Fable

"Here's why you shouldn't lie, kids..."

Few games receive as much hype as Peter Molyneux's Fable. Before its release in fall of 2004, the game spent around four years (if not more) in development and went through several names, including Project Ego. The idea behind Fable was that it was a role-playing game that, to some extent, allowed you to do anything you wanted to do. You were in charge of building up your very own character, and could determine everything about that character, whether it be his appearance, his fighting style, his magical abilities and his level of heroism. The game spent so much time in development that the hype almost wore off and people began forgetting about the game in favor of far bigger titles, such as Halo 2. The game finally saw a release, much to Xbox fans' joy (and regret, as well).

I was looking forward to Fable's release. I was excited for the game and its ambition. The possibility of Fable being an RPG that allowed the player to do whatever he or she wanted was nearly unheard of, and opened up a world of possibilities. I very distinctly remember reading an early preview of Project Ego shortly after E3 2001, and my world was rocked. The screenshots seemed phenomenal – they showed a variety of warriors (all player-created and each having their own unique armor, haircuts, etc.) running around in enormous fields, beautiful villages, and all sorts of unique places that were huge and brimming with unmatched detail. You could play the role of hero or go around killing any old fool and raiding his corpse. I wanted to roam those fields and feel the freedom that designer Molyneux promised us. What happened to that Fable?

Now don't get me wrong – Fable is a good game, and you'd have to be a fool not to recognize that this game certainly excels in a number of ways even if it does fall WAY short of the hype and promises it was given by the developer. In fact, if Fable came out of nowhere, without any hype whatsoever, and still be the same game that it is, I believe it would have been given more respect by the press and the fans. And that's the biggest weakness Fable has – the game promised the world, and failed to deliver. What's left is an RPG that's certainly unique in many respects and plays well, but is also simply a letdown, to the point that one can't play the game without feeling somewhat disappointed. It's not fair, but if I blame anyone, it's Molyneux himself, who opened his mouth way too often, promising various features that later got cut, and claimed it would be the “greatest RPG of all time”. Not even close.

But let me start with how exactly the game plays out. You're a young boy (sorry, you can't play as a female character) growing up in a small village in the world of Albion. At the start of the game, you're given control of the little boy (who always starts off looking the same – it's up to you to determine how he ultimately ends up looking), and during that time you've got to explore the village and find a way to make enough money to buy your sister a birthday present. And I must say, the first ten or fifteen minutes of Fable must be the one of the most misleading introductions in any game. You're given complete freedom in how you earn that money. Your dad promises to give you one piece of gold for every good deed you perform. You can earn your money either by doing good deeds for people around the village and getting the money from your dad, or by earning money in other ways.

Let me give you an example. As you explore the village, you'll encounter a young boy who's being bullied by a slightly older kid. You've got to get some money out of this situation somehow, and there's more than one way to do it. If you tell the bully off, or even start punching him as punishment for picking on the kid, that kid will be thankful that you saved him, and go tell your dad about what you did, therefore getting you some gold. However, if you side with the bully and even start punching the kid yourself, the bully will thank you for the help and will split his loot with you, that being a piece of gold. So, you'll have the opportunity to make some very interesting choice, both profitable in some way – the difference is in the heroism (or lack of) in that deed. There are other moments like that, and this little moment at the beginning of the game gives you the feeling of freedom Molyneux promised to deliver. But alas, this is a very deceitful little game.

The problem is that these first ten or fifteen minutes give you the illusion that you actually have the freedom to be one hundred percent good or evil and at all times be able to pick which side. Your alignment is shown on a meter in the status screen, and is determined by gaining either light or dark points, very much reminiscent of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. The difference is that KOTOR never forced you to be either good or bad. In Fable, the developers messed up and created a point distribution system that is flawed and uneven. Just to give you an idea, every time you defeat an enemy, you get light points. So what was I supposed to do if I want to be evil? Should I avoid fighting completely? Bad idea.

As far as game structure, Fable plays out like any other RPG. After the brief prelude mentioned above, a group of bandits will, for no reason other than to provide a “twist”, destroy the village, which should give you an idea of how uninspired and lame the plot of the game is (having the hero's village destroyed, by the way, is a horrible RPG cliche). From there, you'll spend the next hour or so training at the Heroes' Guild, the central hub of the game. Here, you'll learn the basics of control and combat, and have some chances at completing missions. From there (at this point, your character will be in, oh, his mid-twenties), you'll be able to explore the world of Albion, and as you accept more and more quests from the Heroes' Guild, you'll gradually open up more of the world, with new areas, towns and dungeons revealed.

Combat is a rather interesting mechanic that is, in many ways, reminiscent of Zelda. There are three types of combat: Strength, Skill and Will. The one that starters should be using, of course, is Strength, or melee combat, which is the simplest and in some cases most effective. You can target enemies with the left trigger, although the targeting system is flawed, and often times you'll accidentally target an ally or an innocent passerby instead of the enemy you're trying to hit. Attacking is done with the X button, guarding with the Y button, and you can unleash a special move with B when you lay down enough consecutive hits. Skill, or ranged combat is more of an annoyance in comparison, as it simply involves shooting enemies from afar with no alternate moves or fancy junk. These two combat types must be activated by equipping a weapon, whether it be a sword, axe or mace for melee combat or a bow or crossbow for ranged attacks. You can equip them with the black and white buttons.

Magical techniques (or Will), on the other hand, are much more advanced, and I wouldn't recommend trying this in full until you've beaten the game at least once, but in some cases it can be more effective. By holding down the right trigger, you'll switch to magic mode, at which point you can unleash any magical attack you've taught yourself. These attacks range from offensive maneuvers (lightning, fireball, force push, etc.) to status-enhancing spells (power-plus, shield, etc.). If you specialize in either of the other two battle types, you can even teach yourself a few spells that help you to strengthen that area of battle, such as multiple arrows on a crossbow or increased power in your sword. Actually using magic as your specialty requires gaining a lot of experience in battle, as you must not only teach yourself new spells, but you must upgrade your current ones as well.

The problem with this three-pronged approach to the battle system is that it pretty much forces players to focus on one area, meaning that you really can't balance it out between all three battle types. If, for example, you continuously fight with a sword, you'll receive Strength experience points, which can then only be used to upgrade Strength attributes. Although you'll be rewarded universal experience for any enemy defeated, most of what you can upgrade depends solely on what you're already doing. If you specialize at magic attacks, don't expect to be able to swing a sword very well as a back-up plan in case you run out of magic. I wish the game worked a little better at being able to balance it all out.

But forget about combat – the real star of this game is its main character. This character, more so than any other game, is based around you, or more accurately, the choices you make in-game. I'm not just talking about good and bad, either – you actually have, most of the time, complete control over your character, as in what he looks like and what choices he makes. He is you. If there's one thing I love about Fable, it's the true connection that players feel with the character that they basically create. First and foremost is physical appearance. There's a large selection of armor throughout the game – both bought and found – that not only protects you to certain extents, but also changes how you look. Buy a thin, gold armor set, and your character will look handsome and will attract and impress people. Wear an enormous, black, spiky, deathly-looking uniform and people will cower.

It goes far beyond that. You'll run into a selection of hairstylists, all of whom can customize your face with a selection of hair, mustache and beard styles to change how your character's face looks – some will look great, some will look menacing, and some will even look out-of-place (such as a mohawk). Same with tattoos – you can find many tattoo artists all over the place, who can give you a set of tattoos that all depend on your liking. You can even talk to people who will allow you to purchase a title for yourself. That person will then spread the name. It's cool to choose a name like “Liberator” for yourself, and have people call you that from then on. And, of course, the decision between good and evil will eventually affect your appearance as well. If you play the role of good guy, your hair will turn to a brilliant blonde, a small, discreet halo will form over your head, and butterflies will flutter around you. If you're evil, your eyes turn red, flies swarm around you, and you become bald and even grow horns.

In Fable, you'll actually become concerned with your character's looks. On my first run-through, my character had two sets of armor. One of them was a heavy, rusty-looking suit, complete with a helmet. It turned him into a powerhouse, but made him look downright funky. His second set of armor was a lighter, thinner, better-looking leather suit that made him look more, uh, tasteful and acceptable in public. I wasn't the only one who cared about his appearance, either. Like any RPG, Fable is filled with NPCs. These aren't normal two-line-speaking bores, though. The game is filled with what must be hundreds (if not thousands) of recorded lines of dialog that are spoken to your character, from NPCs, in the game. Their reactions are based entirely on you. If you walk into a town dressed with good clothing and an attractive hairstyle, men will tell you what a decent fellow you are, and women will hit on you. Likewise, going in all ugly and menacing-looking will draw people away.

The choice between good and evil is mainly based around your actions, and although it's not nearly as balanced throughout the whole game as it is during the first ten or fifteen minutes, it still offers players a satisfying array of decision that will result in points for either light or dark. Often times, you'll be faced with a situation where you'll get either light or dark points depending on how you handled yourself. Though, any players who play through this game with good intentions in mind will probably have a better time, as the quest seems a bit more structured towards that line. Any enemy defeated will result in light points, as I mentioned earlier, which makes no sense but helps the good guys. Basically, by simply following the basic plot of the game, people should have no trouble scoring light points.

The path of evil is not as enjoyable. Any enemies that you've killed will result in light points, so if you're aiming for an all-evil adventure, you've got to avoid as many battles as you can, which certainly isn't a good idea. Many of the game's crucial missions will have you performing generally good tasks, such as rescuing a group of merchants and infiltrating the hideout of a group of bandits. So, the primary way of scoring evil points is by killing random people, which sounds so-nasty-it's-fun but really isn't. By killing people, the police will come after you, and the more you fight them off, the more your wanted level goes up. And the more your wanted level goes up, the longer it'll take to go down. So, if you kill people in a village but then would like to buy some weapons from one of the shops, you've got to either pay the exhaustingly high bail fine, or wait until the police have forgotten about you, which could take ages. What's worse, police continuously spawn out of nowhere, which is never fun.

At the very least, the game does have some interesting features. For one, Molyneux decided to include a neat little option called “boasting” that, at the very least, changes the game a little bit. For every quest you accept, you always have the option of “boasting”, which means to increase the stakes of the mission a bit, making the mission more challenging but, in the end, more rewarding. For example, in one mission, you've got to go after the leader of a group of bandits. By boasting that you'll ultimately kill him by beheading him, you'll then have that burden upon you. If you succeed, you'll get more money and renown, and if you fail, you won't lose anything, but people will lose respect for you. Although some of the missions have exclusive boasts, most of the boasts throughout the game are the same, such as to complete the mission without any weapons or magic (which is, by the way, a pain in the ass since you're limited to your fists for attacking), or to complete the assignment within a certain amount of time.

Renown, by the way, is this game's word for fame. As you earn renown, more and more people around the world are aware of you, which doesn't necessarily help gameplay-wise, but will affect your surroundings in unique ways. If you're known for being an enormous hero, people around villages will applaud you, and ladies will fall in love with you. But if you're known for being a murderer, people will stand back in sheer fright when they're around you. You can score renown by completing missions and showing off trophies. For example, in the first mission in the game, you've got to defeat a wasp queen that's attacking people in a picnic area. When you kill her, you'll receive her head as a trophy, and the people you saved will clap. Then, when you get back to the nearest village, you can pull out the wasp's head and show it to people for even more renown.

You're given a surprising number of things to do in Fable. Often times, when you explore villages, you'll come across a house that's on sale. If you're willing to shell out the cash, you can buy the house, which can be rented out. Not only that, but you can increase the worth of the house by upgrading it and even hanging your trophies all over the place. After buying the house, you can then find a woman you like, talk to her, give her gifts and eventually get her to marry you. You'll then move into the house, where you can, ahem, go to bed with her. What I'm wondering is this: What's the point? Why did Molyneux's team spend time on pointless additions like this and not work on fun elements in the game? Not only is there no reasoning behind marrying someone in the game, but there's no depth to it – you can literally go up to any woman in the game and get her to marry you simply by showering her with gifts.

And then, when it all comes to an end, you discover the greatest disappointment of all – the game's size. I'm talking about how long the game lasts. Fable is not only shorter than most RPGs, but most games as a whole. You'll be able to complete Fable's main game in ten hours, or at the most, fifteen. What's even worse is that there are very few optional missions to complete in case you're interested in staying longer. With the sheer amount of time they spent working on this game, you'd think they could have added a few more go-here-and-kill-all-the-enemies quests or something. And to top it all off, the game's last save point locks you into the final dungeon. This means that if you save right before tackling the final boss, you won't ever be able to explore Albion again with the character you've created. Plus, not to ruin anything, but Fable's ending (whether it be based around good or evil) is all determined by a final choice you make at the end of the game, regardless of the choices you've made up until that point.

At least the game is technologically above average. The graphics are very beautiful and very detailed – these are some of the best visuals on Xbox. Unfortunately, the graphics are slightly marred by a few flaws. Bloom lighting is overused – everything in this game seems to just glow unrealistically. The framerate also skips when exiting menus and loading screens and even significantly lowers itself in busy areas – you'll notice a very distinct drop in the framerate when entering, say, Bowerstone. And speaking of load times, the ones in Fable are excruciating. Luckily, the sound is excellent. Danny Elfman (who wrote the music to such movies as The Nightmare Before Christmas and Midnight Run) did the game's musical score, which is utterly fantastic. A theme weaves itself in and out of Fable's selection of tracks, and is very memorable.

Pros

+ A lot of work went into this action/RPG.
+ The theme of good/evil and the choices involved in becoming so.
+ The main character constantly changes in appearances and fame.
+ A very interactive world filled with places and people.
+ An enjoyable quest if you're playing the role of hero.
+ Decent battle system with three combat types.
+ Great graphics.
+ Terrific original score by Danny Elfman.

Cons

- Doesn't live up to the hype, as many promised features were pulled.
- The boring, tired storyline really, genuinely sucks.
- Being “evil” doesn't work with the flawed system.
- A very short game without enough optional quests.
- Broken targeting system.
- Pointless gimmicks, such as matrimony.
- Long, frequent load times.

Overall: 6/10

fable (fa'-bul) n. 1. A fictitious story making a moral point and often using animal characters. 2. A legend. 3. A falsehood : lie.

So what's the moral of this Fable? Don't lie, and don't set yourself at a standard that you can't live up to, because people are bound to be disappointed. Peter Molyneux not only promised us many features that never made it into the game (aside from the idea that this game was going to be enormous – it isn't), he also claimed that it was his intention to create “the greatest RPG of all time”. And you know what? I believed him, and many others did. And as a result, Fable is a game that isn't nearly as good as it should have been merely because of disappointment. They spent four years working on this? What were they doing all that time? Even then, it's hard not to take into consideration Fable's flaws. This is now (after Black & White) the second time Molyneux has disappointed us with failed hype and expectations. When his next game hits the shelves (which should be The Movies if that ever even gets released), I'll try not to take into consideration all of the hype, but perhaps that won't be possible.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 10/18/04, Updated 08/29/05