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.

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.

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.”

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.

The main plot of Fable II, and this is the game’s primary problem, should take you only a few hours to beat if you’re sufficiently motivated and you can ignore the alarming number of pop-up shiny things that will seek to distract you from the main quest plot.  It’s like this game was designed by a team of ferrets desperately in need of Ritalin.

Side quests, featuring such mundanities as chopping wood, making knives and slinging ale for quick cash, will abound throughout Fable II, and this may be the game’s ultimate strength.  The world of Fable II will allow you to become a bounty hunter, a slave trader, a real estate mogul, and a general jack-of-all-trades doing pretty much anything you want and altering the very world with your decisions, as long as you can ignore the fact that there’s a madman with a magic wish tower somewhere out at sea.

Indeed, this particular point leaves Fable II feeling somewhat schizophrenic.  Yes, you may think, I own half of the downtown shopping district of every town I’ve been to and if I can just kill a few dozen more cockroaches I can easily buy the rest of it, but the whole time, you have to actually TRY and forget that there’s a lunatic who wants to destroy REALITY with his tower that grants wishes.  Of course, he’ll never actually get the chance to USE it any time before you’re ready to take him on, but it just feels so very ridiculous.

Clearly, Molyneaux and company went for a game with huge replay value.  You can play as good or evil, you can launch yourself into completionist heaven, or you can charge through the main plot for a truly lousy payoff (try the main ending sometime and see if you’re not disappointed by the “final boss fight”.  It’s in quotes for a very good reason.).  And because of this variety, you can’t call Fable II a BAD game.  Sadly, due to its fractured nature and weak main story, you really can’t call it a GOOD one either.

“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.

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)

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.