Fable III

I have just finished playing the famous RPG game Fable III on Games for Windows Live (G4WL) [PC]. I will try to summarize and critic this game without giving any spoilers, yet showing how my path in the kingdom played out.

If you have never played any of the games of the Fable series before then there are some basic things you should know that is a constant throughout all 3 of the games that are currently out. The Fable stories are based around your character called The Hero. Being a hero means you posses the power of magic, strength, and stature. Heroes have the ability of not just using magic, swords, and firearms, but as well how they use them. You have the choice to choose whether you will use your powers for good or for selfish/evil nature. Throughout each of the 3 games you are given choices whether to take the righteous path or a more or less evil path.

I have played Fable I and II multiple times attempting and succeeding in having different outcomes of my choices being from the most pure of heart heroes to being an evil despicable villain. In Fable III I choice the path I always choose first when playing any Fable game for the first time. I play as a righteous, good natured hero.

A screenshot of my Hero

The choices you make in Fable III have consequences that will affect all of the kingdom of Albion. These choices you make not only alter the world around you but your being itself. Your very body morphs with your morality, sprouting wings of angels, or black wings of moths as well as devilish horns.

This is a fun game to play, being either solo or if you wish to play multiplayer over G4WL or if you are playing on the Xbox 360 over Xbox Live. There are even special achievements specifically for playing online with another hero.

If you have played the other Fable games then to compare Fable III to the first two Fable games I would give it a lower rating as far as gameplay goes, however I believe Fable III to have a better storyline than Fable II.

Something I was surprised and somewhat disappointed in with Fable III was there was less clothing options. I find it boring looking at the same clothing all the time. In Fable II there was many different types of clothing available which I enjoyed. I even was able to create a clothing set that somewhat resembled the infamous antagonist of Fable I.

To sum it up, Fable III took me approximately 34 hours of play time to beat, not including any downloadable content which I have yet to buy. I could cut this play time down significantly but would sacrifice playing through exactly how I would want to. When I play through again as my morally-inept character I believe I will be able to cut out that large time frame.

Rating:

Graphics: 10/10

Gameplay: 8/10

Storyline: 9/10

Online Play: N/A (I haven't played online with anyone yet so I could get the full experience of the game playing as the sole hero.)

Overall: 9/10

Games Currently Playing - Shaiya

Shaiya is a Free 2 Play MMORPG game that I have been playing in 2009. Shaiya is a fantasy game which is centered mainly around Player vs Player (PvP) with two different factions Aliance of Light (AoL) and Union of Fury (UoF) being the different balances of light side vs dark side.

There is are some quest lines which can be followed, but they are somewhat on the boring side, and with the exception of some decent experience and quest items given, they are not really worth the effort to complete them.

The reason or meaning of what kept my attention on this game for 3 years running now is the PvP and gaining ranking on the leader boards to be the best of the best on the server.

I have actually quit playing the main servers for Shaiya and joined a private server called Shaiya Exile. Exile is a well known private server because it was created by LilProHacker -known throughout the Shaiya community for his hacks, ect. and now his very own server.

Each faction has 6 different classes to choose from to play as. The available classes to choose from are:
AoL- Mage, Priest, Fighter, Defender, Archer, Ranger
UoF- Pagan, Oracle, Warrior, Guardian, Hunter, Assassin

The order of each class are the corresponding between factions, Mage = Pagan, Priest = Oracle, so on so forth.

I have played on both factions, and I have played each class in depth. Shaiya Exile is based off of the original Shaiya but in Episode 4, meaning it has less content than original Shaiya, however the players on Exile like ep. 4 because of the way it was set up. In ep. 4 the level cap is set to lvl 60 with 4 different playing modes, Normal, Hard, Ultimate, and Exile mode (Exile mode is special to this server [obviously]). I have several characters at the level cap (lvl 60) including, priest, fighter, defender, hunter, and assassin. My main character that I solely use now is my assassin which is maxed out with armor, weapons, and stats. My assassin is ranked 7th out of all assassins/rangers and ranked 89th overall on the server.



This game is a lot of fun if you like PvP like I do. The focus on Shaiya is PvP, but to stand a chance against veteran players like myself you will need special Lapis which are stones linked into armor and weapons to increase stats such as strength dexterity and luck. Most of these lapis can be obtained through vigorous farming without being disturbed by the other faction; however, the better lapis being elemental lapis are from bosses that spawn daily in PvP zones.


click to zoom in

Here is a picture of what stats will look like when you are 100% done linking. Your typical pvp on Exile will have 2 to 4 armor tops all linked the same with the exception of 1 of each elemental lapis, same as weapons having each elemental weapon lapis. To get all 4 for each 100% linked would take a long time however, especially for the armor top which holds a specialty lapis "The Exiled Lapis" (TEL) which adds +60 to each stat and takes up 2 linking slots. 2 of these lapis drop a week on each faction's side so they aren't easy to come by. I have 2 armor tops both of them linked with these TEL and water/wind lapis, and 2 weapons fire/earth, this gives me a little bit of leniency to make it more difficult for people to kill me and a better chance of killing people faster.

To wrap it up this is a fun pvp game, it can take about 2 weeks to link armor with the necessity lapis, a little longer for the more rare lapis, but this private server is worth a look if you enjoy a good challenging game.

Rating
Graphics: 7/10
Gameplay:10/10
Server:10/10 (new server host no lag all is great)
Storyline: 2/10
Overall: 9/10

This rating is meant for the game and the private server Shaiya Exile. I have a moral disagreement with the way the original server is run and I will not play there anymore. The greed of the original game developers takes away the fun of the game.

Games Currently Playing - Vindictus

I have just finished playing Fallout: New Vegas including the DLC Honest Hearts. I will do a review on this later. The game I am now currently playing is a Free 2 Play MMORPG game called Vindictus.

Vindictus is a button mashing hack n' slash type of game. By this I mean, your controls (if you use your mouse like I do) are left click for normal attack, and right click for smash attack, and you just use a combination of the attack and smashes to create skill moves.

I had actually started playing this game several months ago, though I had lost interest in the game with the little features it had at the time. The game developers have recently just updated the game to have a new character, quests, skills, and more. This caught my attention and I am now interested and playing again for the time being.




Here is are pictures of the currently playable characters. I have all characters created, but I am focusing on leveling only 1 character at the moment, a Fiona character. The level cap in this game has been raised to 70 from level 44 pre-patch. The leveling in this game is not complicated at all there are quests that give experience, the higher level you get the harder the quests get, but the more experience you get. I am currently more than halfway to the level cap and so far what I have seen with my Fiona character has kept my interest. Fiona is a defensive character wielding a single handed weapon (long sword or long hammer) and a shield. I fancy the hammer, it is slower than the sword, but it has higher damage, another reason I like the hammer is what I've seen it has a wider range of attack being able to hit enemies in nearly 360° with a smash attack. With good timing all damage can be negated on Fiona making her a very vital character in boss battles. I have no real opinion of the other characters because I have not played them enough as of yet to say anything.

This game is based all around team work,so Fiona alone will not be as successful as a party of heroes. Normal quests can have up to 4 players total (including yourself). The big boss bottles are raid battles with up to 8 players.

One of my favorite things in this game is the customization of armor and your character itself. With the new dye ampule feature added to the game there are characters with many bright, vibrant, and unique sets of armor. This makes the game cosmetically more fun to play.

Problems with this game, at the moment the server has been having issues, perhaps with the new content has brought a lot of people in, but there has been a lot of lag which is disappointing.

Rating:

Graphics: 8.5/10

Gameplay: 8/10

Storyline: 5/10

Server: 3/10 until they update the server and have less lag

Overall: 8/10

[Edit] Server is all better! 10/10 no lag unless you get in a game with a person who should not be hosting the party. If that's the case just drop the party and go make your own or join a different party.

Introduction

I created this blog because I love to play video games. So I will be posting updated blogs of games I'm playing, have played, or am intending on playing. I will do reviews of all games I play and update how far I have gotten into games.

I play many different types or genres of games. I play Xbox 360, and PC games mainly. My favorite type of games are RPGs. There are also some MMO games I will review.

I am always interested in trying new games if I have the time to do so.

If anyone is interested in my opinions then feel free to comment, or leave your own opinions of games you've played.