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Fable (Xbox)
Publisher: Microsoft
Developer: Big Blue Box Studios / Lionhead Studios
Genre: Action RPG
Release Date: September 14, 2004
ESRB: Mature More Info on this Game
By Miguel Lopez | Sept. 10, 2004

Fable is here, but is it the definitive RPG experience we all hoped it would be?

Pros
The world is engrossing and amazingly realized; the character development system is on-point; the sense of humor is great, and altogether unexpected.

Cons
Outside of content that sometimes feels superfluous, the game is relatively short.


Review
It' s been a long time coming, that' s for sure, but Fable is finally upon us. A few things are safe to say: it' s brilliant, for one, but perhaps not in the way that we had been lead to believe. It also bears the mark of the creative force responsible for its conception: Peter Molyneux, the renowned game designer, and creator of games like Populous and Black & White. Most importantly, the experience it provides is completely engrossing, and all of its subtle elements were crafted with a careful hand. The resulting game feels like it' s teeming with life, and genuinely responding to your interactions. Whether or not it' s all nothing but smoke and mirrors is secondary.

Given how open-ended Fable purports to be, you' re not really given any input as to what your character is like at the game' s outset. You' re always the same boy with the same look and the same background. All the vital distinctions in these areas come about dynamically throughout the course of the game. The one element that isn' t compensated for by the real-time progression is gender: you simply can' t play a female hero. It' s strange, because there' s no real narrative reason why the hero couldn' t be female; he barely talks during the game, and all the passing references made to his gender by non-player characters could have easily been changed.

That said, the level to which your character develops as you play, and the ways in which this is visually represented, are immensely impressive. On the superficial front, depending on how you choose to tailor your character' s attributes, he' ll look completely different. Focus on hand-to-hand combat and increase all the relevant attributes, and your hero will turn out burly and menacing. If you choose to make your character more of a magic user, his look will reflect it: all the supernatural energy coursing through him will cause him to age at an accelerated rate.

Crime doesn' t pay. Unless you consider looking totally rad sufficient payment.

The ethical decisions you make throughout the game also have a huge bearing on not only your look, but also how your hero is perceived by the populace. This is reflected by your " Alignment" rating. Basically, if you become the devil incarnate, you' ll look the part: you' ll sprout horns, your eyes will adopt a fiendish glow, and your skin will become pasty and foul. The common folk, naturally, will react to you with fear and suspicion. But if you perform good works throughout the world, your visage will reflect your angelic nature. You' ll have a faint little halo over your head, and spectral butterflies will envelope your aura. Basically you' ll look like some kind of radioactive Gap model, and the people will sing your blessings as you pass.

The system allows for some interesting stuff, but some of the ways in which it has been implemented seem a little bit silly. For instance, eating a block of tofu will shift your alignment slightly towards good. But doing the opposite -- which I' m assuming would be eating hunks of animal meat -- doesn' t garner any evil points. Same with clothing; some outfits will affect your alignment rating while you have them on, but once you remove them, you' re back to your old self. Considering that there are also both " Scariness" and " Attractiveness" ratings built into the outfits, this seems extra superfluous.

Fable is much more consistent when you get down to the nitty-gritty, however. There' s no other way to slice it: the character development system works well, and advancement is very satisfying as a result. It works like this: depending on your actions in combat, the experience you earn will filter into one of three pools -- strength, skill, and will. You gain strength experience by fighting in melee, skill experience by firing ranged weapons in combat, and will experience by using magic. Points gained in a certain pool can only be spent on abilities that fall under its umbrella, and this works well to naturally tailor your character' s development to your preferences. A fourth pool of " general" experience -- which fills much faster than the rest -- lets you further tune your hero' s skill-set in areas that don' t fall inside your regular preferences.

The number of abilities available guarantees that no two characters will ever be identical, especially in the area of magic. Of course, some paths are more effective than others -- some spells, when maxed out, allow you to eliminate hordes of enemies with little to no effort -- but specialists of each area are formidable enough in their own right to complete the game without much trouble.

Art of War

Combat is where Fable is at its most conventional. When facing off against enemies, it feels like a solid hack ' n slash action RPG, and for the most, it fires soundly on all cylinders: the controls are tight and responsive, the enemies are wily and challenging, and the action is fast-paced. Fable feels very centered on melee combat during the early game; it' s simply easier to dispatch foes with your sword, at the outset, given your relative level of inexperience with magic or ranged weapons. But once you reach a moderate level of proficiency with the other two, you' ll find that you can rely on them almost exclusively. If you choose to go that route, anyway.

It' s true that melee combat is the obvious choice. A good majority of the enemies in the game will charge you on sight, so being able to go toe-to-toe with them is an attractive option. Until you fully master some of the offensive spells, melee strikes are also the most damaging, pound for pound. A handful of weapon types are available to you (things like swords, mauls, and axes), but in practice, they all behave the same: the X button will unleash a flurry of canned combo strikes. After a few of your hits connect, you can execute a heavy attack of sorts with the B button. This one is unblockable, and extremely damaging. Overall, the enemies in Fable are fairly capable combatants; they' ll dodge around you, block your attacks effectively, and attempt to flank you if you get lazy with your movements. This makes the melee path both challenging and satisfying, as well as underscores any potential unbalance it may present in terms of power level.

The use of offensive magic, on the other hand, takes a little while to become truly effective, but once it does, it' s hard to go back to something as pedestrian as hand-to-hand combat. There are two basic ways to use magic in combat: offensive spells that directly target enemies, and augmentative spells that affect how you behave. The latter are best utilized by melee-focused characters that choose to dabble in magic, while the former, because of their relative weakness in the early levels, are reserved for pure wizards. Regardless, both are extremely effective. The Lightning spell, for instance, can target four enemies simultaneously, when it' s maxed out, and it deals impressive amounts of damage every second. Conversely, the Berserk spell will greatly increase the damage dealt by a swordsman under its influence. While the distinction between the two may seem arbitrary, it' s quite effectively enforced by the upgrade cost of higher-level abilities. To put it simply, you' re not going to be able to afford to fully max your Lightning spell unless you' ve cast a whole lot of spells in combat.

Ranged attacks, finally, seem like they' re simply an afterthought, but when used to their fullest are actually quite effective. The mechanics behind them are quite satisfying -- you hold down the attack button to simulate the cocking back of an arrow or bolt, with more time equaling more damage -- and the handy lock-on means that it' s as immediately effective as melee or magic-use. There' s also a first-person mode, but given how smoothly the lock-on works, you' ll only use that to snipe non-living targets at a distance (like exploding barrels). Furthermore, there are some will abilities that increase the effectiveness of your ranged attacks, which, when utilized by a dedicated archer, can make him quite deadly.

My gripes with combat are as follows: first of all, death doesn' t really matter a great deal due to the existence of Resurrection Phials. These items, which revive you automatically upon death, aren' t too difficult to come by, so you end up having quite a few stocked up. If you come close to running out (which I' ve yet to), you can always go buy more. Secondly -- and this is especially true if you' re a magic user -- success in combat is almost directly correlative with how many health and mana potions you have in your inventory. Regardless of how much an opponent outmatches you, if you have enough potions in stock you' ll defeat it. Again, you learn quite early on to stock up before heading out on a mission, so you seldom feel the heat. Last up is a mechanics-related gripe: It' s all too easy to accidentally target innocents, and this is even truer when it comes to magic. Many times, my Lighting spell would fry all the enemies it had targeted, and immediately target a friendly NPC. Usually, this simply resulted in some evil points; at worst, though, it caused a mission-specific NPC to die. Not a good scene.

A Man' s World

While Albion -- the world in which Fable is set -- is largely a cut-and-dried fantasy locale, the level to which it has been realized is easily the game' s greatest asset. The environments are huge, detailed, and thoughtfully built. They' re also populated by characters that respond convincingly to your presence, and with whom various kinds of amusing interactions are possible. Basically, this all revolves around your level of " renown," which is how Fable measures your reputation in the game. You gain renown by killing monsters and completing quests, and high levels in this attribute garner you not only the recognition of the public, but also a variety of amusing emotes with which you can communicate with them. As your cache increases, you' ll be able to flirt with the townsfolk in order to woo them, or flip them off for the opposite effect.

Despite the hero' s questionable fashion sense, his good deeds didn' t go unrecognized.

The amount and depth of the interactions possible with the game' s non-player characters are impressive, especially if you can manage to figure out how to make the specific situations manifest. Just like anything else, these are more fun if you make them happen without any outside help -- for instance, getting someone to marry you, and subsequently consummating the relationship. This is definitely the game' s primary draw, in this area, and going through the motions of courtship is one of the most entertaining things to do outside of killing things and stealing treasure. In a nutshell, once you have a house, you can court one of the townspeople (of either gender, no less). If they like you enough, you can further sweeten them up by giving them gifts -- jewels, roses, chocolates, and the like. Once they' re pining for you, you buy them a wedding ring, and boom, you' re married.

What comes naturally to a couple engaged in holy matrimony is no secret, but making it happen is not necessarily an easy task. I won' t give it away, but suffice it to say that, if you make sure to show as much appreciation after the fact as you did during courtship, you should be cool. In any case, courtship was challenging enough at first, but after I reached a certain level of renown, I found that most of the ambient, adult characters in town were in love with me. It kind of took the thrill out of the chase, if you know what I' m saying. Maybe it' s just par for the course, if your exploits are known throughout the land, but it' s just funny to walk into a barroom, and see a room full of giggling people with hearts floating above their heads.

Here' s a Little Story that Must be Told

Just like the world it' s set in, the narrative driving Fable isn' t too different from what you' d expect, given its genre. Rather, the production values surrounding it are what are impressive. All the dialog in the game is spoken, and it' s all well-written and convincingly-delivered. Given how dark the story itself is, most of the dialog not directly associated with it is actually pretty funny, too. The pacing of the story, however, is a little abrupt; once it rears its head in earnest, it' s over before you know it, and, consequently, so is the game.

Yes, Fable is short, with an average game time of 12 to 15 hours. This isn' t considering, of course, the amount of messing around you could do outside of quests and the like. You could conceivably buy every house in the world, level every single ability, kill every inhabitant of every city, or whatever artificial goal you want to impose upon yourself, but in the end, it' s hard to see why you would want to. One solid playthrough of Fable is more than enough to get all of that out of your system. This doesn' t diminish how satisfying all of this is in any way. It just means that Fable isn' t the nigh never-ending experience many of us hoped it would be.

Choreography of a bizarre dance, or medieval mating ritual? You decide.

In the end, though, what matters is just how meaningful that one playthrough is. Fable is lovingly crafted, accomplished, and, most of all, entertaining. Everything that makes it unique has been implemented so seamlessly that you don' t notice it immediately, but once you realize it' s there, it encourages you to further explore its rich world. This is something that any RPG fan with an Xbox should definitely experience.