Fable Review
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Yes, you heard me, I'm talking about replay value, not exactly a common element in today's RPG market, I think you'll agree. Fable provides you with countless ways to play it, and they're all a blast. Do you want to be evil? I mean, so evil that you're the kind of person who eats live baby chicks? So evil that you grow horns and attract flies? Or do you want to be good to the point that light shines down on you from heaven and butterflies follow you around? (Before you answer that, I think you should know that your food of choice as a good character is, blech, tofu.) Each side has a lot going for it. Evil players, for example, will have a lot more freedom when it comes to acquiring items. You know how in every other RPG ever made, you can wander around towns, looking through pots and bookcases for items? Well, you can do that here, too, but it's an evil act. You are stealing, after all. If you're good, random passersby will come to your aid in a fight. Just out of nowhere, Fred the farmer and Ted the trader will start giving your attacker a smackdown. How cool is that? Certain spells, weapons, and even food have alignment modifiers, and just about every situation has both a good and evil approach, so you can adjust your morality as the situation requires. For example, a woman begs you to rescue her grandson from the nymph who has captured him. Whilst searching the nymph's cave, you come across a bandit she captured some time ago. When you meet the nymph, she says she'll give you the boy if you can find another human to take his place. Well, sure it means certain death.but he IS just a bandit after all, right? Fable is full of such moral ambiguity, and doesn't consider evil-doing to be a bad choice at all. Fable is stuffed with tiny details that don't really affect the outcome of the game, but make playing it a delight. You can buy a house and rent it out if you want to earn a little extra gold. If you want to spruce it up, you can hang some the trophies from your adventures on the wall. You can have several wives (or husbands, since Fable has no problem with gay marriage) at a time, and it doesn't count against you. Of course, if you neglect your spouse, he or she will likely divorce you unless you kill them first. You can find hidden items by fishing or digging, you can enter a Fist-Fighting Club for cash prizes, you can even have sex. (The game even keeps track of how many times you do the nasty, and with which gender. Neat!)
I was a bit surprised by the cartoony approach to Fable's graphics, with each character having oversized hands and feet, but the overall effect is quite charming and you won't miss the realism at all. The sound puts the graphics to shame, though. The musical score is excellent, but that's fairly typical for an RPG of this stature. The sound effects for the combat and spells are perfect, and the characters you meet are extremely well done, thick accents and all. The best sound effect by far, though, is the townspeople calling your name as you go by. Once you gain a certain amount of renown, your title will be known to all, and either cheered in glee or whispered in dread, depending on what kind of Hero you are. Fable's practically worth the price of admission for that alone.
The game isn't quite perfect, though. The world of Fable does feel a bit on the small side, and although there's a handy teleportation system that zips you to various hot spots, you can do it all on foot fairly quickly and easily. Also, the saving system sucks, because you can't save your game in the middle of a quest. Well, you can, but all your quest progress will be lost, and you'll have to start back at the beginning. You keep any items you may have picked up along the way, but you'll still have to redo all the work. Some of the mandatory quests can take an hour to complete, and sometimes that just isn't convenient. Your entire training at the Guild, the first hour or so of the game, is considered a quest, but you don't know that until you've completed it. The first time I took Fable for a spin, I only had a half hour or so to play, and wound up having to redo all my training.
All in all, though, Fable isn't what I was expecting, but it's more than I had hoped for. It's absolutely brilliant, and if you don't already own an Xbox, you might want to consider picking one up. Yeah, it's that damn good.
