out down town. Reason why? Cause what's the fucking point?! It would be like entering trails for a professional football team when you ain't got no fucking legs! The idea to make the character unable to die was one of the most stupid ideas ever conjured by a games developer. Cheers Pete
3. You can take my blunderbuss nuclear cannon from my cold dead hands. This one wasn't necessarily something they did wrong, but something that didn't do right and it links with the previous link. When you become death on two legs the game becomes less about "what am I best with?" but rather "what is going to dispatch these people quickest?" This leads to anything other than power playing idiotic at best. Legendary weapons don't become side-grades of each other but rather there's the one weapon that is the best and the one ranged weapon that's the best and one spell, if you use anything other than these, you're an idiot. What would have made more sense if they had actually balanced each weapon and fighting stile instead of making Will too powerful and making range weapons a better choice than close combat ones. This also meant that if you wanted to play a particular play style you were basically shooting yourself in the foot. Cheers Pete.

Now we move onto the other list... this list goes far beyond what they added... this is the top 5 reasons why Fable 2 sucked

• Number 5: The story. It was bland, inferior to Fable 1, It was far too short, the areas you explored were at times boring and the character saw itself returning to regions more than others and spending only one mission in one area. If this wasn't enough There's also little to no acknowledged to Fable 1's story in the slightest.
• Number 4: Co-Op. It was awful. You couldn't go too far away from each other. There were frequent lag issues, there were no co-op themed parts in the game what so ever and due to the game being too easy, there was no need to bring a friend to the fight. Worse of all, it didn't scale at all, so it become even easier to play.
• Number 3: Jobs. They're pointless little mini games that make you grind cash. They were boring, unimaginative and yet again, there was no reason for it to be there due to the fact you couldn't die
• Number 2: the previous list.
• Number 1: Lucifer the worst bad guy in the history of gaming. His voice actor was okay however didn't feature in the game enough for this to be a redeeming factor. There's no boss battle of any description  and... which may I just say... Is a joke to the gaming industry it's even possible that the FINAL boss of the game, is killed FOR YOU... Yeah, couldn't make it any more easier if you tried, could you Pete?! The biggest pity of them all is that they HAD a fantastic antagonist in the form of Jack, and they fans begged and pleaded to see him return. But no, the settled with grieving lunatic obsessed with domination. 

  

However in all fairness there was Fable 2 had some redeeming points. Firstly money management became much easier than in the previous game and it became possible to rent out houses without having to kill the occupants before hand. Furthermore visually the game looked far better, and at times became quite beautiful for its time. Also The player did get to return to some regions of Albion previously explored, however not enough history of from then to now was carried out.

So... this wraps up part 1. In the next part I will talk about the money making schemes of Microsoft as well as the dreaded F3 ( I can't even bring myself to calling it a fable game ) as well as F heroes and F the Journey

I hope you enjoyed reading my first part to the analysis of the Fable games  if you have a positive or negative response let me know in the comments bellow or just say anything... please... anything! 
My names been ThespianHunter I thought the Demon Door's name was SHIT and I'll catch you later