Lionhead Studios founder and Fable creator Peter Molyneux is gone, and with him all of his grandiose dreams and promises. But before he departed, he left behind one last crazy idea: Fable: The Journey, a lighter, Kinect-only spinoff of the popular Xbox-exclusive role-playing series. It’s now in the hands of Molyneux’s right-hand man of 22 years, the affable Gary Carr, and a few key changes are already evident. I’d seen it in chunks and pieces already – a controlled presentation nearly a year and a half ago at E3 2011, a Molyneux-led tech demo earlier this year, and an E3 kiosk build this year (though let’s face it, the E3 show floor is no place to get a fair feel for a game like this) – but now I’ve finally had a chance to sit down with the near-final game and play from the beginning. Does the gameplay work? And as usual, we have to ask, does the Kinect work?
The answers are, interestingly, “yes” and “maybe.”
"A horse is a horse, of course, of cou...OH MY GOD WHAT IS THAT?!"
The knee-jerk reaction to any off-the-wall idea like this – the crux of The Journey, by the way, has you holding horse reins for half the game and conjuring up magic spells with your hands in the other half – tends to be one of disdain, particularly when Kinect is involved. But, like NBA Baller Beats before it, what good is Kinect if game developers don’t use it to think outside the box? The Journey is a genuinely fresh take on Kinect gaming, and its fit within the Fable universe is a natural one. I’ve yet to see spell-casting done well with Microsoft’s motion controller, and the fact that it’s designed to be played while seated is a huge plus.
As the game begins, it’s obvious from both the game itself and because he tells me directly that Carr’s major change to Molyneux’s original vision are tutorials. When I saw Fable: The Journey six months ago, Molyneux opined idealistically about not wanting to have a single tutorial; about letting players figure out the game naturally. Carr flatly admitted to me that this is a necessary concession, as he says Lionhead risks scaring players away or allowing them to learn less-than-ideal ways to play if they’re not there.
In fact, the entire first hour of the game is essentially one long tutorial. Don’t take that as quite the cringe-inducing statement it likely conveys, but I did find parts of the first hour to drag on a bit.
Theresa (left) will be the lone familiar Fable face in The Journey.
After an initial cutscene that introduces you to innocent young hero Gabriel and his trusty steed Seren, you’re literally handed the reins to your horse-drawn carriage. You’re taught to steer, to stop, and to manage Seren’s speed. You’ll meet Fable staple Theresa, be introduced to The Journey’s primary evil threat, and even level up for the first time, where you can choose to upgrade the strength or health for yourself or your mount.
Things pick up considerably once your magical abilities enter into the picture, however, and that’s also where they interesting. And yes, it’s also where the “maybe” answer from earlier comes into play. Raise your right hand to your shoulder to ready the basic-attacking Bolt spell, and then whip your arm forward at whichever area of the screen you want the projectile to go. The left hand, meanwhile, is your Push spell, with which you tether onto objects and can fling them about.
You’ll level up and gain more power as you go, but even in the early section of the game, I got hooked on the Bolt’s “aftertouch” ability. Yep, you’re able to fling a Bolt out and then wave your hand in another direction, causing your launched projectile to change course. That means you can hit foes that are behind cover and around corners. You absolutely feel like a magical badass when you start redirecting magic that’s already left your hands.
Zapping these big bugs with the spells cast from your Kinect-ified hands is actually quite fun.
Before long I was tethering the giant bug-like Rockmite creatures, flinging my left hand aside, and tossing them off of ledges while simultaneously blasting other ones with my right-hand Bolt spell. But then it started to go downhill. Spells started casting to the edges of the screen no matter where I aimed, leaving me unable to hit anything. Carr, watching over my shoulder, theorized that my frequent mid-game note-taking, during which I’d hunch forward to jot down something, was being interpreted by the game as “playing,” and thus it was trying to adapt my “gestures” as player behavior.
So he reset the game to default Kinect calibration, sat down to play himself, and sure enough, it worked like a charm. Perhaps the game’s “machine learning,” as Carr called it, will actually be detrimental to the game? More time with the final version will be needed in order to verify, but for now I’ll have to remain cautiously optimistic.
Ultimately, I very much want to like Fable: The Journey. It’s a unique take on an established series that retains the franchise’s artistic charm while trying a left-field idea with Kinect. Will it all work in the end? I think so…if Kinect physically allows it to. But, as Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor has shown us, that’s a big “if.”
Ryan McCaffrey is the Executive Editor at IGN Xbox. He used to own a DeLorean, which is weird. Follow him on Twitter, on IGN, catch him on Podcast Unlocked, and drop-ship him Taylor Ham sandwiches from New Jersey whenever possible.
Source : ign[dot]com
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