Fable

"Not the BEST Game Ever, But It's Still a Good Time"

When the X-Box came out, the list of games coming with it wasn't too big, but most, if not all of them were visually impressive. And though the system was met with a bunch of anti-Gates fanboys, it sold pretty well. Interestingly enough, the sales of this system can probably be attributed to a very small handful of games. Of course, the biggest game of them all was Halo, which almost every X-Box owner has. But another game which helped the X-Box sell some systems throughout its existence hasn't even been around for any of it so far...until now. That game is Fable, aka Project Ego, aka Wish World, aka the future "Best Game Ever".

After quite a few years of waiting, Fable has finally been released. No doubt, a lot of people who bought their X-Box's bought it for either this and/or Halo, so they most likely flocked to the game stores to either pick up their "reserved since the earliest date possible" game or fight for one of the non-reserved versions (though there was probably be enough for everyone...after all, it is one of the most anticipated games ever). That car or bike or train ride home was probably one of the longest rides home ever. And walking to their X-Box was probably one of the longest walks ever. They probably fought around with the plastic wrapping for a good minute or two...one of the longest battles with game wrapping ever. That first bootup for Fable probably seemed to take a while too. And finally, game time.

Unfortunately, those people probably didn't find the "Greatest RPG Ever Made" that they were waiting for. In fact, they may not have found one of the greatest games of the year when they booted up. Rest assured, they did find a great game. But Fable is not, by any stretch, the best game ever.

Sadly, hype was one of the reasons that many Fable fans will be disappointed. A lot of the cool features that made this game innovative (and probably would've made this game into the Greatest Game of the Year shoo-in if they were kept in) were taken out either over time or months before the game's release. The big feature that had a lot of people take notice, which was your character's changing appearance, is still in and it looks and works great. However, in a month or so, that feature won't be unique anymore, as Grand Theft Auto San Andreas (a game which I'm sure many people will compare this to) will have their main character able to change body shape with different activities. And just like in Fable, people will react to your appearance. How this works out as opposed to Fable is yet to be seen, but Fable got the job done pretty well and, unless GTA San Andreas can do something extremely remarkable, it will be the best appearance based system available.

Graphics seem to act as a wildcard in this game. They are gorgeous, and probably everything you'd expect after all the waiting. BUT...the framerate can suck sometimes. Then again, framerate is one of those things that, even in the best games, can go out of control at times. One thing graphic related that I didn't care too much for, though, is this game's similarity to the GTA series in a bad way: identical townspeople. You'd think that with as long as this game was in development, they'd have made more models to avoid this happening too much, and while there are a few of them, I just see identical people more often than I'd like.

One thing that really got me is the fact that you MUST complete any mission you take. Sure you can finish them differently, but you must finish them. You'd think failure would be an option in a game where you are supposedly competing to be the best hero in the land...but then again, that was one of the features that was taken out. Any competition is now story-related, which kind of takes away from Fable's uniqueness.

Another major gripe I had is the existence of temples for both good and evil. Though they require money to use their functions, the functions themselves ruin the game's decision making feature entirely. Say that you've done a lot of bad stuff, and are now feared by everyone. You finish the game and then decide you want to see what would happen if you finished it with a good character. Well, instead of playing through the game again, you can just go to the good temple, pay the necessary fees, and eventually...PRESTO, you're good! Go ahead and beat the game and get that good ending without doing a single good deed. This feature really kills the replayability, and though it is avoidable, I have a feeling that quite a few gamers will use it to see the multiple endings, and that defeats the whole purpose of replaying the game for a different experience if you already know how the game'll end. Why this feature was implemented is beyond me, but it was definitely not a good idea.

Besides all that, everything else seemed to be alright. Pretty much everyone in the game talks with an English accent, and since those people across the Atlantic have a weird, yet amusing, sense of humor, they manage to inject it into this game to keep it from being so serious all the time. I won't pretend I know who Danny Elfman is, but I did like the music alot, and think it is some of the best on the X-Box. And the combat system, once you master it, is almost perfect. The only gripe with that is that you seem to be avoiding getting scarred more than you are avoiding death.

All in all, this game is a victim of its own hype. It was built up so much and so many different features were mentioned that, when the game finally was released, it was nowhere near as great as you'd expect. This isn't the most unique game out there, though it is somewhat unique (again, the body shaping thing is going to be tested by GTA San Andreas). If this game kept in a lot of the features that were recently taken out (say in the past year or so), this would possibly be the best game of the decade, and quite possibly the best game ever. As it is, Fable is a pretty good game that deserves a look from any adventure/RPG fans with an X-Box. It just isn't a game that you should go out and buy an X-Box to play.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 09/14/04