The good, the bad and the ugly on Fable: The lost Chapters for PC.
1 - Fun factor: The overall fun factor in Fable rivals that of a StarWars KoTOR series game. If you haven't played KoTOR then you're missing out. Anyways back to the review. You choose from being good or evil or both in this game killing or saving whomever you darn well feel like. You can dupe people into falling in love with you (female OR male) and sacrifice them to the evil god or just kill them for their ph4t l3wt. You get to kick chickens also, that's a winner every time. I don't want to give away everything but the fun you will have is top of the line.
2 - Performance: Fable is not all that much of a system hog. This game will play at its highest settings on a good gaming box with zero issues. Fable runs smooth and allows you the ability to tab in and out of windows without crashing the game.
3 - Combat: Combat in Fable is fun but not very challenging to an experienced gamer. The trick to Fable's combat is creating a character who will be up against a great number of enemies at one time. If you do this properly then 90% of the fights in Fable will be easily won by you. This ease of victory is offset by the fun factor. The combat is smooth and not overly heady. You get to smash lots of nasties and get a very wide selection of ways to do it. You can mold your character into any combination of fighting styles from the several types of melee and ranged weapons and the spell classes.
4 - Story: The main story line is good but not great, it's the smaller stories surrounding the main plot that makes Fable a high-end RPG. If you attack the main storyline only you will defeat Fable in roughly 8-10 hours. If you take advantage of all the other aspects and stories in the game you're looking at 20. I highly suggest going the 20 route you won't be disappointed. Nothing brightens up your day like running into town and having 13 women (and a dude, don't ask he just did) fall in love with you and follow you to a temple where you sacrifice them all. Bwa hahahaha.
5 - Scenes: There are many moments in this game where it feels great to be playing the game because the scenery is done right. Examples would be a scene where you are in a holding cell and you're actually waiting for the guard to come back. Everything feels right there's nothing out of place and it's real time. A battle in the Arena with a crowd that actually moves, talks, and reacts instead of a painted background. The details of the moment were well done.
6 - Replay Value: This is a strong point because there is almost an endless amount of things you can do in this game. You can get married to many women and the relationships with them can take on their own story, reputations, owning houses, pubs, shops, and much more.
The Bad
1 - Windows: Fable doesn't offer a windowed form view which is a let down. You do have the ability to alt-tab your way in and out of the game but a windowed view is pretty much becoming a standard these days.
2 - The camera can be a pain but not a big negative just a small gripe.
3 - The controls are not exactly what you'd expect. The options seem to be outdated or just don't give you enough options to customize your gaming experience.
The Ugly
1 - Installation: I had an issue after the installation of Fable where the games resolution didn't play nice with my system. Once I began the actual game the resolution would change to 640/whatever. This made it so the menu was so large I couldn't adjust the resolution to what it should be. I had to offset my monitor a great deal just to be able to change the setting in the game. After that it was fine.
2 - Bugs: There were a few bugs in the game, mostly just getting stuck somewhere. These were found using some extreme steps to cause them but they were caused none-the-less. Nothing major.
Is it worth $49.00?: Yes. If you can wait until the game drops in price be my guest but if you do the little things in this game as well as the major story you will get 20 hours of gaming fun and you won't want to stop. Worth the money.