Fable creator promises much

During my 35-minute interview with the famed British game designer Peter Molyneux, he twice mentions farting.

In fact, Molyneux, the brains behind such PC games as Populus, Syndicate, Black and White, and Magic Carpet, jokes that just having the fart mechanic in Fable 2 - where the game's hero can break wind at the press of a button - was enough to sell 50,000 copies of the game in Britain alone.

Molyneux is sitting on a leather chair in a small room on the first floor of software giant Microsoft's booth at the E3 expo in Los Angeles, his arms waving as he tells a small group of journalists about his next game, Fable 3, due out on the Xbox 360.

Molyneux , who has in the past been accused of overselling features of his games then under- delivering, gets animated when he talks about the changes in Fable 3, the third game in the role- playing series set in the mythical kingdom of Albion.

"I want to have the most unique story ever, but why be trapped in a role-playing game [RPG]? Why can't we move from RPG to action - and keep all the RPG stuff? Just because it's a third in the series why can't we introduce totally new game play mechanics that have never been seen in Fable, or indeed in any other game? That's exactly what we've done."

Story is important, says Molyneux, adding that the development team questioned the traditional hero defeats bad guy scenario.

"Your job in the game is that you start off with some of your hero power, which you slowly build up, but you try to get followers. There are places where you can get more followers. The more I get, the more powerful I become and the closer I get to overthrowing Logan, our bad guy. When you do overthrow him, that's the halfway point of the game. After that we allow you to become king, we allow you to rule Albion. The second half of the story is a story of power, responsibility and consequences."

Molyneux wants to shake up the traditional perception of a role-playing game.

"The first problem in an RPG is that it's all about experience. How do you get experience? You fight and kill things. We've thrown away experience and replaced it with followers. You get followers by doing anything in the world. If you fight well, you get people respecting you more and you'll get more followers. If you fight poorly, you'll lose followers."

Players can now pull, drag, guide or lead other characters at the press of a trigger on the game controller. Embarking on quests is also handled differently in Fable 3, with Molyneux especially proud of the game's inventory management system.

"Now when you press that button, instead of going to some 2D list, I go to this place called the Sanctuary, a place where everything I find and collect in the game appears."

Molyneux has also rejigged the levelling-up mechanic so common in RPG games.

"In Fable 3 the hero will level up - his muscles will get bigger, he'll get fatter if he eats too many pies - but why do we concentrate the levelling up just on the hero? Why shouldn't we level up or change things to reflect the type of player that you are, the things that you use?"

To demonstrate, Molyneux pauses the demonstration of Fable 3 and points at the sword the onscreen hero is wielding.

"Take this sword. If you use it for three hours, you'll notice the curvature of the blade becomes different, it will change. If you start to kill lots of innocent people with this sword, it will start to drip blood. If you kill lots of evil things with it, it will start glowing.

"But why not have the ability to sell this sword online? To trade it with other people? Why not have the ability to mix into that sword your Gamerscore and your achievements so that your weapon is as unique as you are, then trade it online?"

I ask him if, because the second half of the game is all about power and consequences, will everybody end the game differently.

"My ambition is that everyone will finish the game differently. That's actually my dream, that everybody's game feels slightly different. The only problem is that what I've found is this really weird thing that the way people complete games is very much based on their nationality.

"Around about 80 per cent of Americans just cannot bring themselves to be anything but wonderfully good. British people, on the other hand, tend to take the darker side of the world. That's why we've got the farting mechanic in there."

Molyneux says morality and consequence play a much stronger role in Fable 3. "There's the saying that power corrupts, but absolute power absolutely corrupts. I want people to be tempted by that power. When you've got power, what are you going to do to hang on to that power?"

* Fable 3 is out on the Xbox 360 in October. Oh, it's also heading to the PC sometime, as well.

- © Fairfax NZ News