It is not what Microsoft promised, but it’s still an excellent open-ended RPG that will entertain any hardcore gamer.
As you start the game, you realize you live in a medieval world and you’re called Lat. Your first task in the game is given by your father, and is to recollect some gold pieces for your sister’s birthday present by doing good deeds. You get to know that you can also make bad deeds to with the gold, although it will have its repercussions. Like having the guards all over you saying stuff like: “Don’t be a bad boy”, or some people will stop liking you. This is a nice spec for Fable, but in the whole game, this engine will no be so important, and you’ll lose interest on it soon.
Graphics on the game are not that great: Texture maps are sometimes ugly, vector maps seem miscalculated, NCP’s are poorly designed, and face expressions have a fair design. Of course the game has its positives. Shadows are cool, the whole settings in the game make you feel you are in a fantasy story, environments are pleasant, and the animations through the game are well written.
In other words to the graphics department, they are normal, not excellent, not bad. Just Normal…
There is not much talking on the sound part of the game. Nice catchy soundtrack, average sound effects, and common voice acting make people not care much sound in Fable. You may even find hard to tell if there’s 5.1 audio in the game.
The fighting system is in what this game really succeeded. Having the player combining physical attacks with magic all at the same time is really addictive. For instance, cast the spell called Berserk, witch makes the player have supernatural strength, then start kicking everyone’s behinds with a hammer, or go cast Multi Arrow, then switch to your longbow and have some sneaky kills, it just cant get better than that… I’ll try to explain the system: with one button (X) you are able to strike different physical attacks, there are no combo’s or no button combination attacks like other fighting systems though, this is not bad, it makes things simpler but nicer at the same time. By pressing other button (Y) you ready the magic and activate your magic powers with three other already selected (X-A-B) buttons. This system is so brilliant and so simple that it will have you seated for hours.
One of the characteristics on the game that made it so addictive is the simple fact that enemies are everywhere. Also for the first time I dare to say it’s because the AI is dump. They are so easy to kill that you will find yourself looking for more, and more, and more… Spending hours killing everyone, feeling omnipotent against any opponent in your way.
One remarkable achievement on Fable is that the game is bug free. You will almost never find any bug in general: camera works fine, graphic code enlightens, AI are never getting “confused”, etc…
The world of Albion is not so vast, Fable may last only 10 hours to an average gamer. This is not what you would expect from an RPG, and it may be the only game play fault overall. But hey, the game is so freaking addictive that you may want to beat it 3 or 4 times more after stop playing it.
To close I have to say, even if the game does not have that good graphics, sound is average, and you it will not be long before you finish it, the game play is so addictive, so retouched, and so cheap (20 bucks), that it is worth a stop at your game store.