Ninjas never get lost
Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios
Fri, 17 February 2006
by: Australian Ninja
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*As the article's title clearly indicates, Aussie Ninja's review here is for the Xbox version of the game. You can check out our review of the PC version of Fable: The Lost Chapters here. The PC game is a bit more attractive and technically polished, if you have good hardware. But, for all intents and purposes, the games are identical, so you really can't go wrong with either format.*
Fable: Lost Chapters is an action based RPG with gorgeous graphics, tons of weapons, cool spells, lots of character customisation options and a character evolution system. Your character changes in real time according to your choices. Be they good or evil... blah blah blah, yeah this game isn't exactly new now is it? Well, you probably already know that (1) Fable is awesome (2) if you are a sane person, you should be playing it or have already played it. I may as well give you the highlights of my first journey through Fable, which included plenty of Deuce Bigalow style man-whoring.
Sammy's note: Did I tell you that I met Rob Schneider? What's that? You don't care? Well, fine!
At the beginning of the game, I really did not think much of Fable. The first third of the game is kind of slow and not terribly exciting. But the later parts of the game were a heck of a lot of fun. Once you've got a few quests under your belt, learned some cool spells and equipped yourself with some beefy armour and sharp pointy sticks 'n' swords - then things get interesting.
 | | Shiny, happy people |
Most of your playing time in Fable will be spent completing quests. Usually they involve fighting monsters and bandits, with specific objectives. Then there is the main storyline, which is a bit boring sometimes, but it gets good by the time you reach the end.
When not on quests there are a few mild amusements for the weary traveller. Some mini-games sprinkled here, some side quests there. The side quests and "other" activities in Fable are strangely compelling. I spent one whole day just doing "other" things that did not involve the main story. One of my hobbies was murdering villagers, then buying their empty houses. Once bought, they can be rented out to earn more money.
Another fun hobby is marrying people. The main character in Fable is male. Despite being male, it is possible to marry men or women from the various villages, and have as many wives as you do marital homes. A few times I chatted up some women, married them, then murdered them and married someone else. Boredom will do that to you, I guess.
It is also possible in Fable to dress in woman's clothes and a wig to work in a brothel. It doesn't end there; you can wear any of the clothing items wherever you like. Fancy wandering around town in your purple pimp hat and a dress? why not? Go ahead, then later you can change into just your underwear and decorate your body in demonic tattoos. Then try shaving your head, add a long beard, throw on some heavy spiky armour and scare the villagers. Then go for a walk by the sea, or not. But, however you like to dress, it's all good.
I can honestly say that Fable is the first video game where I married a woman. It's also the first game where I married and slept with a man, actually two different men -I think I'm turning into the village slut... d'oh!
Come to think of it, I spent an alarming amount of time dressed in a seedy black low cut dress, wearing my purple pimp hat, taking my man-wife into the pub and buying beers for everyone. It was also fun to flirt with other people in front of the man-wife to see what he would say. "If you don't treat me better, I'm leaving you." He kept saying it, but the beer and chocolates I gave him soon shut that whiny mouth of his. Strangely, the various women I married and occasionally made fun of with my gestures [such as "air guitar" and "evil laugh"] kept leaving me. I wonder why?
I nearly died of laughter several times while playing Fable. One time was because of the man-whoring. The other time was when I donated some books to the kid's school. Some books are normal. The teacher reads them to the class; like "The tale of Twinblade" and other heroic stuff. Some are uh, different. Like when the teacher read "How to be sexier in 10 days" to the class, I just lost it. I spent ages taking all the books I could to the classroom to donate. My other favourite was when he read out loud the book "How to be ugly".
The little touches in Fable I really appreciated. Such as being able to customise your character extensively for different occasions. Dress like a man-whore in battle and you stats / armour will be too low to fight effectively. But if you dress in full armour in a village, people will often be scared of you. Why does this matter? Well, to marry people, you need to be attractive, which is covered in the stats. So, you're required to change your attire for the occasion.
Other customisations include choosing your beard, moustache and haircut. First you need to find the cards, then go to the barber. Any combination is possible, with one card from each category. Which brings me to tattoos. The only other game with which I spent so much time messing about with haircuts, facial hair and tattoos was San Andreas. Fable is not as extensive on customisation compared to that game, but it comes close. That I can even compare the two shows how well done the customisation is. Fable also shares that same sense of "fun" that comes with being able to alter the look of your character. Your character in Fable can also get fatter and much older. Like grey beardy
old-man type old.
 | | Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned |
Graphically, Fable is very nice to look at. My only complaint is that the game camera is rather limited in its movements. You can zoom to see your character up close which is cool, especially for looking at tattoos. But the scenery is then harder to admire. A shame, as the game's world is so pretty and atmospheric. Haunted graveyards, lush summer forests, seaside villages. All good.
The speech in Fable is consistently well voiced and amusing. The multitude of phrases that come from the NPC's / villagers are impressive. They comment on how you are dressed, how well known you are, if you are scary, fat, heroic etc, plus other social comments. The voices are authentically British English. Including different dialects. It is jarring at first, after so many tiresome American voiced games. But, once absorbed into the game, I found the character's voices each had their own unique charm about them.
In terms of gameplay, there is a whole lot to do in Fable. The main quests will take about twelve hours to finish. So, you could see the ending inside of a week, easily. Playing that way, you will see maybe half the game. I finished my game at twenty hours. That was after I skipped about one-third of the optional non story quests. I also exploited a glitch to get lots more money, so I could buy the best weapons, armour and houses faster. After completing Fable, I was thrown right back into it with new quests. That reminded me straight away of GTA. You think you've finished, but there is more to do. More quests, more mucking around with man-whoring and more miscellaneous items and clothing to find.
I feel Fable is worth finishing twice, in order to explore all the "very good" and "very evil" gameplay choices and how they affect the game. As far as its replay value; you could try and find every last bit of everything and complete all optional / secret quests. That would take up to thirty hours. So, with Fable you basically get back what you put into it. Play it as a straight adventure RPG and finish early. Play it as an epic quest, to do everything and when nobody sees you outside of your home for ages, they will think you are hibernating for the winter.
Are there bad points to Fable? Sure. The main one, for me, is that it ended. I know there is other stuff to do, but the first time to the end on a really brilliant game is an experience I like to savour. Another minor problem was that I found some of the controls for the spells to be cumbersome. Also, the in-game menu - with items etc was clunky as all hell. But you know what? I adapted to it, so it was no biggie.
There are a few other negative aspects, such as the ridiculous amount of loading screens; they are straight from Satan's Bottom. And when an enemy is dizzy, the quick kill usually does not work, on account of auto targeting other nearby enemies. That shit needs fixing. In some areas the frame rate stops, and well, just stops. It stutters because the area has not loaded / streamed properly.
Other than that, Fable is a true joy to play. Seriously, all the weak points end up feeling pretty insignificant and they don't really affect the game much. I won't even remember them a week from now. All I will remember is the ten tons of fun I had playing Fable: Lost Chapters. For anyone wondering, the differences from normal Fable to Fable: Lost Chapters are minimal. If you already own the first game, then it's not worth buying this as well. But, if you've never played it, then you have some serious fun to have. Get playing!
Fable: Lost Chapters is the kind of game you dream about getting to review. "Game on Wayne, Game on Garth!"
by: Australian Ninja
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