In 'Fable III,' one hero rules them all

When Mel Brooks said, "It's good to be the king," he was talking about only one facet of the job. Sure, the parties can be fantastic and the furnishings are exquisite, but being in command of a kingdom is more of a royal pain than anything else.

When you first start "Fable III," you don't get that impression. As the youngest child of a legendary hero, you've heard the vague rumblings from the rabble that your brother, King Logan, is a tyrannical maniac. Maybe it's the random executions. Perhaps the high taxes and child labor have left negative impressions on the citizenry. Regardless, those kinds of complaints are beneath your station in life, but that changes quickly after a tragic turn of events. Soon you're scrambling to assemble an army. Enough is enough -- it's time for a revolution, baby!

As the prince or princess, you travel the lands of Albion with your mentor, Walter Beck. As luck (or fate) would have it, Walter just so happens to be friendly with a variety of assorted riffraff, rebels and revolutionaries. Those factions have one important thing in common: They cannot stand King Logan, and they will do whatever it takes to overthrow him. Since you're a member of the royal family, though, you have to win over each of those leaders by performing acts of heroism and doing a few favors.

Most of those missions are variations of the typical "go here, kill this, retrieve that" formula that we're accustomed to in adventure games. Fortunately, "Fable III" has more than a few tricks up its sleeves.

"Fable III" is the latest example of developer Lionhead's battle against cluttered interfaces. Much of the heads-up display has been stripped away, and combat is similarly bare. At least, that's how it seems at first.

There are three main types of attacks in the game -- melee, firearm, magic -- and each is performed by pressing the button that's permanently attached to it. You could conceivably get away with mashing away, but players who time the attacks to correspond to the action and charge attacks at the right time are treated to devastating finishers that show you flattening your opponent's head or perforating their backs in a dramatic slow-motion closeup.

Other genre mainstays are tweaked significantly, although sometimes it feels as though Lionhead is tinkering with things simply because it can. Character progression eschews a traditional leveling system in favor of a more literal experience system dubbed the Road to Rule. It's a nice way to present leveling up, although it doesn't fundamentally change the mechanics beneath such systems. The same can be said for the player's home base, called the Sanctuary. Staffed by Jasper the butler (voiced by John Cleese), it's an all-in-one visual replacement for the various menus players usually zip through to equip gear, fast travel and change appearance.

Lionhead's effort to replace abstract gaming concepts with more literal interpretations is interesting, but the overall effect is one of getting a flashy paint job instead of an arguably unnecessary overhaul.

The story is grim at times, but that's not to say that it isn't also one of the funniest games of the year. The writing is top-notch, and there are at least three or four quests that rank among my favorite missions I've ever played. One highlight has the hero joining in a bickering trio's "Dungeons & Dragons"-type game, complete with hoary descriptions and every role-playing-game cliché you can imagine. Other times you might be asked to break up a doomed marriage or even try your hand at acting.

Eventually, after working through the game's story (and Road to Rule), the revolution is at hand. After assembling an army, making a promise or two and saving the day dozens of times, you'd think that would be the end of things -- you know, pop on the crown, sit on the throne and call it a day. That's where you'd be wrong.

Before you take a seat on the king's throne and doze off, Logan fills you in on a few key things. Albion is facing a horrible threat, and the nation's defense is in peril. As he tells it, that's why he had to make the tough decisions he had to make and be branded a tyrant because of them.

The "Fable" series has always focused on morality, and "Fable III" is no different. This time, however, the choices are far beyond the typical "kiss the baby or kick the baby" extremes that we've faced in the past.

You can't be everything to everyone in Albion. Some people are going to be disappointed in you. No easy answers exist, and there aren't any last-second saviors to bail you out from your poor planning.

Even after you "beat" the game, new quests, locations and characters open up. And those decisions you made as king? They'll affect the way the world looks and behaves, too.

"Fable III" is a must-play for fans of adventure or anyone who thinks they can run things better than those bums in Washington. Good luck.