Review: Fable: The Journey (XBOX 360)

Fable: The Journey is an interesting experiment as it takes a ‘core-like’ gaming experience, making it a Kinect only motion-based video game.

It’s probably safe to assume most in the gaming industry see Kinect — the motion sensing peripheral for the Xbox 360 — as a magnet for shovel ware, and when we think of it we don’t think of ‘core’ gaming titles like <em<gears of War, Halo and Fable.

With Fable: The Journey both Microsoft and developers Lionhead Studios are looking to change this preconception by delivering a surprisingly deep game which completely uses Kinect in place of a standard controller.

Did they succeed? Read on and find out.

The Review

Fable: The Journey caught me off guard by how good it actually was. A Kinect game that was able to deliver a fully realized gaming experience, and not just a collection of gimmicky mini-games. Sure, it doesn’t offer that same rich exploration or deep customization found in previous Fable games, but it still looked and felt like a Fable game.

The game’s plot takes place 50 years after the event of Fable 3, where the age of heroes is well and truly ended. After being separated from his group of travelling caravans, a young lad by the name of Gabriel comes across a ruined village. It’s here he finds an ancient evil, simply named the Corruption, as it attempts to destroy Theresa — the blind seer from previous games. She tells Gabriel of the Corruptions plan to destroy Albion, and the two come together to put a stop to it.

As standard of the series, the story is filled with loveable and humorous characters who exude a special style of charm. Gabriel himself is likeable from the get-go, a care-free lad who is inspired by the old fables of heroes and their grand adventures. When faced with the opportunity to be one himself however, he humbly refuses he has what it takes. This, of course, adds a layer of believability to him as a character, and personally I became invested in his personal journey from care-free soul to harden hero willing to do what it takes to save the world.

From a visual stand-point the game retains the series’ story-book like art design, though with the added muscle of the Unreal 3 engine Albion has never looked this good. Character models are fully animated in amazing new ways not seen in the series before, and environments pop out of the screen with a cartoon-y realism. Though, as we’ve come to expect of the Unreal 3 engine, various graphical imperfections do spring up, including delayed texture pop-ins.

I suppose the need to capture that particular <emFable vibe was paramount since Lionhead really are treading new ground here. They’ve essentially asked players to re-learn how they interact with games — finally ushering in the type of experience Microsoft were hoping for when Kinect was but a sketch in some office meeting room.

And to this end, Lionhead have done well enough to take gameplay elements generally performed with a traditional controller and instead have us do it with our bodies. Steering your house and cart is done by moving your arms in a particular manner to steer it left or right, ‘shooting’ magic at your enemies by thrusting your arms forward towards the TV screen and changing your equipped spells by waving your hands.

Side-stepping for a moment; the magic in Fable: The Journey is probably one of the coolest things of seen in a motion-based game. Not only does the visual flair of the spells look remarkable thanks to Unreal 3, but the skill progression and additions of multiple spells makes for some measure of customization.

All these motion-based actions, as well as many more that are implemented into the gaming experience all work well on a fundamental level. However the sad truth is the technology behind this ambitious title just isn’t up to par. At the end of the day there is too many deterring factors to Kinect’s overall level of performance. Factors which put simply, detract and ruin the enjoyable gameplay experiences found in Fable: The Journey.

I was often forced to restart my game as a result of Kinect suddenly loosing the ability to properly track my movement. This generally occurred not long after pausing the game and walking away for whatever reason, but also happened even if I hadn’t gone anywhere for long periods of time. I would attempt to perform gestures with my hands — like thrust my arms forward to shoot at enemies — only to find my actions weren’t getting picked up by the sensor. In other words, Kinect’s underlining technological flaws resulted in game-breaking moments.

But I digress. From a gameplay perspective Lionhead have done well to implement 100% motion sensing gameplay into a game that feels like a ‘core’ experience, despite how bare bones it feels. Fable: The Journey plays out as an on-the-rails type game and so a lot of actions are restricted.

Where the game feels fleshed out is its tendency to just ‘feel’ like a much deeper game that it really is. This extends mostly to the inclusion of dungeons — complete with puzzles and problem solving — and optional routes and side-quest like ‘exploration areas’. For the most part these usually involve Gabriel moving from the cart to a treasure chest and back, generally while fighting off enemies, but it helps shake up the horse/cart gameplay that makes up most of game’s play-length.

If anything I would had liked to see a blend of traditional controls and motion-sensing gameplay. Like I stated previously the motion-sensing elements are implemented rather well, it’s only all of the physicality requires sees you worn out after too long, so having this often intense gameplay broken up with some exploration using the controller would had I think gone a long way.

Despite the technical pit-falls of Kinect, Fable: The Journey shows that when done right, motion-sensing mechanics can be used in a fully flesh out game. While it may be a little simple in being basically a glorified on-the-rails game, elements you’d expect from other ‘core’ games like light exploration, puzzle solving and skill tree progression and upgrades make it feel so much more.

As a Fable game however, Fable: The Journey is surprisingly one of the better ones, offering a charming tale with equally charming characters.