Peter Molyneux has earned himself a reputation for being a bit of a hype-maestro, often building unrealistic expectations for his videogames by getting too excited and making wild promises. After his confession about Fable II's negative points, however, one can't accuse the man of not trying to lower the hopes of fans. From poor lip-syncing to a "fractured" dog, Molyneux 'fesses up.
"There are low spots in the game and it's no one's fault that these low spots are there, it's just that there's a lot to this game. You've got to remember that we're not building a corridor game here where you can say 'right, in one hour fifteen minutes, someone's going see that light and we're going make that light like this.'
"I think the lip-sync is pretty bad, you know, the quality of the animation falls off, you know, quite a lot, I think the navigation can be a bit dodgy sometimes, I think the dog can get a bit fractured sometimes. But those are sideline issues, you're not going to care about those, they're technical issues, and I wish we'd had time to polish every single tiny second of the game."
Molyneux admitted that there are "things to criticize" in Fable II but insists that he is still "incredibly proud" of what he and his team have created. The British mastermind also stated that by not trying to cram as many features as possible into one game, he hasn't repeated the mistakes made with the original Fable.
A rare show of humilty from the Hypemaster General, although he's obviously confident enough in the overall product that he feels comfortable pointing out the problems. Damn his lyp-sync talk though, because I know that the second I start playing the game, I won't be able to stop myself watching the characters' mouths.
Jim Sterling serves as reviews editor for Destructoid.com, head of the Podtoid podcast, and produces a number of news stories, original features, one-of-a-kind videos. With his passionate argumentative style, controversial opinions, harsh delivery, and dedication to brutal honesty Sterling is a name that you can't help but recognize.
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Contest:
6:58 AM on 09.15.2008
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What does a fractured dog look like? Polygon tears, twisting model, what? This to me may become more of a feature than fault. Curiosity is piqued.
Bummer about the lip sync...it really seems like he's ripping into his animators pretty harshly. He really should have just let us figure that out cause it's going to eat away at all of us.
Suppose he can't win but to shut his mouth. But I like that he's clearly enthusiastic about his work.
Still going to be an awesome game, if all those gameplay videos are any indication.
There goes my sale.
I can understand clipping issues in Mercs 2 or going invisable or in almost every other game falling through walls and stuff; but when in the cutscenes of mercs 2 (CUTSCENES for gods sake) the on phone part of GTA (mostly very good though) or any number of Jrpgs, there is les than a great level of synch when HL2 released YEARS ago now looks perfect there is no excuse.
If its cartoony then it might be Ok but the first thing I judge a quality of looks on a game is the Lip movements so I hope Fable dont come out shit
I will never understand how some of these next gen mega $$$ making AAA title games are so awesome and great until your character opens his mouth. Then his lips flap up and down as words play in the background. Totally breaks any gaming experience for me.
If its that hard to lip sync... don't do it. Go back to subtitles and no voice over. Or just make them "non mouth moving mutes" like the last era of games. Just save the money.
If you can't do it right, don't do even bother. The game ends up looking silly when your characters try to add some level of serious plot development and all a gamer can think about is how terrible it looks. Or maybe its just me, cause man oh man does it just kill a lot of decent games in my mind. I think FFX was the first game to expose me to that in a big way, and I left the FF series entirely after that.
that's because you love wallowing in negativity jim.
Either way, this bit of candid honesty from Molyneux doesn't make him any less of a gobshite. You could see this as a cynical bit of marketing, and something that doesn't bode well for the end product if they had to stink to such depths to get attention.
Better to wallow in my own opinions than someone else's, as some people who won't be mentioned apparently love doing.
True dat!
Double negative is doubly negative.
Also, well played Molyneux. While I'm still excited about Fable 2, it's nice that he's being up front about its flaws, which may end up being negligible if he delivers on the rest.
But if I can remember right sometimes the lips didnt synch up in Oblivion and it didn't really bother me. As long as it does not happen through the entire game. As long as Fable 2 is different than Fable 1 I'll be happy.
"...remember that we're not building a corridor game here..."
Thats what Fable 1 felt like to me. On long ass hall way with 2 diverging roads that conected too...the same long ass hall way or lead to no where at all. Then you get an expansion and it's...another single hall way.
As long as there is more than ONE road for all of Albion I will be happy.
so whats the problem?? i really wanna know.