Posts Tagged ‘lionhead studios’
Project Natal to possibly appear in future Fable titles
If you thought that Project Natal was going to be just be a gimmicky Wii remake perhaps recent reports will make you think otherwise. It seems that Joystiq has recently done an interview with Microsoft VP’s Phil Spencer who said he wouldn’t be surprised if the technology makes its way into a future Fable title.
Below is an excerpt from the interview:
“You know, Lionhead’s been a real innovation studio for us. We have the release of Fable 2 episodic this week, where they’re taking Fable 2 and breaking it up into chunks, allowing people to buy the content at their pace. Fable 2, I thought, was a great release, with the orbs they added with Live, adding new functionality to the franchise. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if Natal found its way into future iterations of Fable.”
So, if more major studios like Lionhead pick up Project Natal, we may be seeing some very innovative uses come from it.
Lionhead Announcement Coming
There’s a big announcement coming. It’s on the horizon, looming like a dark stormy cloud heavy with rain, lightning and the thunderous clap of cool news. Tomorrow there’s going to be some news about “can’t miss content” on the Lionhead community website.
Of course they’re not giving a hint of details today, since the announcement is coming tomorrow and they want endless speculation to abound. I wouldn’t be surprised if Lionhead employees have a pool going on regarding what most people are expecting.
Many of course are thinking this could be simply the announcement of a new content pack, or maybe even several. It’d be impossible to ignore the possibility of this being the official announcement that work has begun on Fable III. A twitter slip-up earlier this year hinted that Lionhead might already be recruiting people for the project. Another possibility exists however in the possibility of spin-off games. The storylines of the first two games were only linked in a subtle fashion, but it’s very obvious that an underlying current of plot is being laid for future games. The considerable amount of content that exists in the world of Albion could be ripe for other adventures beyond what’s happened so far.
Molyneux Says Gaming To Produce Greatest Story Ever
People always like discussing the best of something; the best band, best album, best restaurant, etc. Unfortunately people rarely agree, mostly because the word “greatest” is so unspecific. Does greatest mean the most profitable? The most critically acclaimed? The most popular? Books and films are especially controversial media to try and pin a gold medal on, since there are so many stories told in these media.
While it’s possible to narrow the list down to probably a few hundred or so contenders for the title, it’d be impossible for anyone to get people to agree with stories like The Godfather, Hamlet, Lord of the Rings, Citizen Kane and vast numbers of tales out there. One man however is sure that in time a single story will surpass them all and he knows where it will come from.
Shock of shocks, this bold statement is coming from the eternally timid and never boastful Peter Molyneux: “The greatest story ever told? I think it’s going to be in a computer game,” he said. “And I think that if I play the greatest story ever told in the same game as you play it, your greatest story is going to be different to my greatest story, and that is power.” Of course he hopes that his studio will be the ones to do this, saying that creating this story is “definitely something Lionhead Studios wants to do.”
Fable II Game Review – Long On Promise, Short On Delivery
Most games from Lionhead Studios, especially games involving Peter Molyneaux, remind me of an old political cartoon from the Clinton presidency. On the left, Clinton is seated before sheet music labeled “Promises” with his saxophone, a skein of notes visibly emerging from it. On the right, he’s seated before sheet music labeled “Delivery”, this time playing a kazoo.
And indeed, Lionhead has once again brought me way more sizzle than steak with their release of Fable II, the game Molyneaux swore up and down would blow Fable away.
On that point, he’s right. Fable II does blow Fable away. It has a whole new generation’s worth of graphical processing power to play with, a metric ton of mini games and several new characters inhabiting a storyline that will encompass decades in a world that will change visibly with every decision you make.
The only problem, of course, is that while Molyneux and company were building this massive world, they forgot that video games are supposed to have this thing called PLOT.
On the surface, Fable II looks to have plot in abundance, with you playing as a hero of legend who doesn’t know it yet gone in search of various other heroes of legend. They will in turn lend their powers to make you a kind of SUPER hero of legend. And once you have become this magnificent figure you will then go out and defeat the villain who killed your sister about ten years prior.
Said villain, meanwhile, is visibly trying to rebuild the Death Star. You think I’m kidding there, but I’m really not–Fable II’s big bad is out to rebuild a gigantic spire-like facility (okay, so it’s not the same SHAPE.) that has mystical powers sufficient to reshape the world according to his own twisted whims. He’s stocked said facility with a seemingly infinite number of identically dressed lesser baddies (if they were wearing white I’d swear they were stormtroopers), some of which you’ll have to fight for a few minutes.
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Fable 2 PC Rumors Shot Down… Again
Shooting down a batch of rumors, Fable 2 developer Lionhead has denied that it is working on a PC port of the Xbox 360 acton-RPG.
“We’re not working on a PC version of Fable II,” stated Lionhead employee “Woody” on the developer’s forums. “If this changes we’ll make sure you know about it.”
The recent rumors stem from entertainment blog WhatifGaming, which claimed that a PC announcement for the game was “imminent”.
I would like to point out that the original Fable did hit PC after its supposedly-Xbox-exclusive release. It remains to be seen just how long Lionhead takes to make the PC announcement.
Fable 2 is PETA’s most animal-friendly GOTY
PETA has stepped away from criticising games like Cooking Mama and has instead decided to reward games for celebrating non-animal cruelty.
The organization has awarded Lionhead Studios’ Fable 2 with the title of Most Animal-Friendly Video Game, quite a braggable title.
Below is PETA’s reasoning behind awarding Fable 2 with the title:
Created by Microsoft Game Studios, Fable 2 is a vegetarian’s dream come true. Why? In this virtual fight between good and evil, characters powered by tofu are just as powerful as their meat-eating counterparts—and are more fit and attractive to boot. Featuring a strong pro-vegetarian theme, eating a plant-based diet helps you rack up “purity” points, whereas eating meat makes your character fat and evil. A fun and innovative game, it’s also an effective tool that teaches gamers the real-life benefits of a vegetarian diet.
So there you have it, thanks to the in-game ability to eat tofu and the “strong pro-vegetarian theme”, Fable 2 is PETA’s Most Animal-Friendly Game of the Year.
Read (PETA)
Fable 2 Gets Dated
While we were already told at E3 that we would see the Xbox 360 exclusive RPG Fable 2 sometime this October, the actual release date wasn’t solid. Well, it is now known that North America will see Fable 2 October 21st, the UK will see it the 17th, and Australia the 25th.
Fable 2 will take place 500 years after the original game, incorporating an all new dynamic world and enough features to fill a novel.