Plus, just because you can choose between “good” and “bad” things in this game doesn’t mean its makers have the same idea about right and wrong as you do. Down a rung from them, you can pull out a sword or crossbow to shoot and dismember the grisly creatures of the forest-and blow the heads off all the townspeople you encounter.” All that’s still true here. Lying, crude language (“h‑‑‑,” “d‑‑n,” “b‑‑tard,” “a‑‑”) and heavy drinking are a few of the lesser infractions. Along with noble decisions, the game’s designers” make sure that there’s ” lots of leeway when it comes to moral indiscretions. But as I noted in my review of Fable II, ” Those choices can also make for problematic play. The results of your choices often mirror real life-if, of course, your real life is that of an aspiring king in a fantastical land. But converting it into a brothel will bring in big tax dollars to help build a necessary army. Do you follow through on your promises and perhaps endanger the kingdom, or squeeze the people “for their own good?” Turning a building into an orphanage will help the underprivileged, for instance. If you do win over the various factions and eventually take the kingdom, then there’s a whole new set of choice-making that will shape the king or queen your hero will be. Of course, these potential warring pals want you to offer a few promises and prove your heroic grit-through a variety of kill-the-monster quests-before they’ll throw in their support. And so the lion’s share of the game entails traveling throughout the land, learning kingly lessons and activating allies who will join in the revolt. That painful beginning makes one decision obvious: Brother Logan must be removed from power. And when your young hero objects, Logan orders you to choose between condemning the sign-waving villagers or sending your best friend to the gallows. In fact, as the game opens, Logan has sentenced a group of angry peons to death with a tyrannical wave of his hand. But at this point, heroic Pop of yestergame has passed away and your elder sibling Logan has his iron fist wrapped around the royal scepter. Your royal guy or gal is one of two children sired by the last game’s central character-a hero who ended up becoming a beloved monarch. The action gets started some 50 years after the last game’s conclusion and you wake up as a full-grown prince or princess in the industrial-age kingdom of Albion. You don’t start out as a kid who grows up into his devil-horned or shiny-haloed future self, for one thing. This version of the good-guy-or-bad-guy adventure, however, has a few new twists up its storytelling sleeves. There you shape your character’s story through a bevy of this-or-that choices and moral decisions. As with past Fable games, Microsoft Game Studios’ Fable III invites you to step into a colorful and captivating fairy tale world.

Fable 3 prince or princess