Fable

"A highly enjoyable, very addictive action RPG"

Fable is a game that fell victim to the hype; it was heralded as being the most revolutionary RPG every developed, you had complete control over the character from appearance and skills, to even their moral standing. In development it was dubbed Project Ego, which was obviously over-inflated somewhat. Having said this, if you played the game without having been subjected to all the hype, then you would find an incredibly enjoyable game that is very well designed and oozes charm from every polygon. It is because of this, and it may sound odd, that Fable is possibly my favourite Xbox game and definitely my most replayed.

Fable tells of a young boy growing up in the village of Oakvale, which seems to be very reminiscent of Hobbiton in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. It is peaceful and tranquil and the last place one would expect a horde of raging bandits to invade. But alas, this is just what happens when the little boy goes to give his beloved sister a present for her birthday. The bandits raise the village to the ground but luckily a bearded man with many tattoos arrives and takes the boy away with him, but luckily, instead of being a child sex offender, the man called Maze runs the Hero's Guild, where he trains the young man to be a hero.

That is the gist of it; you undertake quests and the like and gain experience. However, what you will undoubtedly wish to know about is the morality system. Basically, when you commit what would be considered a good deed (such as giving a child back their beloved teddy bear) you get good points, and when you do something bad (such punching a tramp) you get evil points. These points accumulate depending on which type of deed you do most, though you can remain neutral. If you choose to be a noble and just hero, then you develop blond hair and shining skin and lovely butterflies flock about your person and a glimmer of a halo develops. If you choose to be a sneaky and evil villain, then you lose your hair and turn bald with scabby, pale skin and red eyes and you develop ridiculous horns and a foreboding red mist trails at your feet, even when you haven't just farted. I love this system, when playing as a good hero people cheer you and traders are better inclined towards you, being evil allows you liberty to commit crime with impunity, but suffer the jeers of the townsfolk and the chastisement of traders and merchants. It changes the way you play the game, for instance, I didn't know you could pick locks and break and enter until I played as an evil character.

Now, as for experience, it is a little different from your normal RPGs, though not much. When you defeat an enemy, several experience orbs appear which are collected, once a certain number are acquired then you can spend them on upgrades in three classes: Strength, Skill and Will. Strength has things like Health, Physique and Toughness which increase exactly what they suggest, Skill has things like Accuracy, Speed and Guile and Will has Attack Spells, Surround Spells and Will Power itself. Depending on what kind of character you want to be, you should pretty much focus on one or two of these aspects. Warriors go for strength, Mages for will power and archers and thieves etc. go for Skill. Though to achieve a balanced character, you will need to build up toughness etc.

Each of these skills can alter the appearance of the character, one with a high physique stat will be large and very muscular, a character with a lot of guile will be taller, a potent will user will have magically glowing hands and also glowing runes on their body. In addition to the altered appearances depending on class, certain stats are required to obtain certain items; a good example of this is the Giant Blade in the Temple of Avo that no one can remove, including you unless you have a full physique stat.

Now, I feel I need to take a break from the game mechanics and start to talk about the graphics. The graphics in Fable are simply excellent, they are very vibrant and colourful and full of charm, and also, the whole game simply looks and feels so English! Which is appropriate since it was made by an English company. It feels great to roam the Great Wood at dawn, there is a sleepy haze about everything and it feels so tranquil, or would do if there weren't several bandits and giant wasps attacking you. The character models are also very well designed, they look realistic to a certain extent, but there is also a cartoon-ish look about them, such as having overly large hands and making exaggerated gestures. I don't think you can really complain about the graphics in Fable.

I can and will complain about the loading times though, the Xbox is supposed to be far more powerful than the Gamecube and PS2, but whenever you leave an area in Fable, it has to load for absolutely ages and this gets incredibly irritating. I have rarely, if ever experienced a loading time longer than about 5 seconds on the Gamecube and only GTA Vice City matches Fable on the PS2. It is a bit of a petty complaint, but it does break up the flow of the game, and as some areas are incredibly small, when on long journeys and not hanging around in one area, it can take considerable time. Thankfully you can warp to areas you have already visited so this removes a great deal of the accumulated waiting time that you would get if you walked there.

The sound is also inspired, there is a fantastic musical score that really fits the game, whilst there are no outstanding “stand alone” songs, such as you would expect with Nobuo Uematsu and the Final Fantasy games, but the songs concentrate on building an appropriate atmosphere and it really works. The voice acting is one of the best things about this game; all of it is done in British regional accents and is done exceptionally well which adds to the “British feel” of the game. You can expect to hear northern accents from areas like Yorkshire: “Goin' oop tut pub!” To Birmingham accents, some of them are mixed together so it doesn't give a regional dialect to any place in Fable, but nevertheless, it is the best voice acting in any game I have ever played. It really makes a nice change, being from England, I always hate irritating American voices in games (Tales of Symphonia, I am looking at you!)

Right, now we have had that little detour to the less important aspects of the game, I must continue onwards with the gameplay. Fable is essentially an Action RPG, there are no random battles and no party to tag along with you; it is just you and your weapon of choice hacking and slashing the enemies of Albion. The combat is simple and effective, it doesn't overcomplicate it which is often the downfall of many games, but it is complex enough not to get overly stale. Basically you can attack with your weapon and do combos (obviously) and you can also hold the Y button to guard, whilst guarding you can roll around your foe as well as to and from which enables an easy method of dodging and is effective in staying alive when ambushed by a group of bandits or other enemies. You can also get a more powerful attack when your melee weapon flashes red, press B (or X, I forget) to unleash a flourishing strike that is unblockable, useful for defeating large and heavily armoured opposition.

Another aspect of the game that I adore is the open-endedness, and ok, it isn't the most open-ended game, nothing on the Elder Scrolls series, but there is no pressure to complete the main quest. You can take your time, wonder the woods defeating bandits and helping the many traders out and also modifying your hairstyle with them, you can buy kegs of Ale and Cider to trade with merchants and make a profit, spend ages doing this and you can get loads of money. But you can also buy marital homes in the game's various towns and cities and get married by interacting and flirting with the opposite (or same) sex. You can make gestures such as flexing your biceps or giving them gifts and eventually a heart will appear above their heads, get it big enough and you can propose and they become your wife. Yes, you can have sex with them, but it is pretty rubbish really, just a black screen and some amusing noises “Oooh! You are naughty!” But anyway, this shouldn't matter, as who the hell plays games hoping to be having sex in them? Get a real girl.

Polygamy is acceptable social behaviour in Albion, but as long as you have no more than one wife in each town, having lots of wives also gets difficult as they will want a divorce if you neglect them, and that means a lot of evil points. Another way of making money is to seduce and kill the shopkeepers and take over their shops. So as you can see, there is an abundance of activities to do and many sidequests like the Fist Fighters Club and you will also find Demon Doors, who ask for certain tasks to be accomplished before they yield their treasure. But it is not as open-ended as originally promised in the run up to the game.

I think it is important to play Fable without thinking about all the hype and the promises, because you will feel let down and you will have a negative attitude towards the game. But Fable is a very good game and one I enjoyed immensely, it is fun to replay with characters of different alignment and class and I feel there is a lot of replay value to be had for the creative player, but Fable is far too short and too easy and it doesn't feel as fulfilling as a good RPG should. I think though, if you own an Xbox, you should definitely get this game. This game has laid some pretty solid foundations and I can hardly wait for Fable 2 on the Xbox 360, that could be an absolutely sublime game and one that finally convinces me to shell out for one.

Graphics, 9/10 - The graphics on this game are just excellent and they ooze charm from every polygon, one of the best looking games on Xbox.

Sound, 10/10 - Utterly brilliant voice acting coupled with an excellent musical score is one of the best things about Fable.

Gameplay, 8/10 - Solid hack and slash gameplay, has a brilliant good/evil system as well and a highly customisable class system.

Overall, 8/10 - Fable is not the game it promised to be, however, it is groundbreaking to a certain extent, there are many elements in it that I had never seen in video games prior to playing this. It is a quality title and one that I would recommend to all RPG-loving Xbox owners.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 05/14/07