Member Fable

Another cool feature is that of photograph locations throughout the map that when touched display a viewpoint from the original Xbox game. This is quite nifty as it allows you to match up with your television and see exactly what has been improved for the Anniversary edition. It’s also said that backgrounds for key players have been written and are viewable upon meeting them, but I was unable to find how to access these. A title update will be supposedly be released on launch day, so perhaps they will become easier to find then. The only real negative of the experience is that it doesn’t show the NPCs that can be interacted with on the map. Unfortunately, this makes it so you can’t rely solely on your tablet/smartphone, which is a bit of a bummer.

What better way to reinvent a gaming franchise than taking away the controller? It’s a risky proposition to turn one of the most successful Xbox franchises into a Kinect-only title, but that’s exactly what’s been done with Fable. Instead of producing a family-friendly mini-game based game, however, Lionhead Studios have created a full-blown Adventure game beginner Guide that manages to rival the main canon in scope. Not only is Fable: The Journey an evolution of the series, but a crucial experiment to see if Kinect can manage to produce a story-driven experience with nothing but the player’s body.

Besides combat and travel, there are plenty of other motion-based opportunities throughout Albion. Activities like corralling chickens, lighting lanterns and moving obstacles may seem mundane, but serve to enrich the experience, making sure there’s always a fresh task to keep players interested. Most of these secondary actions have their own unique movements to avoid redundancies. Not content to let your arms have all the fun, there will be times where multiple paths can be selected from by bending your torso left or right. With all the different movements, it’s clear Lionhead was content on utilizing the full potential of motion-control.

The Journey takes place fifty years after the events of Fable III. Players take on the role of Gabriel, a dweller who is living a happy, but simple life with his tribe in Albion. After a sudden lightning storm, Gabriel is separated from his caravan and forced to find an alternate route to reunite with them. Soon after, our hero is caught up in the attack of an earth-shattering force known as The Corruption. Narrowly escaping the spreading darkness, Gabriel meets the mysterious Theresa. The last of the hero bloodline, she’s tasked with protecting the world from evil that threatens it. Gabriel must help restore her power by taking her to the Tattered Spire. To assist in this quest, spell-casting bracelets are harnessed to protect them from the evils of Albion.


With prosthetic limbs becoming ever more advanced, the world of cyberpunk shooter series Deus Ex is starting to seem like a realistic vision of the future. As human beings start to use technology to evolve their own biology, the player is faced with some hard choices regarding what the future of the human race should look like, and how it should be governed. The original Deus Ex is still the pinnacle of the series, but Deus Ex: Human Revolution was the title that really demonstrated just how great a movie adaptation could l


There aren't all that many good movies based on video games, but maybe that's just because the right adaptation hasn't come along yet. Video games are more cinematic and visually impressive now than ever before, and their popularity means that Hollywood is continuing to try and find ways of turning major video game franchises into major movie franchi

Movement off the horse, such as in a dungeon or mine, occurs with no player input, putting focus solely on clearing away baddies. Combat is handled via two main powers controlled by each hand. The right hand casts a damage-dealing attack spell, while the left hand can push enemies back or fling environmental objects at them. To execute either attack, you simply aim at the intended target and push your lower arm away from your upper arm with the palm facing out. While it’s a simple combat system, it truly feels that you are the one casting the spells -- always a victory for motion-based titles. Common variances like needing the left hand to pull the armor off of an enemy, while dealing damage with the right prevents gameplay from seeming stale.

With a sprawling, graphically intense world part of a near fifteen-hour campaign, Fable: The Journey breaks any conceptions of what a Kinect title can be. It’s not demo material or a novelty release, but an uncompromising Adventure game beginner guide game that weaves an engrossing story while utilizing the full potential of motion control. It doesn’t always work flawlessly, but the sheer ambition alone makes it a must-own for Fable and Kinect fans alike.

Peter Molyneux’s role in the gaming industry has been one of the longest in the industry’s history, with his first game, The Entrepreneur , being released in 1984. The Entrepreneur , despite Molyneux’s enthusiasm toward it, was a mass commercial failure, said to have sold only two copies (one of which rumored to be from his own mother). After the game’s brutal release, Molyneux left the industry for the next three years, until he teamed up with Les Edgar to begin the game development company Bullfrog Productions. Though the company released a scrolling shooter named Fusion a year before, 1989 marked the release of Populous , Molyneux’s claim to fame and what is arguably the very first "god game." Populous was a commercial success, becoming the best-selling game from the company and becoming the progenitor for future strategy games of its kind. Further Bullfrog games like Dungeon Keeper followed in Populous’ wake until Molyneux created Lionhead Studios to produce other god games like Black and White . Molyneux steadily continued experimenting with new ways to play with Fable on Xbox and use of Microsoft’s Kinect peripheral (with the tech demo Milo ). Currently with 22 Cans Studios, Molyneux is developing a "spiritual successor" to his game Populous called Godus , which met funding goals on Kickstarter in 2012.