I even installed this game to the harddrive to see if it would work better. It did not. One thing you missed out, Joe, or maybe didn’t, maybe it’s only happened to me. The slow-mo camera is shit. It goes into slow-mo on an enemy who is simply downed, not killed, when there are a ton around me. Fuck you, Fable III! Use that sparingly. I’ve spent too long looked at a Balverine or Hobbe go limp and fly through the air unconvincingly whilst smashing the x button in the hope one of the other twelve hasn’t carved my buttocks up. That’s another thing: fights take too long. In Fable II you could be done with a fight in a matter of seconds when you levelled up, here, even when my sword is level five and the other two are four I’m still having difficulties killing Hobbes and Hollowmen. Why?! It’s not that I’m losing health, I can just roll out of the way. It’s just they have way too much health, making you fuck around for far too long.

There’s no finesse to this game. I got AC Brotherhood for Christmas too, and it is far better in every way, significantly in combat. It has cool counters and linking of moves to the point where you can kill twenty plus guys around you in a single, flowing sequence. I remember hearing from Molyneux in the run up to Fable’s release that they got someone in to improve the combat. Nice fucking job, you lying bastard. It’s the same dumb, mashy crap as the previous Fable and it needs to stop.

Another thing that pisses me off is the grinding. Everything is based off of grinding. The quest where you’re in Reaver’s house, for example, is crap combat scenarios with an annoying Jonathan Ross doing annoying commentary on each and every action. Most of the achievements, too, are based on grinding: get so many books; shoot the gnomes; get the keys and blah blah ARGH! I eventually set my brother to do the fucking friendship quests (I agree – no emotional connection to anyone. I think it’s because it’s trying its hardest to do British humour but failing miserably so whenever it tries to do something meaningful it’s doubly awful) because he doesn’t mind grind.

That, too. The dialogue and voice acting is fucking horrendous. I remember once on that Demon Door at that haunted house with Chesty in it where he said something along the lines of, ‘My secret is only for the King’s ears,’ so you spend a good while becoming King and he says, much to no-one’s surprise, ‘Oh, you see, it’s so secret even I’ve forgotten it.’ Ahaha, Lionhead! HAH! Stephen Fry is fairly enjoyable as a celebrity voice, however, and sounds like he’s having some fun with it (but he is horribly underused; Reaver was a funny character in previous game) but everyone else is dire. Couldn’t they have gotten a Welsh actor to play Sabine? Are they really that hard to find? Look in Wales, chaps.

Being King is pointless. The villagers have the same reaction to you. ‘Oh, all right then, I’ll be your mate. I’ll even take back all those nasty things I said about you while you weren’t here,’ I’m the King, fucker! How about you take this fucking shovel, dig your own fucking scroll up since you know where it is and the enemies won’t attack you anyway; they’re locked on ‘Player Character,’ and in exchange for your friendship after you’ve done all that, I won’t consider fucking bankrupting you, your family and selling them into labour. How about that?!

It hurts me. Oh, and holding A and pressing A to accept everything (I opened that chest and ran into that key for a reason, game, BECAUSE I WANT TO TAKE IT!)… WHY?! Y’know, this video made me realise something. Once you starting going into this game’s annoyances, you can’t stop…