Caltrops - Reviews - FABLE: THE LOST CHAPTERS

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by Fussbett 02/09/2006, 1:56am PST

I was late getting to Fable because I hate RPGs, but boy do I love Fable.

We all know the promises that were made in the Fable hype, then the cuts to the game that lead to the Fable letdowns, and finally the Molyneux apology. Oddly, the most outrageous claim Molyneux made is the one I think wasn't that far off: Fable is the best RPG ever. I'd also like to take this opportunity to point out that Molyneux blames the homosexuality in the game on Germans.

Playing a console port 6 months after it comes out on the PC lets you really crank the video options to 6x-max-everything. As good as that looks, the game really overcomes it's console heritage with amazing art direction. Every scene in Fable is awesome, and it's easy to see why they had to cut down the length of the game. Creating all those unique assets must have taken fucking forever. The endearing big hands and feet of the character models are also great, and contributed to making me interested in how my character's look will change over time. Contrast this with Morrowind, a PC game with a then-groundbreaking graphic engine weighed down by art assets so horrible, the net result is an atrocious looking mess, leaving fans to create vastly superior free upgrades to all of the character models. The only surperior things that fans will create for Fable are custom tattoos. More on that later.

I played the game with my girlfriend who was tasked with making all of the moral decisions while I provided the combat muscle. Needless to say, I got her out of some pretty tight jams, HEH. Actually she surprised me by choosing our character to be revoltingly good, right up until given the choice of killing a rival hero we've known our whole life for a "prize". Now, I guess the outcome shouldn't have surprised me, because women will cut their best friend's throat if they feel the slightest bit snubbed, especially if they see the other woman as competition. However, I couldn't help but feel it was odd when our saintly hero decided to kill our classmate of 20 years for 10,000 gold. Also shocked were the townsfolk, who commented on our "brutal victory" all the time, much to my girlfriend's annoyance. Look at Fable teaching me things about myself and the people around me. Unsurprisingly my girlfriend didn't capitalize on all the hot chicks who instantly fell in love with our character, instead choosing to marry just one woman and not even kill her later.

The only spells we invested in were Divine Fury and Lightning.

After going through the game as a godly magic-user swordsman, I'm anxious to play the game again as an evil ranger. I can't even think of a another game I've finished twice, so attempting Fable again as Evil Legolas is a big deal for me. Despite being awarded a Fussbett Finish trophy, The Lost Chapters portion of the PC version extends the playtime to a well past "short", but I do hope Fable is the first step in a continually ambitious series. Maybe Fable 2 can incorporate the open-ended world with actual consequences of your alignment, and then Fable 3 can reinstate acorn-to-tree growth and child murder. I'm happy to wait.

Lets finish by worshipping the idol that is my Fable character. I played the game so powerfully and goodly and shirtless that my character actually turned into God himself: