The player

It's about time two-player gaming became less heart-breaking – so thank you, Fable III, writes Joe Griffin

'Would you like another go," she offered. "No!" I harrumphed, tetchy after being trounced in two consecutive games of Risk Factionsby my girlfriend.

Two-player gaming has always been an emotional experience for this writer. The tasty tang of victory and the sour taste of defeat are always nearby. In my teens,

I won and lost plenty of money on two-player Marioagainst my older brother. (He remains the least graceful winner I've ever met.) And in a previous living arrangement, my housemate and I vowed not to compete on Haloor Soul Calibretoo late at night, lest the intensity cause insomnia. Thank god, then, for the increase in co-operative two-player games.

The Fableseries has always tried to be innovative in multiplayer form. According to Josh Atkins, lead designer with Lionhead Studios, the two-player options in Fable IIIare an improvement on its predecessors.

"Definitely the most straightforward change is the fact that we've split the camera up; two heroes, two dogs," he says. "So you can wander around the world separately and not on the same screen anymore. That was a core failing of Fable II– the fact that you were jammed onto one screen together. It didn't feel natural. So we've allowed you to roam free and be a full hero.

"On top of that," Atkins continues, "one of the key points in Fableis making you have an emotional moment with the game. Therefore we've tried to create new types of relationships for players to have with the person they're playing with. So you can get married, have a family, have a house, have a kid, and feel like you're really living in Albion.

“Anecdotally, people tell us that they really like playing with their partners, so we wanted to give a facet for that to take place. Then we also created other ways you can play with a friend, [for those who] don’t want to get married. You can create a business partnership and, for example, try to become the biggest landowners together. You can really play together.”

Two-player gaming is fun, but playing as a virtual couple brings its own complications. It's no longer just the domain of massive online multiplayer games, and the innovations of Fable IIIwill likely be imitated.

As for what effect this has on real-life relationships, I’ll let you know