And for those that care about game length...it took me around 12 hours to complete, though I didn't get nearly all the quests done I wanted to get done.

The game does let you continue playing though after beating it to wrap up the quests.

Sounds great! To be honest, I was never a big fan of the radial emoticon menu since it always felt a little cumbersome and unnecessary, so not a big deal for me. Everything else sounds good.

Oh, yeah, clothing having no stats is carried over from Fable II. I love it, since I can dress how I want instead of how I 'need' to.

Cool, maybe this is one to play with the wife. I always like that prospect. Thanks for the review, Nick!

Despite having generally positive things to say about this one, including that it's a "must own game" - and yet it's just a 3.5? I'm nothing but completely baffled by the ratings here.

The 3.5 is the Co-Op score (meaning he thought the co-op sections were 3.5/5), he gave it a 4 in General review.

It sounds like they have improved the co-op, but that it is still really a solo experience. You said enough positive things that I am interested in getting this now!

3.5 is AgtFox stated the co-op score. 4 out of 5 is the overall score - this is Co-Optimus after all!

I'm really excited to tyranize -is that a word? Quick google search, and...no it's not- I'm real excited to 'evil it up' in Albion with my trusty canine. I wonder if you still get horns?

It is very much a word - but spelt tyrannise. Go ahead Cubninja and live that dream.

Dang it, Sam! My Americanese is no match for your Britishican mastery!

Did you play local or online co-op?

Looking for to playing this in co-op .

i played both. They released the patch early so I was able to find a few sessions of online co-op to play.

Great review, and it sounds a bit deeper than Fable 2. Glad to hear the co-op is much improved as well. Still, I don't quite understand why the co-op score is a bit lower. In the review it sounds great, from being able to carry over your own player to joining financial forces. Was it just the lack of carrying over quests back to the single player game and the easy combat, or was there something else you thought could have been done better? Also, are there co-op combo moves like Fable 2 had?

In general the co-op doesn't add a whole lot to the experience. The business aspect of it is pretty huge, but from a gameplay perspective it just doesn't feel like it adds a whole bunch.

There's also some moments throughout the game where co-op is annoying - for instance if a player goes into the sanctuary you are brought there as a ghost. You can go to your sanctuary from there but it's an extra, unnecessary step.

It's these little things that really make it feel less polished in co-op.

Ahh, gotcha. At least the guest player is able to do something while the hosting player is in his Sanctuary...no more paused screen!

Having never played Fable before this question might sound silly, but is there different difficulty levels to the game? Also, is it worth getting into this game having never played the first 2?

--- Replying to Slayer89 -----

I'm not an expert since I haven't played Fable III yet, but I don't think there is too much of a storyline tying the two games together to the point that you would be lost (storyline-wise) not having played the second one.

Having played for a bit last night with Ziero, I'm curious if you hit any lag or glitching while playing co-op. We joined up just after leaving the first town, and didn't seem to have any issues until we hit the first dungeon. Then I (the joining player) hit massive lag when the first wave of enemies hit. We also encountered a glitch where it wouldn't recognize our weapon selections when the options first came up.

I joined three separate sessions, one of them the fights were pretty lag filled, the others seemed fine. I had no idea where the person was from (no mic) - so I figured it may have been across the pond or something.

em did i read right, you cant complete quests while in someones else game?

--- Replying to Holymadman -----

You can join another player in his quests, but the completion of the quest won't transfer over to your own single player campaign.

So, how do think the experience will pan out for two people who want to play through the whole game in local co-op?

How will the second player be limited?

What happens when one player is performing a job? Does the other player need to sit and watch?

Will the second player have the ability to make any main game decisions, or will they always be a tag-along?

Will the second player advance in abilities, experience, and appearance?

Thanks!

Hey Bapenguin, I also would like to know the answer to one of Wubak's points. Does the second player's abilities, experience, and appearance and all that jazz advance and carry over to the second player's own game? I'd like to play this game with my wife, and she wouldn't really care about playing her own single player campaign, but it'd be nice if when we went to play, her level and appearance and all that were intact so she'd be the same level as me each time we started up the 360 to play.

I'm guessing this is the case, but you never know. Freakin Resistance 2's offline co-op DOESN'T save the level of the second player, so there's really no point in doing it because player 1 gets all high level while player 2 resets each time you turn on the game. Stupid. Absolutely stupid. why does couch co-op have to suffer so much in modern games?

Oh great review by the way!

--- Replying to Wubak -----



These are the questions I'm interested in as well. My wife has no interest in playing any portion of this game in single player, but she might be interested if the co-op is good enough.

So how does that work? Can I start my game and have her join in right away in local co-op? Or would we both have to play single player for a while and then we can join up?

All the questions asked by Wubak would be awesome as well if you are able to shed some light on the matter.

(Also, welcome to the site Wubak!!)

@Bapenguin, yes, yes and yes to what Wubak, Stridefizzel and blakepro have all asked. These are absolute MUST KNOW's that should probably have been answered in the review. For a co-op review there is a surprising lack of actual co-op information! Come on, we should at least expect to have questions like Wubak's answered in a co-op specific review. I think most of us come here to discover how a games co-op portion works. If I wanted two and a half pages of non co-op related details I could get that anywhere.

Your character is your character - so if you have a character with Melee level 5 - when you bring them into another game they will have that power, and vice versa.

Whatever you earn while in that game, whether it's gold, items, or guild seals - that will transfer back to your own game then if you play Single player.

So in short, yes, both progress is saved.

nick, i think this sentence may be confusing people:

"I guess if I had to say if something was missing from co-op, it would be the ability to carry over completed quests back into your world."

care to clarify? i think i understand it but i haven't played it so i don't want to mislead anyone by trying to explain.

Yes, some clarification on that sentence would be great.

Can you also share a bit more information about the second player's role in the quest in local co-op?

Can they engage in conversations that will start quests? Can they make major game decisions? Or, is anything that advances the story relegated to the host player? For example, will the host player be the king, and make all the king's decisions, or can the two players share this role in some way?

Additionally, what happens when one player accepts a job or goes to their sanctuary. You're sharing a camera, so does the second player need to sit and watch?

Thanks!

When you join another players game, you essentially leave your own world, and travel to theirs. Anything that happens to YOU in that world (items, experience, ect.) gets saved. Anything that happens to the WORLD only happens in that world, leaving yours unchanged.

The only thing I've noticed that the main character can do that a joining character can't is advance the plot. Oddly, the joining player can hit flit switches, but can't pull a lever.

--- Replying to smurphster -----

It sounds like how co-op played out in Sacred 2. Your could import your character into another players game, and your character would gain xp and items just like he normally would. Then next time you played in your own save file, all that xp and gold you brought over is still there. However, the story doesn't transfer over to your character's single player game, so if you completed a quest while joining someone's game, that quest would not be marked as completed on your single player game. At least that's how Sacred 2's online co-op worked, and from what has been described, it sounds similar to that.

Dear Co-Optimus. I love this site. However, in the future, could you guys please be sure to include in your reviews more detail about how a game actually implements co-op? What I really mean is try not to assume we have any idea of how it works, spell it all out for us.

I think people are confused with the score because you've given a 3 page review with the small amount of vague (insufficient?) co-op related information appearing mostly in two paragraphs on the last page. It's almost as if co-op was an after thought instead of the focus. To base the most important score on co-op and put it in a large graphic next "Billy" when you've only devoted about 15%-20% of the review to co-op seems unbalanced.

Thanks Bapenguin, Hedgehogaj, and BigBadBob113, you guys all answered my questions.

3 cheers for games like this that us gamers can actually play with our wives! (Or husbands)

--- Replying to brandonf -----
Let me ask you a question: how much was devoted to co-op in any of the other mainstream reviews?

I'm not letting Nick off the hook by asking that - he's plenty able to respond/explain for himself - but consider what you're complaining about. First off, you have a website that focuses on co-op as much as possible. Second, Nick has been playing the game for three weeks to give you a prompt and lengthy review. And third - we have a vibrant community that responds to questions and interacts with you as much as time allows.

Sorry to toot Co-Optimus' horn...I don't mean to detract from what you're saying. There's always room for improvement. All I'm saying is: you have a golden opportunity to ask questions about something that the review may have missed, and you're squandering it on a complaint.

This article is one man's opinion out of millions who will play. You owe it to yourself to cherry pick the questions you want to ask, and not rely on reviews to cover every little detail. Trust me - we could give you 5,000-word reviews if you wanted them...but you wouldn't read them. You'd skip to the end to see the score, and then skim the article. I know this because that's what I'd do. So don't short sell the staff and the community. We're not ghosts who float in to post an article and disappear forever; we like knowing that you pay attention and that you want more information, and we like being helpful.

Thanks for the soapbox. Now I'll let someone more qualified actually answer your questions.

Here's the problem, there's enough content for a "normal" review to fill plenty of words. My goal for reviews, and this has been one of my unwritten and/or written rules in the 7 years I've been doing this, is to keep them around 1000 words. Anymore than that and the ratio of people actually taking the time to read it really drops off. This review for instance is over 1400.

To answer some criticisms, I did not include information in the review which can be found in the countless previews and videos that came out before the game. We already knew you'd only be bringing back experience, gold and items. This was mentioned numerous times in previews. We already were told we'd have independant cameras, there'd be business relationships, etc.

I touched on a few of these points only to validate they are there, and they work.

What I tried to convey in my review is the experience of the game as whole. For the most part, of my 15 hours of playtime, 3 or 4 were played in co-op.

If you want to know every detail on how a game implements co-op, look to our database entry. It's linked on every article on the right side by clicking the box art or system name.

In general co-op is a large part of any game, and in this case it's part of the same you are playing in single player. You need to know how that experience plays out before you can understand how the co-op works on top of it.

if you're writing a review, and anything is even slightly like a spoiler, Please warn us! The last paragraph (i think) had something in it that seems like a spoiler. If it something that you clearly can tell is going to happen from the beginning of the game, then thats fine. I just was going to make the official cooptimus review my base on whether I should look into this game or not bother. It seems OK for coop, I really dont want to play another Fable single player, but this one seems you can't save your quest progress in the coop for the 2nd player if I read the review right? That sucks, I was hoping for actual coop campaign style for fable and not just "Helping hand" coop again, with the exception of using your own character this time, and keeping gold/loot and the whole marriage thing. Seems like they still need to to learn how to find out what the community really wants. If they came to cooptimus, we could've ensured them that the coop rating be a 5 upon release!

I'm pretty sure the last paragraph isn't a spoiler - that's been out there for a while. The game pretty much tells you from the beginning what you are going to do.

Yes, you can't save your quest progress as player 2.

Welcome to the world of internet forums!

The review seemed well enough balanced to me, you have to understand how the game works before describing how the co-op sits on top. Especially in a game like Fable 3 were, let's face it, it is a solo game with co-op added. Soemthing like Left 4 Dead is different as the core mechanics are co-op.

I have no problem with criticism. I've learned to take it in stride and use it to better further writings.

"Let me ask you a question how much was devoted to co-op in any of the other mainstream reviews?"

Joystiq went into a bit more detail about co-op, and their site isn't dedicated to it, so... I think he has a valid complaint. I come here for the co-op point of view, but this read very much like all the other reviews out there. But hey, what do I know!

For reference
http://www.joystiq.com/2010/10/26/fable-3-review/