video game reviews

November 15, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

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‘FABLE III’

Grade: B

Details: for Xbox 360 (Microsoft); $59.99; rated Mature

‘FALLOUT: NEW VEGAS’

Grade: B+

Details: for Xbox 360, Sony PlayStation 3, PC (Bethesda); $59.99 ($49.99 for PC); rated Mature

Two years ago, “Fable II” and “Fallout 3” offered unique open worlds with oodles of choices to make. This year, “Fable III” and “Fallout: New Vegas” do it again. Both games play similarly to their 2008 installments but with enough differences to stand apart, for better or worse.

“Fable III,” set 50 years after the previous game, puts players in the royal shoes of a prince or princess, sibling to King Logan. Both siblings are children of the hero of “Fable II.” Logan has ground an industrial-age Albion under his boot, so the player sets off to rally the people and start a revolution. And after that, there are promises to keep or break as ruler and hard decisions to make when the country faces an outside threat. Benevolent and malevolent approaches are both valid.

The game’s basic game-play is similar to “Fable II,” with melee, ranged and magic attacks each given its own button.

The magic selection is sparser this time, but spells can eventually be paired to interesting effect. Weapons can be upgraded by fulfilling specific conditions — killing a few hundred enemies in daylight, for example.

“Fable III” replaces the menus a player would use to equip weapons, change clothes, check status and so on with an interactive area that serves the same purpose but is more cumbersome than a list of menu items — especially the map. Similarly, the Road to Rule, a segmented pathway lined with chests containing character upgrades, is kind of a chore to use.

The game is a lot of fun but feels rough — glitches crop up here and there, and the action grinds to a near-halt when too much is going on.

“Fallout: New Vegas” has moved the series west after “Fallout 3’s” Washington, D.C., adventure.

Players of “Fallout 3” will be able to jump into “New Vegas” without even glancing at the manual — the core game play is virtually identical, from the V.A.T.S. targeting system that freezes the action so players can target specific body parts of enemies, to the extreme flexibility afforded players to complete the game their way — one player has posted proof online of beating the game without harming so much as a (mutated) fly.

There’s also a new Hardcore Mode, which requires characters to rest, eat and drink, and makes healing more difficult, among other challenges.

As a courier robbed, shot and left for dead, the player is after the man who tried to kill him or her, but there’s a lot more going on in the Mojave Wasteland. One of the few areas not hit directly in a centuries-past nuclear war, New Vegas and its surroundings are filled with human and mutant dangers and fought over by ruthless organizations but host a level of civilization uncommon in the “Fallout” world.

Through his or her actions, the courier can gain a positive or negative reputation with these and other factions in “New Vegas,” becoming loved by some and attacked on sight by others.

— Justin Hoeger, Sacramento Bee