Fable 3 - Or: Removing features is an improvement?

So over the course of my spare time in the last... 5 minutes or so i put the 8 hours of time into fable 3 necessary to complete it. I have never really been a huge fan of the Fable games, but i've finished the main storyline in all of them.

And yes, i have always been evil. Good/Evil systems in games and i have always had a funny relationship. I try to be good, i end up being evil. I try to be evil, i end up being evil. I act indifferent to the standard "this is how evil you are" meter, i end up being evi-... Well, i guess it's not that surprising. If i laugh at the sight of someone defenseless and innocent having thier head slammed into the ground by a freaking warhammer it's probably a good sign that i am evil.

My problem with the Fable games has always been thus: There's no challenge and there's no reason to do any of the extra things you can do.

In Fable 1, you had to actually be trying quite hard in order to ever die. 9 full ressurections in your pocket? Okay. In Fable 2 and 3 you can't ever die even if you physically, actually DIE in the real world.

With no risk (short of a scar nobody cares about), there's no reason to ever be cautious. Combat in Fable has never been about the threat of death. It's been about how much fun it is to cave someones skull in with a hammer. Or carve them up with a sword if you're BORING.

But that's the extent of all three games. Even in this one, there's not much reason to do anything except kill whatever you please, steal whatever you please. Buy every shop and house and jack the prices up to the maximum. People still love you as long as you take all the money and inject it into the kingdoms economy. I had about 8 million kicking around at the end of the game. And that's my own stash - there was also 7.9 million in the kingdoms coffers. Everyone still loved me even when they couldn't afford to eat or pay rent. And i did whatever the hell i pleased.

That's the other problem. There are no consequences to any of your actions until the last 25 minutes of the game. You can be Hero McDoucheyMurder but as long as you have the cash to transfer and make the appropriate decisions as king, everyone will either love or hate you. It's entirely your call.

Having to repair houses or people refuse to pay rent is needless faggotry. To what purpose does adding more needless busywork serve? Nothing. It's not like i was ever short of money to do it, but i only did it once or twice. Then i just stopped buying houses.

The removal of the standard menu based system in favor of a fancy looking but far less efficient "walk around your dressing room" is again - fancy looking but ultimately needless.

Having to go on a fetch quest before someone will like you? Great, that's what this game needed - more pointless crap. How about i just cave your skull in and move along to your identical-twin-completely-unrelated-person next to you. And then shoot her.

I still don't know why i played any of the Fable games. Or why i kept playing them. They were interesting enough to keep me moving the story along, but the humor is flat, the jokes are cliché, the sidequests are the same variation of "go here and stop every 30 seconds to fight things", the marriage and other aspects serve no purpose and you can't kill children. You can murder everyone but the kids are just standing there taunting. Why is it so bad to want to put a bullet into the little buggers?

I think that makes me a bad peron.