Fable

"The first game I wish I didn't play"

Introduction:
I've been following Fable for a few years now, through forums, emails, announcements, and fansites. It seemed like it would be one of the most spectacular RPG's ever made. It had experienced programmers, a significant budget, and nearly 4 years to really make a mark in history. Yet, all it did, even with all the resources it had at it's disposal, was fail. This review is intended to dissect everything that went wrong with the game. Fanboys beware; you're not going to like this one bit.

Concept:
The idea behind Fable really caught my attention, several years back. You would start the game as a boy who lost his village and family to the evil bandits (cliched as hell). After a basic tutorial (child form), you would begin your adventure working with the Hero's Guild. The plan was that, for every decision you make, every action you take, and everything you do, there would be a reaction. The character would age, scar, grow, and "align" throughout the course of the game, and you would ultimately be met with death at the end of your journey. The goal was to be the most open-ended "free" RPG to date, with loads of replay value and alternate paths based on your decisions. The game's biggest goal, unfortunately, turned out to be it's biggest failure. Now to move on with the rating of this game.

New ideas:
This is one of the game's supposed catches. It claimed to bring forward innovations never before seen in RPG's, and make Fable a reality simulator. However, there was in fact -*nothing*- genuinely unique about the game. To clarify a few of these "innovations", I'll list the corresponding game in which you can find these elements of gameplay present, and more well-refined than Fable as well. This isn't all of them, but a select few I feel should be noted.

*****Marriage*****
The idea of marriage always has intrigued gamers in RPG's. Who doesn't want to marry that special heroine? Harvest Moon has had marriage incorporated into their series since the 1990's, and they did a better job of it too. In Fable, all the women look, act, and sound the same (minus some pallet swapping). They lack any sort of personality, and it seems their sole purpose is to take up space in a house you own. Hurray...I..guess??? Harvest Moon (GC,PS2,SNES) had special girls, with distinct personalities and appearances, and even bore children for you after a long period of time. Fable...you have a dreary woman, with an annoying accent, who sits around doing nothing all day. No innovation here; just a pathetic attempt to incorporate something into the game, while detailing it as little as possible.

*****Property*****
Property has always had an alluring draw to it, in-game and in real life. Fable allows you to buy houses, upgrade them, and lets you rent your property off to NPC's for a small fee. You can't store items in your house, you can't customize the decorations, and you can't really interact with it in anyway. For this, I point to Morrowing (Xbox). Morrowind had houses which you could decorate, store items in, and interact with in several different ways. Fable clearly tries to imitate Morrowind, but fails miserably, by making property rather useless and meaningless. Another "innovation" which Fable clearly borrowed from another game, and failed to improve in any way.

*****Alignment*****
This isn't really new to games, but Fable's big catch for their game was supposed to come right here. If you choose cruel, bad actions, your character would become demonic-like, and even have an Evil aura surrounding him; while if you were a kind, humane type of character, you would have a halo above your head, and be praised for your good deeds. Unfortunately, there's no significance to this whatsoever. If you're bad, people run away from you screaming, if you're good, they cheer for you and clap. That's it; that's the big catch. The lack of dialogue really nulled this whole aspect of the game. Also, the fact that the storyline is the same whether you are good or bad butchers replay value tremendously. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (Xbox) does a much better job of putting some significance and replay value into their game, via the alignment system.

There's a little glimpse at the reality of the game. Not so innovative after all huh? I gave this game a 2/10 for innovation and new content. Onto the next section!

Graphics:
The graphics are quite...difficult to explain. Some parts of the game look fantastic, and nearly lifelike; other times, you will want to cry the graphics look so hideous. I personally think the level of detail on the character's body is impressive; there are scars from battle, a tint from sun exposure, and tatoo's wrapping around the player. However, the world seems dead. Similar to Morrowind, the world doesn't feel alive; as if the world is on pause, but you're free to move around. On the downside, the fact that *all* NPC's look nearly identical detracts from the setting significantly. You really won't delve into the fantasy world, unless you like a white collared shirt with khaki shorts. That's what over 50% of the NPC's look like. A personal gripe I have is the detail to body texture; even when I made my character "Obese", he looked like a skeleton with a small tummy. While the environments start off somewhat nice, they also start to become dull, and seem to lack effort. The lighting system is a plus though, as you can really enjoy zooming in and looking at your character, However, my final verdict considers the following. I took the amount of time put into the game, the console on hand, and the final result, and I came up with a slightly above average score. My score for the graphics is a 6/10

Sound:
Ah, the sound. The music isn't terrible; I actually enjoyed it for quite awhile. It does, however, get stale, and quickly at that. I think they definitely could have added a few extra tracks into the game, and simply chose not to. However, the downside comes with the sound effects. I think I'd rather stick head in a microwave and hum "Final Fantasy" (NES) themes than hear this dreaded suck. Swords sound horrible; as if you were swinging a stick at a pillow. Doors creak as if they have never been opened, and for some reason, crossbows sound identical to longbows, even though they fire with different mechanisms. Let's not even touch on the NPC's voices; you'll definitely have the urge to watch "Monty Python" after the horrible voice-overs for the NPC's. The sound effects are so bad, I actually mute my television to save my ears from the pain. My score for this section is 3/10, and only because the music was decent, for a little while.

Gameplay:
Ah yes, the crucial failure of Fable really shines right here. 4 years.....that's an unbelieveable amount of time to put into 1 game. You'd think this would be the most polished, well-tuned, well-refined game ever made. You'd also be dead wrong. Think "Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness" (PS2), which took 5 years to make, and failed miserably. Fable is like a de-ja-vu of that nightmare all over again. I'll list some reasons to be a bit more specific.

***Saving***
The save system is broken. How the hell you make a game, and release it with a broken save system mystifies me. When you save a game, it does not record the time which you saved at. There's also bugs which allow you to get certain items infinitely, so long as you save and reload at the proper time. The way I see it, when you can't save a game properly, you can't play a game properly. Enjoy doing those time-specific quests too; you won't be able to save and quick-load if you make a mistake.
***Questing***
I was ready to return this broken piece of garbage within 20 minutes of playing. As soon as you're an adult, you'll notice that you can choose from 3 quests at the Hero's Guild. The joke is on you pal; they *didn't implement 2 the quests in the game* at all. That's right, you can see them, but you can never even do them. Way to go Fable team; I can tell you spent a lot of time checking over your product for programming errors! Also, questing was supposed to be so incredibly open-ended, and fun to repeat with a different outcome. Blasphemy. Quests are 80% linear, and the decisions you make usually don't matter anyway, other than for an alignment bonus. There is not one thing notable that is good about the questing system.
***Freedom***
Ha! You thought you'd be able to go where you wanted, when you wanted, for whatever reason you wanted at the start of the game? WRONG. Areas are locked, by some total bull**** means, which means you don't get to explore anywhere that the game doesn't want you to. For a game who's entire basis was the freedom to do whatever, I find it ironic that I am unable to venture out as far as I please. So much for freedom; play the storyline, or stay in the guild.
***Combat***
Combat is mind-bogglingly boring, regardless of your class build. This is partly due to the fact that enemy A.I. seems non-existant. Sometimes, you'll shoot an enemy with an arrow and they'll come charging at you full speed; other times, they'll inch (literally) towards you, while you just pound away at their life. I think there's a significant problem when I am able to take 12 enemies at a time without even being hit, merely by circling them. I didn't detect any effort at all being put into the A.I.

Those are some specific examples of what absolutely butchers the gameplay. To generalize a little bit now, the game was also ruined by massive cuts/removals of content. Having children with your spouse, death at the end of the game, sex scenes, the ability to "rule" a town; all of these elements were cut out of the game. It's hard not to be pissed off, when every gaming magazine you read is telling you about all these fantastic features, only to see them removed. Another notable flaw is the sheer simplicity of the game. **I should not be able to beat a game that took 4 years to make in a few hours**. It seems like they took several key aspects from other games, and dumbed them down so that even the biggest fool could grasp the game without a problem.

The final straw that broke the camel's back was the tedium. Quests are nearly *always* the same. Find X and talk to X, Kill the X to help the Y, Escort X to Y. There's nothing fun about that; especially given the fact that the A.I. is awful. Nothing like doing an escort quest, only to watch the NPC run in front of your bow and get shot. The fact that you can't fail quests also bores me; what incentive do I have to try when I can just re-start instantly?

I will come out and say that I had low expectations for the game; I just wanted something that could hold my interest for a week or 2. Sadly, Fable held my interest for roughly 12 hours, and that was the end of that game. For the lack of content, the lack of innovation, the poor A.I., and the numerous bugs and glitches, I gave the gameplay a 1/10; this game wasn't finished, and shouldn't have been released yet.

Replay Value:
You won't want to play this game again. A minority of you might want to try a dfferent build (example: if you went archer, you might want to make a melee a second time through), but I believe the game's sightly flaws and complete lack of fun will push many of you away from the game. For this reason, I don't think this game has an replay value personally, but I'll give it a 3/10, because I know some people will sit through another 12 hours of hell.

Rent/Buy:
Rent. There's no question in my mind that anybody can beat this game at least 2 times in 5 days, and you'll save yourself 40$.

Closing thoughts:
I'm always a harsh reviewer, I will admit that. I honestly don't feel this game was ever finished, and that the only reason it was released now was because it had met it's final deadline. There's way too many basic problems; it's completely evident the programmers did a very slack and half-assed job of testing their game. The fact that this game took 4 years to develop, and yielded such a pathetic result, makes me wonder just what exactly Peter Molyneaux and his crew were doing over that time. If you don't agree with my review, that's fine; to each his own. But I plead with you, if you're reading other reviews, please disregard all the 9's and 10's. You can't give a score like that to a game where there are just flaws everywhere. I hope my review saves everyone who reads it 50$; there are better games out there. I hope this review was informative to all of you potential buyers.

Recommendations:
If you'd like a look at how this game *should* have been done, in even the most remote fashion, please check out "Morrowind: The Elder Scrolls 3" (Xbox) or "Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic" (Xbox). They are much better games, and significantly cheaper than Fable.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 09/21/04