A scene from Fable III. (Lionhead Studios)

If Sir Ben Kingsley is involved, you just know it's going to be good, right?

OK, so maybe the venerable British actor — best known for his Oscar-winning portrayal of Gandhi — has had a few missteps of late. He did play a villain in the stinker Prince of Persia film earlier this year, and he did much to sour his legacy with a significant role in the even stinkier Mike Myers comedy The Love Guru (2008). But still, his overall track record is pretty good. They don't knight just anybody, after all.

The crux of the Fable series has always been about character development. Gamers are free to play as virtuously — or evilly — as they please.

Now Kingsley is back on track with his latest role — and amazingly, it's not a movie. Instead, the actor voices Sabine, the eccentric king of a mountain village, in the eagerly anticipated Xbox 360 video game Fable III. He's part of an ensemble cast — which also includes John Cleese, Simon Pegg and Stephen Fry — that helps bring the characters of this fantasy role-playing game to life. Kingsley and crew supply superb voice acting that combines with a well-crafted story, a beautifully designed open world and exciting action to create a unique and memorable RPG.

Fable III is set in the fictional kingdom of Albion, about 50 years after the events of the previous game. As with its predecessors, Fable III treads familiar RPG territory by putting the player in control of a character destined to change the world.

After choosing whether to play as a prince or princess, the player is introduced to the ruthlessness of his/her brother, King Logan, who rules the land with an iron fist. Albion is a sort of Tolkien-meets-Dickens world, in the process of transitioning from a medieval land of fantasy and wizards to one of industrialization, firearms and child labour.

Unlike many video games, the crux of the Fable series has always been about character development. Gamers are presented with many moral choices and are free to play as virtuously — or evilly — as they please. If the virtuous path is chosen, for example, villagers and townsfolk greet the hero with cheers. If the player chooses to play selfishly or boorishly, they cower or run away.

The moral decisions come early in Fable III — King Logan demands that someone be executed for subversion, so the player must choose who dies: the main character's boyfriend/girlfriend, or some anonymous townsfolk who were protesting royal edicts. Whichever way it goes, the scene establishes the story. The player then becomes wrapped up in a plot to overthrow Logan, thus becoming associated with colourful rebels such as Kingsley's Sabine.

The story takes the player to a variety of lushly designed settings in search of reinforcements against Logan. From Sabine's frosty mountain village and darkened swamps to the streets of a Victorian-era industrial slum to a desert where heat seems to radiate off the screen, Albion is an absolute pleasure to look at.

Along the way, you encounter the inevitable baddies, including evil mercenaries, undead "Hollow Men" and goblin-like "Hobbes." The player is equipped with three means to fight them: melee weapons in the form of swords and warhammers; firearms in the form of pistols and rifles; and fire-and-lightning-type spells that come from a pair of gauntlets. The weapons "morph" and change in appearance depending on how frequently they're used, while players can swap the Guild Seals they acquire through performing quests to purchase upgrades for all attack abilities.

Fable III differs from many RPGs in that it keeps character advancement and customization at a very basic level. The designers at UK-based Lionhead Studios have eschewed the overly detailed approaches of similar games, which typically allow characters to customize every piece of clothing or require them to maintain and repair armour and weapons. Players can make basic choices in Fable III, such as which clothing to wear or what weapons and spells to use and upgrade, but otherwise they're spared the minutiae usually found in RPGs. This approach is bound to turn off hard-core fans of the genre, but it's clearly geared toward making this an easily accessible game.

Of course, the fun of the game lies in the adventures along the way to overthrowing Logan. The action ranges from the highly comical to the downright frightening — one of the early quests requires the player to gather up escaped chickens while dressed in a giant chicken suit, while a later episode involves fighting evil shadow demons in a darkened cave.

The point where the game fully won me over came about halfway through, during a quest where I had to help out three teenaged "wizards." It turns out they were playing a role-playing game among themselves, and my character was shrunken down to actually take part in it. The ensuing quest was full of self-aware meta references that both honoured and mocked the fantasy RPG genre — the wizards' banter including such gems as: "Your magical sword can only go up to plus-three, because otherwise at low levels it would be unbalancing." Funny stuff to anyone who's ever played Dungeons & Dragons.

The game's moral choices really emerge once Logan is overthrown and the world learns why he was a despot. The player must then make the same choices: do you rule the world benevolently, or do you pick up where Logan left off? It's a tough call with varying consequences.

Ultimately, there is no one way to play Fable III. It's an incredibly large and open world with plenty of choices. Players can stick to the main storyline, or they can spend inordinate amounts of time interacting with villagers, merchants and other townspeople. Lionhead has put tremendous effort into enabling Sims-like gameplay: your character can become friends with people, fall in love, get married, have children, even contract sexually transmitted diseases. Houses can be bought, furnished, rented and sold, while money can be earned as a blacksmith, pie maker or lute player. There are also a huge number of side quests and secret areas to be found and explored.

Fable III improves on the online gameplay introduced by its predecessors. Players can go on adventures in Albion together, or romp around in each others' worlds. There are also safety settings that prevent others players from messing up your world — say, by slaughtering a town of villagers.

By offering something for everyone, Fable III is a thoroughly impressive and satisfying twist on the well-worn genre of fantasy role-playing — and a resume entry that Ben Kingsley can be proud of.

Fable III is in stores Oct. 26.

Peter Nowak writes about technology for CBC News.