I'll never forget the way my friend, Sean, described the first Fable game to me. "Fable" was released in 2004, so I was in Middle School at the time. With such an excited grin on his face, he said,

"Dude, Fable is like, the most realistic game I've ever played! It's so awesome! You can do anything in that game."

I was hooked. I had to get it, and I did acquire it. The rest is history, folks. It WAS an amazing game, and it was very realistic. It dealt with issues about things that other games just didn't. Of course, being a middle-schooler, I didn't quite have the intellectual grasp that I do now, but still it mattered. Are you a hero, or are you a villain? Do you rise to justice and ring Jack of Blades by his filthy little neck? Or....do you become more powerful than even he, and smite him down like an insect so that only you and you alone can rule Albion with a murderous fist? The possibilities were endless, even though I never actually played through with an evil character to the end through and through. If I did, it wasn't my most memorable playthrough, because I didn't enjoy it. Even to this day, the evil/Renegade route just isn't my style.

Fable instantly became my favorite franchise of the time. Fable: Lost Chapters just made it better than it already was, and I still have my copy with the "Platinum Hits" enblazoned across the cover. Finally, here was a game that understood my own ways of thinking. But, time passed, and things change. That's when the Xbox 360 came out, and gosh darnit, Lionhead did it again. I won't bore you with details of how I got my 360, but WOW, it was awesome. Fable 2 must have been the coolest game on the whole damn planet. It made everything about the original better, and it had a well-written story like the first one. Instant classic, again!

Years later, after I have passed on my love of Fable to my younger brother....it happens. Fable freaking 3 is here. I bought the Collector's Edition, that I still have, and took it home when it finally was released. And...drum roll please....dum dum dum dum dum....it wasn't bad! But it wasn't the same, either. I liked it a lot, but it wasn't the same. Here was a story about a Prince, someone who had everything. He was already famous, and he had all of his family/memorable peoples intact. His brother was kind of a douche, but he was ultimately misunderstood. Not only that, but it was all but too easy to play through this game without giving a hoot about changing anything about the character. The weapons didn't matter and neither did your looks. Nothing mattered. Just....take the crown, and go kill some shadow people.

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE FABLE THAT I USED TO KNOW?

http://tinyurl.com/7af635g

So why did I still like it? Well, for one, it was still a fully featured RPG game. The story was still compelling, and it did bring the Fable story arc to a satisfying close. The kingdom is saved after all, from the greatest threat it ever knew. The best part is, I didn't die even once. W00t. But the fact remains that they lost their singular vision for the Fable franchise. All the possibilities...with updates to the engine and the graphics, another epic story like Fable and Fable II would have been orgasmic. But they didn't do it. However, I have come to learn that Fable, as a franchise, is more about telling a Fable, and is not wholly the story of Chicken Chaser. Rather, it is the rise and fall of the kingdom of Albion, and it is the story of how one person a long long time ago set events into motion that would forever shape the fate of Albion. My favorite part about the whole franchise? Theresa, the enigmatic (and ironically blind) seer who was once your sister lives on in life eternal. She is immortal. Somehow in some way, I feel like the thing that I set out to do once as the small orphan boy from Oakvale has been completed. The evil that Jack of Blades probably set into motion has been halted indefinitely, and Albion still stands. This is why Fable still has a special place in my heart, and why I hope they make a Fable 4.

Before I begin making my point, I want to make it abundantly clear that I do not mean to troll or bash in any way. I've been a gamer my whole life and I make no exceptions when it comes to genre, rating, or subject matter. I'm not interested in perennial sports games...that's about it. With that being said, Halo spoilers do follow this paragraph. You've been warned.

A few hours ago, I finally completed the Halo 4 single-player campaign. I finished so much later than others because, admittedly, I found it to be quite difficult on Heroic difficulty. A purist of sorts, I felt obligated to play it on Heroic because it claimed that Heroic was, "The way Halo was meant to be played". After making it about halfway through the campaign, I had to quit. I was stuck on the fourth mission, and it was bugging the crap out of me. Weeks later, I decided to finish the campaign but on Normal difficulty instead. The ending was awesome, I enjoyed it, and I'm glad I finished it. So what's the issue? The issue is the Legendary difficulty's "secret ending", the one that I will probably never see in a legitimate manner. After completing the campaign, I watched the secret ending on Youtube. It was exactly the same as what you see normally, except for one minor detail: for about one whole entire second, you see the Chief's eyes, and then it fades to black.

Wow.

The mixture of feelings that swelled inside me were a green, jealousy-laced concoction of anger. How was I feeling? Underwhelmed? Disappointed? Excited? Perhaps. Rather, I was angry because it reminded me of a certain game with a special ending that required some extra work. This game was Mass Effect 3, and it's ending was all but shunned and ridiculed by most of the gaming community. I'm sure I don't need to go on a Mass Effect rant here, but I'll just say that the entire trilogy was amazing. I played full Paragon, saved everybody, beat the Reapers, and Shepard survived. Now, with the ambiguity that Bioware lovingly left us, I choose to believe that [Chris] Shepard is with the love of his life, Tali.

Here's why I'm upset: nobody has made a single peep about Halo 4 being bad or unsatisfactory at all. It's a short game, it's difficult to borderline rage quit in some areas, and multiplayer is nothing but scoping-across-the-map MADNESS. The story in campaign was just about it's only redeeming quality. The story in Halo is all I ever liked about it. That and the forge. I've been a Halo fan since day one of Combat Evolved, I really have. But this isn't my point. After all this time, our Legendary ending is just a glimpse of his eyes, and everybody is okay with this? I don't want to beat a dead horse here, but Mass Effect 3's Paragon ending was truly amazing to me. What, with all the DLC we've got (that I've loved to death), and the Extended Cut, I can't imagine a better way this game could have turned out. It's like I'm living in a Twilight Zone world where everybody hates this epic masterpiece game trilogy, and I'm some crazy lunatic that loved it.

http://tinyurl.com/y9vj366

Okay, you've beared with me this far, and I've only made maybe one conclusive point: I was disappointed with Halo 4 just a wee bit. My real beef is this: Halo 4 has got so much praise for doing so little, and soooo many gamers went off the deep end for Mass Effect 3 and Bioware's excellent story telling. Somehow, knowing that Shepard defeated the Reapers against all impossible odds, he survived an even more impossible life-or-death situation, The Elusive Man shot himself because he felt guilty, your crew made it out okay and with you possibly in tow (not to mention that you're with your sweetheart in forever after)...that's not as satisfying as Halo 4's ending? Sexy Cortana bites the dust, and we still have two games to go in this newfangled "Reclaimer" trilogy? Color me intrigued. I love Halo's story and Halo 4 was just as awesome, but I fail to see why so many gamers are still disappointed with a series that made me so very happy.

The Mass Effect Trilogy in its entirety is the single best gaming series I have ever played. From the first moment of the first game until Shepard's waking breath in the Paragon Ending, I have loved every minute of it. I've bought every single DLC on each title, and I liked all of them, and I am excited for whatever's next. I even modeled my Shepard after myself and gave him my name. I fell in love with Tali and now we are together. I completed the whole trilogy with the Paragon route, and I beat the Reapers. No "synthesis", no "control", no compromise. I completed the mission that I set out to do, and I saved every possible soul from every single crew member to every single side mission to every single war asset...with the exception of Kelley Chambers. That was an accident. Plus, I won a custom painted "Paragon" Kinect Sensor from Bioware's N7 Day Contest.

And I regret nothing.