Fable

While Microsoft's main hype machine has been huffing, puffing and, more recently been getting annoyed about Halo 2, it's also not been shy about promoting one of its other Xbox-exclusive titles, namely Fable, an RPG with a strong morality quotient and theoretically open-ended gameplay. If you believed the hype surrounding it, Fable was going to be the RPG that changed everything and grabbed everyone. Having played a solid amount of the game, I can safely say that it doesn't live up to the hype, and while that will undoubtedly disappoint some gamers, what's left is still a very good game indeed.

At its core, Fable offers an absolutely by-the-numbers fantasy role playing experience. You play as a young boy who early on in the game watches his entire village ransacked by mysterious bandits who kill his family in an attempt to abduct him. Rescued by a mysterious stranger, he joins the Heroes' Guild, trains in the ways of the warrior and magician, and then sets out to find his place in the world -- and through the game's rather generic plot.

Played straight, it would seem that there's little to Fable that hasn't been extensively mined before. The trick that Fable pulls off is that while the essential quests you'll undergo are decidedly linear, the approach that you take in resolving them is anything but, as behind the linearity are an awful lot of choices -- and a rather charming (and sometimes immature) sense of humour. It mixes elements of the standard RPG experience with the lifestyle choices of titles like The Sims 2, and the result is a game that I suspect will really polarise most gamers. Some gamers will connect with Fable on a very basic level, and love it despite its flaws, while others will see it as an ultimately failed experiment with a very predictable storyline. For the record, I'm mostly in the former camp.

Early on in the game you get a quick crash course in being either good or evil, as you wander around the town trying to earn enough money to buy your sister a present. Search hard enough, and you'll come across a couple hiding behind a building engaging in, as the guards will later say, "Inappropriate Man-Lady Relationships". The man in question offers you a bribe to keep quiet -- do you take it and not tell his actual wife? Or do you refuse and snitch? You can in fact do both if you're quite devious, and every action has an effect on your character's alignment.

In turn, your alignment affects how you look, and even how the game world's inhabitants react to you. So virtuous heroes literally glow with goodness and are greeted by cheering villagers (and swooning women and menfolk) when they enter a town, whereas battle-scarred evil scum who lure innocents into nearby glades and then kick seven shades of heck out of them are less well received. The alignment system in-game is pure fairy-floss -- it will affect some story outcomes, but there's never a point at which you're halted because you're too good or too evil. It's in the little details like this, however, that Fable really shines. If you take the time to explore every nook and cranny, go into property management, marriages and even, ahem, 'relationships', then you may find yourself drawn into Fable's web. I certainly was.

Having said that, though, if Fable doesn't grab you, you'll find the core quest extremely linear, and Fable's quirks and errors annoying. It's not that hard to rort the game's alignment system -- if you want to be evil, especially -- and while initially you'll be bowled over by the game's gorgeous visuals, you'll be annoyed to discover quite a few invisible walls that stop you being able to ramble completely freely. Early on in the game you'll be given the ability to teleport to areas you've already been to, which cuts down on the travelling time, but if you do just appear in places you'll miss out on plenty of useful experience that will help build up your character. Either way, you'll see more than your fair share of loading screens that take an age to resolve as you move from area to area.

Fable's approach to its combat system is relatively easy to get to grips with -- your melee weapon abilities are managed via your Strength statistics, while ranged weapons come under the Skill statistic group. Magic is also on offer, via the Will statistics, and in standard RPG format you can spend experience where you see fit to enhance your character's abilities. Use more swordplay than spellweaving and you'll accrue more strength-based experience, leaving you weaker in spell based abilities, but there's also a general pool of experience available for any purpose, so you're unlikely to back yourself into a particular style of play, unless of course you choose to do so.

Fable's battles are all real-time Legend Of Zelda style numbers. Your character undergoes some very basic (and arguably a touch too slow -- you can't save properly until you're a fully fledged adult) training in combat early in the game, but like the Zelda games, once you sort out the basics of enemy movement, it's more or less a matter of hack, slash, twang and zap, respectively. Actually, you're more likely to hack and zap at enemies than you are to use your projectiles -- while they're nice to use for quick ranged attacks, the slow speed of projectiles and somewhat dodgy aiming mechanic make them a less than appealing prospect.

While I'm griping, it's also all to easy to get stuck at a bad camera angle in combat, and when that's combined with a targeting system that honestly isn't all it could be, you may find yourself inadvertently decapitating a wandering salesperson rather than an annoying Hobbe mage. That's not a problem if you're busy cementing your reputation as Ming The Merciless, but for a good-aligned player, it's a real problem.

None of Fable's problems are insurmountable, but what they do make the game is a very polarised one. Some gamers will love Fable for its immense back-story capabilities, while others will find it just another ho-hum RPG experience.

Whew. I managed to get through that entire review without mentioning Peter Molyneux once. Oh. Bugger.

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