ic-games Review - Fable - Reviews, Previews and Interviews for PC, Xbox 360, PS2, PS3 and Wii

ic-games Review - Fable - Reviews, Previews and Interviews for PC, Xbox 360, PS2, PS3 and Wii ic-games Review - Home - Review, Preview and Interview for PC, Xbox,Xbox 360, PS2, PS3 and Wii

Fable

Information
Reviewer: James Collins
Developer: Big Blue Box
Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios
Reviewed: Xbox
Genre: Action Adventure
UK Release: 08th Oct 2004
Article Date: 13th Sep 2004
Difficulty: Easy
Retail Price:
Price Comparison:
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Score Breakdown

Experience:
Game Play:
Graphics:
Sound:
Overall Score: 95%

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Pros

Immersive

Breathtaking graphics and sound

Multiple paths

Brilliant plot

Cons

No real sense of danger

Screenshots

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You begin the Fable as a young boy trying to earn enough money to buy his Sister a birthday present by doing three good deeds. Sounds simple enough right? However, like Lionheads previous offering "Black and White," how you actually earn the money depends entirely on you. Do you take a bribe when you stumble across an adulterous husband or do you run and tell the wife about her no-good spouse and earn a good deed? Or do you even take the bribe and tell the wife anyway? Every action, even so early on will slowly build up your character and the type of person you become. Even though the initial childhood sequences/choices will be the same every time you play the game it does set you up quite nicely to learn the simple control system and the good and bad alignment factors.

However you earn the money it’s not long after that first quest is completed that Fable’s story takes a darker tone. Gone are the happy villagers that you were only just talking too, and in their place nothing much remains except charred and burnt out houses. Helpless to stop the ongoing bandit raid your sister pleads with you to hide – and that’s exactly what you do. When you finally decide it’s safe enough to venture out, you run back to your home only to learn that your whole family has been slain, and for once in your life you’re all alone. (Sniff -Ed) Fortunately for our young character, a representative from the Heroes guild has been studying you for sometime and decides upon this moment to take you under his wing. The upshot of all this is that you end up being whisked away to the Heroes' Guild, where you will spend most of your childhood life training hard to become a hero – even if you appear good or bad, everyone is welcome during this brief training period and long into the game proper.

The training does an ample job of teaching you the three main attack types you’ll encounter in Fable, melee, ranged and will (more commonly known as magic). All these types of attacks are relatively easy to use whilst still being powerful enough in their own rights. The left shoulder button locks onto your target (and also allows you to attack friendly units) and the black/white buttons allow you to switch between your melee and ranged weapons and a repeated press will holster your chosen weapon (required in certain places). Melee combos are achieved just by hitting the (X) button in a similar vein to any button basher you may have played before, while the ranged attacks (bow and arrow) require a little more effort in that you must hold down the (X) button as long as you can before releasing the arrow - the longer you hold down the button the more damage your attack will cause.

Jumping right into the game is easy as the control system is old hat to anyone who has played a third person adventure before. You move the camera with the right analogue stick and move your main character with the left as you move through the beautifully rendered 3D world. Bindings can be allocated to the D-Pad such as drinking potions or offering gifts although there are multiple different bindings and actions available. Not all actions are available at once, some you will discover later on like learning how to fish or dig/bury treasure.

And it doesn’t take long before these actions start to have an effect on the inhabitants of the towns you visit. Depending on your chosen path (which constantly updates depending on how you behave) the villagers will react accordingly. You’ll either be unknown, hated or adored (scored as ‘renown’ in game). Some of the town’s folk will even create a nickname for you based on past actions (mine was chicken chaser – (Chicken’ Kicking good). They’ll even praise you for past deeds in refreshing detail or sneer at your failures in previous missions as you walk past. Bards also traverse the towns and will sing you a personal song if you pay them the asking price (again these are very personal songs based on your actions in-game). And it doesn’t stop there either, throughout the game you can purchase a multitude of tattoo and hair-cut cards and even brand new costumes from traders that add a whole new level of customisation. These little extras will also have a certain alignment attached to them so don’t be surprised if you get the whole town suspicious if you walk through the gates complete with black armour and unsightly tattoos. Those sorts of costumes will probably not woo the ladies either. That’s right; you can fall in love, buy a house and marry as long as you can find someone naive enough to move in with you. Pull the right strings and you can also move in a gay lover and walk down the aisle in a dress, now there’s freedom for you!

The magical spells and more importantly the effects they cause in combat really did it for me. The slow down time spell obviously does exactly that, but like Sudeki before this, all the speech and surrounding sound effects are also manipulated – the effect is basically wonderful. The rotating roman clock surrounding the slowdown world also looks particularly nice. As do all of the spells, and there are more than a few to chose from. Some directly attack but others can sap health from other people or summon up "swords" and undead troops to fight by your side. Some spells do require a certain alignment but if you take into account what the spells do, it’s understandable.

The levels of atmosphere and experience you garner from your first play will be helped in large parts by the breathtaking soundtrack. Really we cannot emphasise what an effect the music and sound effects have on this game. The musicians responsible for this masterpiece should be patted on the back for effort as their work goes a long way into making fable the art form it is. Refreshingly good voice acting and life-like sound effects also guarantee these guys will certainly not be short of work for some time to come. And after the sound crew take a bow it’s certainly time to applaud the work of the graphics. Everything feels fluid and looks realistic, right down to the real-time battle scars on the main characters face to the wave of his hair in the wind. A quick look at the screenshots on the right will give you an example of the brilliance you can expect.

The possibilities are endless and the humour is so well done that multiple replays are not out of the question, there are enough branching paths (and different endings) to warrant this and you’ll certainly encounter the "what would happen if I tried it this way" on more than one occasion anyway. Fable isn’t faultless though, there are simply too many opportunities to purchase health and manna that danger never really seems close. The elixirs are also so cheap and freely available that any foe (no matter how hard) can be broken down in time simply by constantly drinking potions. You’ll never be short of money either and can simply buy a traders complete stock of health and magic upgrades after just a few completed quests. Diablo II had the gold v potions balance spot on, sadly Fable doesn’t. You could also complete the game in a day if you only followed the story quests and neglect any side quests but that shouldn’t really be seen as a criticism as to play that way would do this game an injustice. Fable demands to be explored in its entirety.

Playing more like a highly interactive and evolving story rather than a difficult action game, Lionhead and Big Blue Box have, without a doubt, created an outstanding work of art. Just about every other Xbox release this year pales into insignificance once you embark on your very own “fable”. And because of this every single Xbox owner out there owes it to themselves to at least give fable a spin on rental. However, if any one of you has even a slightest interest in RPG gaming then immediately pre-order your copy at once, it really doesn’t get any better than this. It may be a little on the easy side but it's also more than a little "brilliant" as well.

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