Murgo doesn’t ask for much. In fact, most of the items in his vibrantly hued caravan are reasonably priced. Well, that is if you don’t care much for serenity, perkiness, good health, clarity or praise. You see, the ingorant old charlatan, once more, is unaware of the true value of his goods. In the same way he gladly parted with an incalculably valuable music box for a meager sum early on in Fable II, the See the Future add-on sees Murgo returning, eager to vend his latest supply of supposed bric-a-brac. The problem is that, yet again, it brings nothing but trouble.

The quests all follow the same structure: Murgo will sell you an item which, upon being activated will magically transport you to where you need to be. Your first mission takes place post-purchase of a snow-filled globe (which Murgo sells for a mere quintuple dose of aureate coin) in a revamped version of Oakfield from the original Fable. Unfortunately, all colour has been drained from the area due to presence of a bunch of pesky demons. The desaturation is interrupted solely by said demons, which come in three varieties: red, blue and yellow. The colors correspond to the method you must employ to kill them — magic for red demons, melee for blue demons and ranged attacks for yellow demons — resulting in the transformation of combat from an enjoyable, varied endeavour to a dull color-matching game void of creativity. In fact, in terms of gameplay, these enemies are nothing more than a replication of the infuriating flit switches from Knothole Island, except that the ’switch’ has to be hit multiple times instead of once for progression to continue. Oh, and normal flit switches make a return as well!

Quest number two sees you purchasing a non-alliterative spooky skull which teleports you to a completely nondescript area (so much so, that I cannot describe it!) Some huge stone skull that’s there says something about being a trapped knight and liking different costumes, which, of course, means you have to traipse around donning various disguises in order to bring wisps back to the talking, stone, human head so that you may free him…or something. The costumes are actually quite fun, with your Hero taking up the role of a Hobbe, Balverine, or Hollow Man quite expertly. The costumes each have their own special function, with the Hollow Man outfit allowing wisps to hover behind you and the Hobbe costume letting different Hobbe types (each which have their own special ability such as being able to blow up cracks in a wall or walk across poisonous puddles on stilts) follow you around. None of this is particularly well explained and the Hobbe stuff is so underused that I’m surprised Lionhead even bothered to put it in, which is a shame because it had really good puzzle potential.

These two quests are the only meaty bit of the add-on, and took me about an hour to get through. Now for the ’see the future’ bit. Disappointingly, this is little more than a brief interactive cutscene, which contains so little information, that a screen saying “Yeah, there’s going to be a Fable III” might have been more informative. Your reward at the end of all this is The Colosseum — another version of The Crucible that can be completed, with the top prize, in under five minutes. And the top prize isn’t even that great.

Maybe it’s my imagination, but the quality of dialogue and voice acting also seemed to pale in comparison to Lionhead’s usual standard. Lines such as, “Now I will grant you the greatest gift of all: death!” fail to impress, especially when they contrast so much with genuinely funny ones like “That skull gives me the willies. And not the good kind”.

Of course, your inner collector will be satisfied by a veritable bevy of new items and hair styles (as well as the ability to change your dogs breed), but compared to the excellent Knothole Island, this all seems a bit disjointed. With no one area that needs saving, or far off objective to work towards, the quests lack purpose, and ultimately feel  inconsequential and pointless. It’s as if Lionhead took a bunch of ideas they were toying with, and tossed them into one 560 package. There are some great things here, there really are, but none of them ever amount to anything so the whole thing lacks coherence and is dull as a result. It’s ironic then that, while Murgo’s wares are cheap, but hide inconceivable value, See the Future is cheap…and hides nothing.

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