The fabled Fable

[Rainman]

I just got this game and to start off so you don't get confused I just want to say I love the game and plan on wasting a lot of time on it.

Nonetheless, it had a lot of hype to build up to. It has been anticipated almost as much as the 2nd coming of Christ. Personally, I had a built up image of it in my head. As with most hyped games, it doesn't live up to it. It's impossible to do so. I had it in my mind as the perfect game. As I said, I do love the game, but as with most reviews, it's my job to point out what is wrong with it.

The beginning was a little akward for me. For one, the englishish voices of the characters was annoying at first. I've since gotten used to it, but at the time, I was irritated. Also, the speach can be repetitive. This isn't anything new to the RPG genre. Developers try to pack in as much audio as possible, but in the end it's difficult to not have it be repetitve at some point.

Also, it's not as open-ended as I thought it was. Maybe coming directly off of Morrowind has spoiled me, but I was under the impression that it would be a vast world where you could go anywhere. The reality is slightly different. The world is split into many sections. In each section is a set path for you to travel on. To each side you can see a beautiful forest which you immediately want to explore. Sadly they are for looking not touching. I haven't explored the whole world yet so maybe there are exceptions.

Of course, these are all minor, at least in my eyes, because after a late night session of playing Fable I decided that I would really like the game. It's world is immensely rich and immersive. The character customization is addictive and fun. I've gone through several different styles, finally deciding on bald with goatee look for the moment. After one session I already have plenty of cool stuff that I keep on telling my brother about.

I'm not good at rating things so I'll just leave it at that.

[Blonde799]

Yes, unfortunately Fable has decayed from a "Real RPG" to a RPG that's just fun to play.

I remember when all these cool features about Fable were heard, like being a woman, being a naked woman, killing children, multiplayer and having the world age as you do. Sadly, most of this stuff was either taken out at the last minute, or taken off the board of ideas. The hype was immense, and the end result practically killed the anticipation I had for this game. It's like having the bacon, cheese and lettuce taken off the bacon cheeseburger.:(

[Warlock]

Gabe didn't like it:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/


I was worried that when Fable came out I’d get sucked in and I wouldn’t have time to play Burnout 3 and Phantom Brave. So I’m actually kind of glad that Fable was a huge disappointment.

So in Fable you have a very small world divided up into dozens of tiny zones. Each of these zones sufferers from the “you can go anywhere you want…as long as you stay on the fucking path” school of game design. A winding path will take you through each one of these zones and you don’t need to worry about accidentally wandering off the path and getting lost. You’ll quickly notice that someone has placed sturdy impenetrable bushes, broken fences, rocks, and impassable pools of shallow water all along the road. The entire game may as well be played on rails as your options for exploration are essentially zilch. The really awesome thing about these tiny, linear zones is that they require an insane load time. Traveling from one side of the map to the other will require you to spend nearly as much time loading as playing. Thankfully at some point the designers realized that traversing their bullshit world was a real pain in the ass and so they decided to let you teleport wherever you want. I imagine this conversation went something like this:

Girl: “Wow, running around in our game fucking sucks.”

Guy: “What if you could just teleport wherever you wanted to go?”

Girl: “That doesn’t solve the underlying problem. Shouldn’t we instead address the fact that navigating our game world is a bitch?”

Guy: “We should have sex.”

Whoa, that certainly got hot! In my imagination all work place encounters between men and woman result in clandestine sex.

Not only do these tiny zones require loading but you also have to load every time you want to use a shovel or a fishing pole. The idea is that there is treasure buried all over the world just waiting to be dug up. However each time you want to dig you need to select the spade from your menu and then wait as the game loads the digging animation, at this point you will either get some treasure or you’ll see your character sigh. Then you get to wait again as it takes you back to the regular game. I dug twice before I was totally fucking sick of it.

So what’s going on in-between all this loading? Well you’re playing an extremely linear and limited hack and slash adventure game combined with a shitty version of the Sims mixed with animal crossing only minus all of animal crossings charm and inspiration. If you want to just play through Fable as fast as you can, it’s a boring but passable action RPG. The combat is awkward at first and the camera is frustrating but you can have some fun with it for a couple of hours. Thankfully that’s all the time you’ll need to invest if that’s how you decide to play the game. If you decide you want to buy a house or flirt with a girl you certainly can. You can also spend an insane amount of time dressing and building up your character. In fact a huge part of the game revolves around making your character look awesome. I can see how this might be cool in an MMO where you could show him off to other players but in Fable no one else will ever see your character. You can’t even take screen shots and upload them via live into some kind of online Fable hero’s picture album to share with your friends. You spend so much time in this game working on a character that you can never share with anyone else. I actually saw forum threads in which people were trying to describe how cool their characters looked to each other. They would try and explain how their particular hair cut really accentuated a certain tattoo. These people are so desperate to share their characters that they were trying to take photos of their TV screens.

In my opinion, none of Fable’s “open ended” game play works in the context of a single player game. Things like owning shops, becoming renowned and impressing people with your sharp dressing just aren’t cool when the world is populated by pre-programmed puppets rather than living people.

Also if you can’t understand why it looks like ass on your HD television here’s a little trick. Fable will sometimes refuse to run in 480p, but you can force it to by going into your dashboard. Open the tray with Fable in the drive and then go into your video settings in your dashboard. Turn off 480p and then turn in back on. Now hold both triggers and click both thumb sticks. This will force your Xbox into 480p mode and you can just close the drive and start Fable. Now if there was a series of buttons you could press in order to make it worth 50 bucks.

-Gabe out

[Rijuhn]

It at times like these that I'm reminded why I bought my GameCube in the first place.

[Rainman]

Yeah, I saw that Gabe post. *shrug* I enjoy it.

Really he's probably mostly suffering from a incorrect assumptions. I agree with him a little on some of the points he has. To each his own....

[Cloral]

Haven't played Fable, but the whole path thing reminds me a lot of FFX. But at least FFX had a few areas that were a bit more interesting to explore.

[Brasel]

Fable wasn't as bad as Gabe made it out to be really. I mean, yeah I was expecting a lot more, but its still fun as hell. I spent all day on it yesterday. My only major complaint is that its way too short. I'm already almost finished with it. My character is already so old that women don't pay attention to him anymore and his wife is just like "oh, hello" instead of "oh, i love you so much, we should go to bed together."

[Rainman]

Haven't you gotten married yet? I just did last night. I'm not even close to the end yet. I have been fooling around and fighting to get money.

[Axel]

Wow, after so much hype about Fable I'm disappointed just to hear about the real thing. From what I'd heard I assumed it would be an MMORPG. If its not there's most of the fun. And its... linear? How dull. I'll stick with good ol' Dungeons and Dragons, that never lets me down.

[Starkist]

I just played through it... it's overhyped, short, and most of the quests are simple hack and slash. I got beat by the final boss, and I don't think I'll replay it anytime soon. I think Morrowind has spoiled me as to what a good RPG can be today.

[Grasshopper]

Isn't all Lionhead Studio games overhyped? I figured everyone would know this after B&W :tongue:

[Starkist]

Peter Molyneaux, who helmed Black and White, was also the creative 'genius' for Fable. 0 for 2?

[Blonde799]

His projects are too ambitious. Need to underhype the games, then surprise people.:p

"Oh, this will be a typical RPG that lasts 3 hours..."

And then everyone will be like:

OMG IT'S A ZELDA CLONE THAT LASTS 50 HOURS AND YOU CAN MARRY WOMEN AND HAVE HOT SEX WITH YOUR WIFE!:D

[Grasshopper]

Peter Molyneaux, who helmed Black and White, was also the creative 'genius' for Fable. 0 for 2?

Peter is the head of every game out of that studio I thought. Black & White, Fable, and The Movies. The latter is the one I'm looking forward too, but it will probably be the same way.

[Warlock]

Isn't all Lionhead Studio games overhyped? I figured everyone would know this after B&W :tongue:

Yes, Lionhead is amazingly bad. I've never seen a decent game out of them. But I have seen some extremely overhyped but later turned out to be lousy games from them. I hate HATE Black & White.

What baffels me is that Molyneux who used to run Bullfrog made GREAT games with that company. Dungeon Keeper series (seriously, I have been jonesing for DK3 for ages but it just isn't in the works since Bullfrog split up - I even go back to play DK2 all the time because the game is still a blast.. but there are just so many areas that could be expanded on that I would love to see another sequel), Populous (I never played the originals but P:Beginnings was a blast), etc.

What's sad is I think they are focusing too much on doing something unique and original and not enough on whether that something is FUN. They used to do both.

Edit: http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId=1274/
Strange that he didn't do DK2 although that may just be a mistake. Either way, I've played the demo for Syndicate Wars too and that game freaking owned. I remember my friend and I used to have fun using this mind control gun to control the ENTIRE city. We had this group of like 100 people following us around.. it was so damn fun.

[Starkist]

http://www.xboxcentral.net/previews/22.html

Early Fable preview. It is fascinating to see all the features that never made it to the final game, features that would have set Fable apart from the typical RPG.

Bring on TES4. :)

[Cloral]

LOL!
Preview:

this world is seemless and the only loading time is at the beginning
Gabe:

Traveling from one side of the map to the other will require you to spend nearly as much time loading as playing.

Preview:

Exploration will clearly play an important part in the game, with so many places to go.
Gabe:

Each of these zones sufferers from the "you can go anywhere you want... as long as you stay on the fucking path" school of game design.

Funny how things change to the point of contradicting early previews.

[Blonde799]

I just beat the game.

First of all, the last boss was easy as all hell. Second, even after starting over twice, I still managed to beat the game once in 3 days, maxing out my character, and trying to find all possible sidequests, and I ended up being 49 at the end. This game was incredibly short. But, I still had fun with it.:) I think I'll let my brother continue his game now being an evil lightning throwing bastard.:p