Those of you who love a fair, unbiased review, written with terrific English, paragraphs that make you cry and some form of structure better leave - if you want to read the ranting's and ravings of yours truly - please continue.

Having just reviewed the all-new Fable 2 pub games - and received some kind comments from it (As in you didn't insult my crude writing style!) I have decided to review Fable: The lost Chapters for the PC - a review I have been thinking of doing for a while now. I could always copy and paste my review off Amazon.co.uk but I like to challenge myself, this is essentially a review of the original on the Xbox too, as they are the same game.

Fable, or Project Ego (Extensive by Peter Molyneux's standard's, as you'll soon find out) was originally designed for the Xbox, the game's main idea, was to give you, the player, a morality test through the game, where your choices would affect what happens.. This was in a simpler time era, where morality in games was a completely new thing. You could choose to be good or evil at certain points, this changed how the NPC'S reacted to you, what quests you took, even how you look.

But remember, this was an older time, and the console could only take so much. So what you get, as far as character growth goes, is a bar that tells you how evil or good you are. And your body changes accordingly, there's no real difference between other player's characters on that front. Until you add in your fighting style, (there are three;) Will (Magic), sword fighting and archery. Depending on which attack style you fight with and spend the exp. you earn from killing various enemies, also affects how you look.

Fore example, choosing to spend the experience on Will makes your body shine up like a disco ball and makes you look old. Of course you then get to change your characters hair and clothes, which don't seem to help that much in battle.

Ok then, on to the main story - the whole RPG style of gameplay is held together by a story involving you saving the world, and Fable is no exception. The story involves your father being murdered, and your mother and sister being captured by bandits attacking your hometown of Oakvale. Luckily you are saved and end up at the Hero's guild. Here you learn the subtle arts of zapping things with lightning, hitting dummies with sticks and ranging moving targets. So it's essentially the tutorial. You also meet your first few major NPC'S - Whisper, another apprentice who seems to think she's brilliant, Maze, the Guild-masters assistant, and the Guild master - a bald man who claims he could "break you" every time you attack him, hilarious really.

After running around - showing your better at sprinting than some obnoxious fool, you're forced to fight 10 wasps. The combat mechanisms are annoying at best, to cast magic you have to hold down a certain button, scroll through your list of spells until you find the right one, and then attack. You can also block whilst doing this, making it far to easy to win.

If this sounds annoying, imagine trying to do it whilst running from large rocks thrown by a gigantic monster. Another less annoying style off fighting is melee, or sword - fighting, you basically press a button to lock onto your target - which can be come very annoying when your trying to select a specific target - and then mash the attack button until its dead.

Personally I prefer consoles because the sheer amount of buttons you have to use to do certain things gets very annoying and I often found I had to keep looking at my keyboard during combat.

And the least used, most annoying and boring - archery. Whilst damage is high, again, its very hard to lock onto enemies and the sheer amount of time you have to hold down your arrows so you can hit an adequate amount is ridiculous, especially against the stronger enemies who can take 4 or 5 arrows before collapsing in a green light of experience.

So the combat is ok, but not spectacular, you'll end up using your sword most of time because the other two ways of combat are just so hard to control.

Back to the original branch of this review, the story. After leaving the heroes guild and being lead into the great world that is Albion, your hero is forced to fight a large wasp queen, all the enemies except the queen can be killed in one hit, and its pretty pathetic, as the guild master whispers in your ear "Use your bow lad". I thought this was an Role-Playing-Game....the games helpful hints usually imply you are an idiot, or just don't play how it wants you to play.

So, after completing more quests you reach your first level upgrade, although you get one earl on I'm going to explain it now, as stated before, you can update your stats that make you better in certain areas by standing on a green platform in the guild, why they didn't just make you better depending on what you did is beyond me, technically you could fight the while time with a sword and still get the top level at magic because there's so much general experience to be acquired.

This is supposed to improve the whole RPG feel but essentially ruins the flow of the game, as you are constantly teleporting to and from the guild. Teleporting allows you to go to any portal or town you have previously visited, which saves a lot of time later on.

The first real moral decision - the games pride and joy - is soon met when you have to decide weather to defend or attack a bunch of gold artefacts found by a farmer. Regardless of what you choose you end up fighting Whisper, and annoyingly have to beat her.

Yes, you can fail missions and have to restart them - a game promising freedom is so linear you can't fail. It would have been nice and made more sense to have consequences for failing, which I'm sure they will in Fable 2.

I don't want to go on and on for ages - despite what you might think I get bored writing these and spent around 10 minutes on my last review. So I'll summarise the story as best as I can.

After fighting Whisper, you meet Maze in Bowerstone south, a poor area, with some annoying children that follow you constantly, but oh no, you can't attack them because the guards are clever enough to take away your weapons (and somehow your will.... how does that work?") He informs you that your sister might have survived the original Bandit attack.

You lead some traders through bandit and fight the gigantic rock-throwing creature stated earlier, before returning to Oakvale. The next challenge is getting into the bandit camp to find your Sister, eventually, after exploiting some diabolical guards, you fight Twinblade, a rouge ex - hero, a guy so gigantic he should have taken up sumo - wrestling instead of becoming Bandit king, after beating him you get another key choice, kill him, or let him live - regardless he has lost, and doesn't return.

Our hero then sent by Maze to find an old friend - called the archaeologist, a man who hides in a talking door, deep in the forest of Witchwood (original names) soon enough you come across a town, (Knothole Glade or something), being help prisoner by Balverines (Werewolves but Lionhead didn't want to get sued, if that's possible?) all of a sudden a deadly white Balverine appears, and you must kill it with silver, your triumph earns you a place in the Witchwood arena.

The arena is a coliseum where waves of baddies are sent out to beat, its button mashing fun! You're soon joined by Whisper, and as you both survive, you must fight each other for the prize money.

Jack of Blades is introduced, and another morale choice is asked - Kill Whisper or let her live, your choice is important as people say nasty things to you if you kill her.

Some more quests are done, you learn of your mother being trapped in a prison owned by Jack-of Blades- and evil guy in a mask, he rules these dog like things, which are annoying strong, and have tons of magic abilities, eventually you'll rescue her but be caught by Jack doing so. Your forced to race around the prison courtyard for your freedom, leading a riot against the guards and getting mother out of jail.

But Jack appears and captures your sister and mother, apparently he needs their blood to get a super-awesome-ultra powerful sword and you won't be able to stop him.

Maze suddenly reveals he is a bad guy and you have to fight him, he then gives a long wined speech about how he is a coward, before dieing.

Then you have to run around the game world chasing after Jack as he teleports (he ALWAYS teleports away) before fighting him in the final battle. You get to choose to kill your sister and get the sword or toss it away; all you get is a weak sword and a completed game.

And that's just the plot of the original Fable - The lost Chapters adds on about 5 more hours of gameplay. Including a random story about you not actually killing Jack of Blades, but having to fight him in Dragon form.

And as you can tell - the plot made little sense, it seemed rather winded and the characters were not particularly deep - apparently all the actions rested with Maze but you barely saw him. Your choices throughout the game do not affect the linear story, and you feel almost cheated, but it's worth it. A good RPG usually has a better story than this, but Fable made up for it with general things to do around the game world, smaller choices like choosing the bully or the bullied sides gave this game a charm that has not been matched.

That doesn't mean the game is bad by any means, you can get married and buy a house (though it has no effect on gameplay) Collecting magical keys, and winning In fighting arenas are just some of the many distractions Fable offered.

So far I've covered combat, the story and side distractions, these really make up most the core-gameplay, It's very easy to ear money, so death should never be a problem (you just restart from your last save if you did) the game also takes advantage of the better display and input hardware on a PC.

The graphics are fantastic, they have an old- fashioned quality, and the sound is also very unique, with some excellent music and voice - acting, and the difficulty is perfect, its easy enough for casual gamers, but playing it as 1 set combat speicfic character, or collecting all the keys can take a while, and be quite challanging.

Character will cheer or boo you depending on your alignment - although its easy to change, and the feel that you are important in the world is a nice touch. The games idea was clever, but it failed due to its own ambition, and someones loud-mouth bull...(no names)

But now I'm just going on, I could spend ages discussing all the little things you can do, like most reviews, but its best experiencing it for yourself. The game didn't reach the hype it promised but still delivered one of the best RPG'S on the Xbox, it is everything a console - PC port should be. I completely recommend it for the bargain price the game has become.

Fable 2 is what Peter Molyneux's promised Fable would be. (Hopefully)

(I apologise for the terrible Grammar / Style of this review, its pretty poor) - its been along time since I played Fable and could only remember so much, I spent ages trying to make it better so I might as well post it)

Theres no image size limits, right?

Skip the story part next time, or at least just give an intro.

Not bad review.

You know its bad when you've had 67 views and 1 comment lol.

Actually that's how you know it's good, nobody has any beef with enough in it to complain, so they don't post constructive criticism.

Nice review got most of the points covered. I love fable and I can't wait for for fable 2!

I'm just going to interject with a warning for whoever may be thinking of buying this game for the PC. There is no PC support. No patch, no tech help, only a small communinty that sometimes has solutions. For me, the game just refused to work. I tried all the internets solutions offered and I was entirely confounded. If you do buy this game for PC, be sure to be aware that it might not work.

Spartan Bannana:
Actually that's how you know it's good, nobody has any beef with enough in it to complain, so they don't post constructive criticism.

oh - im used to getting insulted lol (this community is pretty cool) =)

Wow - I used the word annoyingly too much lol.

Decent enough review. However, try to avoid giving a plot summary or at least put it in a spoiler section. I've played the game but it can seriously piss people off to have their story spoiled.

Evil_Blue_Dot:
Decent enough review. However, try to avoid giving a plot summary or at least put it in a spoiler section. I've played the game but it can seriously piss people off to have their story spoiled.

Spoiler: Click to View

lol at the spoiler, and yeah I suppose about the plot - but the game is incredibly old now, so anyone looking for the plot should have already played it - just trying to show how terribly written it is.

Im not trying to be a dick but how is the sword of Aeons weak in the original? its the most powerful weapon, so powerful that they made it weaker in TLC.
Apart from that its a excellent review

Yeah, I have to agree with the general consensus here - less focus on plot and more on gameplay. Really the ideal amount of story would have been, say, from the boys childhood to becoming a hero and being let loose upon the world. Thats about all you really needed to write, except maybe for a few (emphasis on the few) memorable moments you think are worth pointing out.

TheGhostOfSin:
Im not trying to be a dick but how is the sword of Aeons weak in the original? its the most powerful weapon, so powerful that they made it weaker in TLC.
Apart from that its a excellent review

Its weak because in TLC you can BUY a better sword in Bowerstone North, is weak because although all the characters are going on about it being amazing - you csn buy another sword - easy to get with the market keepers money glitch.

Not bad not bad :) nice pictures at least heh

I can't really agree with you assessment of the story. The reason the plot feels very fractured is that Lionhead were trying to keep it as open-world feeling as possible, so while you had an main quest objective (e.g. Find Sister) you were free to take on other quests, perform various tasks or simply explore. They couldn't advance the main plot in any other way, and one of my fondest memories was the feeling that slowly but surely you were drawing close to your next clue.

The plot was tightly written and actually made a great deal of sense, that the events seem nonsensical out of context is understandable in a fantasy universe with a slight absurdist aspect. What occured in each major event was always dramatic and rarely anticipated.

An omission if yours that really grated was the enemy NPC design which was superb. Each had distinctive appearances, entrances, SFX, combat styles and methods for attacking them. When faced with a new challenge it was always a joy, and the truth is that until you reach a certain proficiency you can't finish most fights with the bow or magic so they seems fairly useless, but I completed the game with all three character types and dual classing too, and each style came into it's own later on.

Also, if you followed the optional side quests, you'd find that the challenge doors in game ask for wildly different kinds of hero, essentially, you are supposed to be quite changeable, both physically and morally, otherwise you can't fully complete the game. Also, the finale, travelling around the world chasing Jack is a brilliant finish to the game, not only is it a nostalgia fest with bloody everyone turning up, but you determine success or failure by fighting well enough to save followers, who then aid you against increasingly difficult foes.

I do agree however that TLC was a bit tacked on, some of it still has the old magic but on the whole I didn't need anything from that expansion, I already had the best sword in the game, the one you pull from the stone, and the story, while atmospheric in places, was just too short to be worthwile.

Just an example to qualify why I love this game, after you beat Jack again in TLC the mask calls to you. The longer you take to press the reject button has a serious affect not only on your alignment but it visibly tells in your character.

Great game and while you do have some fair points I don't feel you're doing it justice, especially laying out a massive plot spoiler, I think people might go back and try it as it is backwards compatible. In fact, I might do just.

good review. yeah it's already been said, but yeah little more on the game-play would have been awesome. i also would have liked a little more on the character customisation.

you really didn't like the bow? it was all i ever used! my character was full yellow exp.

Dahemo:
I can't really agree with you assessment of the story. The reason the plot feels very fractured is that Lionhead were trying to keep it as open-world feeling as possible, so while you had an main quest objective (e.g. Find Sister) you were free to take on other quests, perform various tasks or simply explore. They couldn't advance the main plot in any other way, and one of my fondest memories was the feeling that slowly but surely you were drawing close to your next clue.

The plot was tightly written and actually made a great deal of sense, that the events seem nonsensical out of context is understandable in a fantasy universe with a slight absurdist aspect. What occured in each major event was always dramatic and rarely anticipated.

An omission if yours that really grated was the enemy NPC design which was superb. Each had distinctive appearances, entrances, SFX, combat styles and methods for attacking them. When faced with a new challenge it was always a joy, and the truth is that until you reach a certain proficiency you can't finish most fights with the bow or magic so they seems fairly useless, but I completed the game with all three character types and dual classing too, and each style came into it's own later on.

Also, if you followed the optional side quests, you'd find that the challenge doors in game ask for wildly different kinds of hero, essentially, you are supposed to be quite changeable, both physically and morally, otherwise you can't fully complete the game. Also, the finale, travelling around the world chasing Jack is a brilliant finish to the game, not only is it a nostalgia fest with bloody everyone turning up, but you determine success or failure by fighting well enough to save followers, who then aid you against increasingly difficult foes.

I do agree however that TLC was a bit tacked on, some of it still has the old magic but on the whole I didn't need anything from that expansion, I already had the best sword in the game, the one you pull from the stone, and the story, while atmospheric in places, was just too short to be worthwile.

Just an example to qualify why I love this game, after you beat Jack again in TLC the mask calls to you. The longer you take to press the reject button has a serious affect not only on your alignment but it visibly tells in your character.

Great game and while you do have some fair points I don't feel you're doing it justice, especially laying out a massive plot spoiler, I think people might go back and try it as it is backwards compatible. In fact, I might do just.

I agree with your points - I kinda rushed the review, just to get it finished, its a hard game to review because theres so much to disscuss, good points about the NPC'S i'd forgotten about them.
And in TLC the best sword is Solous great sword which you buy from Bowerstone North.

Anyway, this is probely my worst review in a long time - im going to review Assasin's Creed because I just completed it for the 360. If you wanna read another BETTER review by me - check out my Fable 2 - pub games review. =)

Forget AC, review a game that we don't know what are the major problems...

Random argument man:
Forget AC, review a game that we don't know what are the major problems...

OK - have a look at my GT and tell me what I should review (on my profile)

Ok Ok, Forget my previous post

D_987:

Dahemo:
I can't really agree with you assessment of the story. Great game and while you do have some fair points I don't feel you're doing it justice, especially laying out a massive plot spoiler, I think people might go back and try it as it is backwards compatible. In fact, I might do just.

I agree with your points - I kinda rushed the review, just to get it finished, its a hard game to review because theres so much to disscuss, good points about the NPC'S i'd forgotten about them.
And in TLC the best sword is Solous great sword which you buy from Bowerstone North.

Thanks for that, very big of you, and you're right, I didn't say that it is very difficult to review, the pros stuggled to fully encompass the whole game when it was released. You're right about the sword too, I just stuck with the "Sword in the Stone" through sheer bloody mindedness as I spent the entire game wanting it, and then found a better one I could buy two hours later. I must get F2, this was a brilliant nostalgia...

Random argument man:
Ok Ok, Forget my previous post

No its fine - im curious about what you think I should review =)

mmm Well I actually thought of a game that wasn't a huge mainstream game. You know a game that interested you and no one else.

Couple of tips for you. First, as others have said, less plot more gameplay. Next, and this is a big one, learn when to use you and I better when describing something. Case in point, when talking about the magic and archery system, you seem to be telling me that it's confusing and I myself have problems using them. Well, I can honestly say that I tend to lean more towards a combination of magic and archery, have never had a problem with targeting, and rarely, if ever, use melee. A good saying that I have to help with this is "the first part of assume is always ass". As in, don't assume that you know how other people will feel about something. You're describing your experience, not mine.

Next, make sure you have all your facts straight. You say that once out of the guild, you're forced to fight the Wasp Queen. Not so. If you so choose, you can skip the quests and walk back and forth through Darkwood and level up a ton. Granted, this is a miner detail, and anyone who has played the game knows the score, but if someone who hasn't played the game (what's wrong with you? Buy it! Buy it now!) were to look at it, the way you wrote it made it seem like a huge problem.

Last (for now), never rush a review. This website's not going anywhere (save for meteor strikes), and it's always best to have a finished product. And always try to read it through, not only as a person who has never seen it before, but as someone who would disagree with all of your points. If, after all of that it still looks good, then post.

Now, if any of this doesn't make sense, quote what you have questions on and I'll try to answer when it's not 1:30 in the morning where I am.

qbert4ever:
Couple of tips for you. First, as others have said, less plot more gameplay. Next, and this is a big one, learn when to use you and I better when describing something. Case in point, when talking about the magic and archery system, you seem to be telling me that it's confusing and I myself have problems using them. Well, I can honestly say that I tend to lean more towards a combination of magic and archery, have never had a problem with targeting, and rarely, if ever, use melee. A good saying that I have to help with this is "the first part of assume is always ass". As in, don't assume that you know how other people will feel about something. You're describing your experience, not mine.

Next, make sure you have all your facts straight. You say that once out of the guild, you're forced to fight the Wasp Queen. Not so. If you so choose, you can skip the quests and walk back and forth through Darkwood and level up a ton. Granted, this is a miner detail, and anyone who has played the game knows the score, but if someone who hasn't played the game (what's wrong with you? Buy it! Buy it now!) were to look at it, the way you wrote it made it seem like a huge problem.

Last (for now), never rush a review. This website's not going anywhere (save for meteor strikes), and it's always best to have a finished product. And always try to read it through, not only as a person who has never seen it before, but as someone who would disagree with all of your points. If, after all of that it still looks good, then post.

Now, if any of this doesn't make sense, quote what you have questions on and I'll try to answer when it's not 1:30 in the morning where I am.

I understand - Thanks for the tips.

moral decision - the games pride and joy

A decision that tugs at one's morals - forcing players to consider the consequences and ramifications of their choices - is only worthwhile if the morality is questioned later on. This simply isn't the case with Fable, which is why I have to disagree with that particular quote. It may have been Project Ego's pride and joy during early stages of development, but there's quite a difference between having players make a binary choice and having players be meaningfully affected by their choices. Orchard Farm, which you briefly mention, is such a template for shallow takes on morality. You can work against the farmer the first time around, who will throw death threats at the "Hero", only to have the same farmer welcome players with open arms the next time they are called to help him.

It's actually the kind of peculiarity which was surprisingly absent from most critiques of the game.

Diogo Ribeiro:

moral decision - the games pride and joy

A decision that tugs at one's morals - forcing players to consider the consequences and ramifications of their choices - is only worthwhile if the morality is questioned later on. This simply isn't the case with Fable, which is why I have to disagree with that particular quote. It may have been Project Ego's pride and joy during early stages of development, but there's quite a difference between having players make a binary choice and having players be meaningfully affected by their choices. Orchard Farm, which you briefly mention, is such a template for shallow takes on morality. You can work against the farmer the first time around, who will throw death threats at the "Hero", only to have the same farmer welcome players with open arms the next time they are called to help him.

It's actually the kind of peculiarity which was surprisingly absent from most critiques of the game.

What I meant from that - was the fact it was a big selling point - all over the box and the hype. It's the games pride and joy because it was so hyped during production.

So the combat is ok, but not spectacular

What? Where did that come from? You say nothing good about the combat. You repeatedly talk about how annoying each of the forms are. And then you sum up that section by saying that it's "ok"? How?

This was in a simpler time era, where morality in games was a completely new thing.

Well, that's just simply not true. Kotor had been out for well over a year when Fable was released. Sure, at that point, moral systems were still interesting, but it doesn't excuse the fact that Fable did it badly. The only thing that the good/evil slider affected was how you look, and what villagers would do when you walked past. Which also didn't make much sense. Protip for the NPCs: when you see the incarnation of evil walk by you in the street - a man who has laid waste to a neighbouring town for no reason and murdered his own sister for a new sword - heckling him is a bad idea.

Anyhow, you didn't say much good about the game, and then suddenly concluded by describing it as "one of the best RPGs on the Xbox". A little support for such a bold statement would be lovely.

Break:

So the combat is ok, but not spectacular

What? Where did that come from? You say nothing good about the combat. You repeatedly talk about how annoying each of the forms are. And then you sum up that section by saying that it's "ok"? How?

This was in a simpler time era, where morality in games was a completely new thing.

Well, that's just simply not true. Kotor had been out for well over a year when Fable was released. Sure, at that point, moral systems were still interesting, but it doesn't excuse the fact that Fable did it badly. The only thing that the good/evil slider affected was how you look, and what villagers would do when you walked past. Which also didn't make much sense. Protip for the NPCs: when you see the incarnation of evil walk by you in the street - a man who has laid waste to a neighbouring town for no reason and murdered his own sister for a new sword - heckling him is a bad idea.

Anyhow, you didn't say much good about the game, and then suddenly concluded by describing it as "one of the best RPGs on the Xbox". A little support for such a bold statement would be lovely.

Again, good points - clearly shows the points that need ajusting, i'll wait for a few more helpful comments then edit it...like crazy.