Game Review: Fable Coin Golf

Fable: Coin Golf is one of the best examples of Xbox-WP7 integration, as it lets you share your coins earned from your phone with Fable III on your Xbox or PC.

Overall Score: 5/5

Although this game doesn’t have the longest lasting value, it has great incentive to replay levels and has some awesome gameplay and presentation.

Gameplay: 5/5

In Fable: Coin Golf, you shoot a big coin through a maze-like course, attempting to collect smaller gold coins and beat the level in as few shots as possible. The controls are usually great, however you will sometimes find yourself not able to see where you’re shooting since you cannot zoom the view further out. That is only a problem a small number of times though, and the controls typically work wonderfully. Throughout the different levels, you will encounter a number of new challenges: from goblins to giants, from ice to water, and you must overcome them all using power-ups, explosive barrels, and detonation switches. The pacing of the game is great, and the dialogue between the three characters that explain the game is satisfyingly humorous. There are so many great things to talk about, like the unlockable weapons you can win and then use in Fable III, but one of the greatest things about this game is that you can directly compete with your friends’ scores on Fable: Coin Golf through Xbox Live. Their high scores on each level appear when you beat a level, making it really fun to retry levels for higher scores.

Presentation: 5/5

The load speeds are fast (maybe that’s NoDo speaking), the 3D rendered environment looks great, the game runs at a smooth frame rate, and the music/sound effects are excellent. In some levels, I found myself taking a second to pan around the level and enjoy the beauty of the graphicis. The game looks extremely polished and has great visuals, in addition to great sound effects.

Lasting Value: 4/5

Beating the game will take about an hour and 45 minutes. That is usually considered pretty weak lasting value, but this game has such great replayability value that it can easily last you three hours. Thanks to the Xbox Live integration with high scores, competing with your friends for higher scores on each level is strongly encouraged. And, getting gold medals on levels in addition to collecting more coins is also encouraged since they will benefit your Fable III game. Finally, the design of the game strongly supports replaying it, since you can manage to squeeze out a few extra points each time you try a level, meaning that there are no maximum high scores for any level (well there probably is, but it’s tough to find).

 

Title: Fable: Coin Golf
Price: $4.99
Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios