Fable

" Sure, I recommend it, but I also recommend The Black Death!"

An ever-lasting relationship between man and game can be created before the game has even been released. While this is as risky as internet dating (you don't know what you're getting) it can also build up a tremendous amount of hype. Of course with this new found hype will come potential for success. Unfortunately for us gamers, video game development can be a bumpy ride. Sometimes a developer will make claims to some things that are nearly impossible. For the most part this is great (the enthusiasm) but once a game is released-if you don't please all your fans-you'll be burned to the ground by rabid trekkies.

Once I delved deeper into Fable I had realized what I would have missed out on. Hype or no hype, Fable definitely has lived up to my expectations. It turns out that my character was just the average child, a stable family, a somewhat nice house (again LOTR flash backs!), and a beautiful neighborhood to boot! It seems that it was Fastkilr's, sister's birthday! I had to help him find her a gift! Thankfully I was able to help the guy out: after all from what I gather his sister never misses his birthdays! Unfortunately after I lead him through this small birthday-adventure his town burnt down and his whole family was taken from him (this made me somewhat angry!) Upon all this excitement our character was taken to The Hero‘s Guild to train so he could one day avenge his family!

The story, although dramatic is somewhat interesting, and is a nice change from what you'd see in your every day adventure games. It is laid out for you in a series of quests which can be collected in the Hero's Guild which acts as somewhat of a hub. Outside of your quests you can do whatever you want, if you want to kick chickens and try to beat your own personal record you can do it, if you want to become a mass-murder and rid the settlements of people you can do that as well. Fable enables you to play through it with ease, it never rushes you to complete your quests, and never tells you exactly how to do something.

The combat system is nice and varied. The weaponry is actually quite interesting. You have two styles of weapons: Ranged, and Melee. The ranged weapons consist of Crossbows, and Longbows. Your melee choices will range from a stick to an abnormally large fully functional mace! The developers have worked themselves over here, each of the weapons performs as expected. Longbows become highly accurate, and your melee weapons, really lay the smack down on your opponents. The variety of things that you can do with your weapons is simply amazing. For example in this town in which the people are invincible, and you cannot carry weapons, I started flirting up all the girls and got a few of them to follow me out to these fields. I immediately unsheathed my large swords and struck them all down with rage.

My favorite thing about Fable was the progression of being either good or bad. If you went into a town and you killed all of its villagers, it racked upon an insane amount of evil points, but if you defeat a menacing bandit then you'll get some points back for doing a good deed. Your appearance will change with how your character is evolving. If you are being evil then you'll begin to go bald and sprout horns. If you're turning into a complete angel your hair will turn blond.

Within each of the towns there are guards which protect, and enforce the laws. In the majority of these towns you'd be fined immediately upon committing a crime. If you kill people then obviously the guards will be after you. In such a situation it would be smart to high-tail it out of there before the guards catch you. If you wait it out your crimes will be forgiven, and you will be allowed re-entry to the town. But be aware, the townsfolk might not like you as much because you killed their friends or family. As you become more renown by fighting through quests, people will begin to know who you are before you meet them, which can make for some really touching moments. Just be careful who you're killing. Don't toy with people's emotions!

Although Fable doesn't provide you with what you'd think of as proper transportation, you can use these teleportation-devices called cullis gates to get around quickly. Unfortunately these gates aren't in every area so you might be hoofing it for the majority of the game. Luckily you can improve on your characters speed in the Hero's guild! Other upgradeable attributes are: Physique, Health, Magic Spells, Surrounding Spells, among a few others. Eventually you'll max a statistic out if you are consistent, and your character will quickly become a sorcerer, or maybe an archer, or maybe you want a melee combatant!

The relationships in fable are rather intense. To get someone to fall in love with you all you have to do is start using pre-scripted expressions. From experience the flirt, arm pump, and sexy hero pose got you into a someone's trousers quicker than any other method, other than showering them with expensive gifts. The sex isn't as pleasing as it could have been. The screen goes black and you here you wife shout out things like: “Your so norty” or her energetic moans. You can marry either a women, or a man, but I wouldn't suggest the latter. In other news, outside of the game my sexy hero pose isn't getting me into anyone's pants anytime soon.

So what if Fable isn't as large as Morrowind, it still kills it in presentation and overall cool factor. Everything looks amazing. The artistic talent is evident in all the narrated slide-shows featuring medieval-esque art which explains what's going on in the story. The game truly is powerful, the magic looks amazing, the people look a ton better than Morrowind‘s and the environments just feel more lively. Unfortunately there are too many look alike citizens that you won‘t be able to tell your husbands apart!

The musical scores are amazing. I was drawn in from the moment I picked up the game, to the very last second when I had finished. Even the title screen sounds great. As far as sound effects go, everything seems to be accurate enough. I never felt like Fable was lacking anything in the sound department. Every once in awhile the Guild Master would call you up and order you around, that got annoying extremely quick. For the most part the voices seemed accurate enough, and it played off on itself well. Everything had character.

For me the worst part about Fable was the length! After 13 hours I had beaten the game with ease. Of course I hadn't gone through and collected every item (because I hate item-seeking!) but it was extremely short for an RPG in any case. Once you‘ve done your quests, found weapons, had hot sex, persuaded traders, and have done nearly anything your heart could desire to the poor civilians, there's nothing left to do.

To be honest with you: I'm not disappointed one bit. I am always precautious with new games because anything can happen. While Big Blue Box couldn't fit everything they had wanted into the game, I sure am satisfied with it! I was actually somewhat surprised when I picked up the game, it had just felt so solid, and everything controlled right (much better than KOTOR!) Something that really shocked me though was the beginning village (Oakvale) where you're growing up. I'm not sure why but it gave me horrendous flash backs back to LOTR: Fellowship of the Ring! While LOTR wasn‘t a bad game in its own right, it had felt like I was playing it all over again!

Don't get lost in the over-barring hype, Fable is a great game at heart. You can tell that there were some ideas that were left out in the final developmental stages. For whatever reason I enjoyed Fable, and I'm not going to let a bunch of rabid KOTOR fan boys sway my opinion, Fable has to be one of the best Adventure games that I've played this year. With intricate detail to everything going on in the game Big Blue Box's latest (and first) title is a heavily recommended rental, but should be a safe buy if you‘re interested.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 10/06/04, Updated 10/07/04