Not as good as I hoped.
I was interested in this title, it looked to be the Xbox's answer to Zelda. A fantasy adventure game where you could choose your path and your decisions changed the fate of the world and designer Pete Molynuex said that this was going to be "the greatest RPG ever made." Sadly that's far from what you get.
At first glace, Fable looks great. Nice graphics, great score and a massive world to explore and do just about anything you want. You play as a young boy, whose parents die in a raid on his hometown and he goes to live in the heroes guild, a school for aspiring heroes. After the school tutorial, you're sent out into the massive world of Albion to take on missions and eventually find out what happened to your family.
The main thing about Fable is, it lets you do just about anything you want. You have to do some quests in a certain order but you can stray off the main path and bum around town doing menial tasks, interacting with people and searching for special items like chest keys and Demon doors. As you progress, your guy will age, he'll get scars on his body and his look will change depending on what clothes you buy and if you choose to be good or evil.
However, once the novelty of all this wears off, you realize, that the things that make a good RPG, deep story, interesting characters and intutitve gameplay, are sorely lacking from Fable. The story is cookie cutter and the characters are paper thin. Your guy doesn't have a name (aside from nicknames you can buy) and looks at everyone with the same blank stare no matter what the situation. The the later "Lost Levels" expansion would add a little more interest to the story, it still falls far from being engaging.
The actual combat isn't great either. You have tons of weapons and spells at your disposal but every enemy can be defeated the same way. Pretty much walk up and start hacking away and you're pretty much guaranteed to kill them. It's also incredibly easy to stock up on enough health and magic viles to never die, so there's no real thought process in fighting foes. Oh and there's obnoxious escort missions as well. Dear game developers, we hate escort missions. Stop putting them in your games.
Perhaps it was just our Xbox wearing down but for me the game was full of technical glitches. The game had horrible slowdown every time I visited Oakdale and forests would flicker in and out as I approached them, not to mention some load times were like waiting for the bus.
In the end, I found this title to be a major disappointment but it seems fit for the FPS loving Xbox crowd. Like a shooter, it's short and doesn't require a lot of thought, but for those of us who like long, in depth RPGs, this isn't it.