Fable: The Lost Chapters Review
Thanks to gamespy for this review read the original one here
I can't remember the last time I finished a game twice. I may have played through the original Pirates! a couple of times, but other than that possibility, at this point I really can't remember playing all the way through a game more than one time in the past 5 years. You have to understand, I play games for a living - usually, one play-through is all a game gets from me these days. I'm not the young buck that I used to be and whatever hormones are excreted while a person games, for me, the dosage isn't as high as it used to be. On a side note, having said that, I think I know how whores feel about sex. That myth that she'd give you a freebie if you were *that* good is just a myth after all. I'm just as jaded as she is.
Without taking this analogy too far (Too late - Six), I find it rather odd that I have finished Fable three times (once on the Xbox and twice on the PC, playing the enhanced version of the game, Fable: The Lost Chapters). It's fair to say by now that I have a really good understanding of this game, probably the kind of understanding that every developer would want you to have of their game.
Every time I play the game, pretty much the same thoughts come into my mind, so I don't think I'm wrong on this. The original game's biggest problem (or certainly one of its biggest problems) was that Peter Molyneux, the man behind the project and the head honcho at Lionhead Studios, gave one too many interviews about it, promising features that never made it into the final release. For one reason or the other, Fable was rushed to the stores. My guess is that MS needed like three other big titles on the Xbox besides Halo. Hence, Fable was released with a bunch of its cool features never seeing the light of day. To be fair to the publisher, God only knows how many features Lionhead decided to scrap in between Peter marveling about them and letting the entire gaming press know about it, so a part of the blame surely rests on Lionhead's shoulders.
That would be the negative side of the Fable story. There are a lot of positives to the game, as well. You can see plenty of positives in the Xbox version and with the release of the PC port, the ratio of positive things to negative only strengthens my belief that Fable: The Lost Chapters is a must-have for PC gamers. In case my intro didn't tip you off, the fact that I have finished the game three times doesn't mean I didn't play it purely because I'm a professional, it means that I enjoyed playing the game.
I could ramble on and on about how well written the storyline is, or how great the underlying humor is in the game. I could use words like 'epic' and 'sweeping' and "OMFGR0xx0rz!!!" (I would use the last one, personally. - Six) Suffice it to say, Fable features brilliant voice acting, effective cut-scenes and a engrossing storyline that fuses some of the best qualities of Japanese storytelling and presents it in a clearly Western (British) fashion. The distinct artwork is the function of a well-told narrative, a narrative that on the surface may seem simplistic but is really layered enough to offer something for everyone, truly goes a long way in justifying the game's title - Fable. The title suits the game perfectly. The game world is both mature and laden with a youthful spirit - something to make a fantasy fan feel great about exploring it.
As I had mentioned in the hands-on preview, the art style has that timeless quality of Blizzard classics - it's not so much bound by technology as it relies on the sheer artistic value of the characters and environments presented. The story is spirited and full of life, and is the artwork. The music, voice acting and sound effects are complimentary to the two, making Fable one of the more enjoyable game worlds I have traveled to in my many years as a gamer.
From a technical standpoint, Fable: The Lost Chapters works marvelously. It runs great on mid-range rigs and the interface is very nicely designed and feels natural with the mouse and keyboard combo. I especially like how the spell casting has been handled, as well as the variety and the appearance of the spells. This makes for some smooth action sequences, and though fighting may appear a bit too simplistic (at least as far as melee combat is concerned), it does its part rather admirably, not taking anything away from the overall quality of the gameplay.
The real great thing about the Lost Chapters is that the added content increases the exploration factor in the game, which somewhat alleviates the problem of the painfully linear maps.
Fable is an action RPG, which focuses on action and story progression rather than the character's stats progression. The RPG element may seem too simplistic to some, and combined with the rather linear map design, it may put off some RPG gamers, but the number of side-quests and (more importantly) side stories to discover (as well as new areas to explore, weapons, etc.), significantly increases the exploration factor. Add to that the fact that your actions determine whether your Hero becomes a "hero proper" or a villain, and you get a single-player title with plenty of replay value, which in my case was evident in the fact that I finished the game not once, not twice, but thrice over.
Granted, some much-ballyhooed features like being able to marry and own property, still don't play as significant a role as they could have in the game, but I guess I only bitch about those because Peter Molyneux used to talk about them so much. If he'd spent half as much time coding as he did running off at the mouth, there'd be more to this paragraph, but hey - nobody's perfect. In the end Fable is not as grand as Peter made it sound in the early stages of its development, but it's still an outstanding video game. The Lost Chapters is a quality port that adds more content as well as perfects the existing gameplay. Every single fan of great storytelling and compelling single-player fantasy RPGs should own this one. PC gamers who have never played the original should definitely grab it and even those of you who have finished the Xbox version should give The Lost Chapters a try - I believe it will be gaming time/money well spent.
In a way, this title has restored my faith in Lionhead, and now I await impatiently their next game, The Movies. They bring to the gaming industry a bit of heart and soul, a bit of enthusiasm, and that is always a good thing in my book... even if too much enthusiasm backfires sometimes.
Ratting
9/10
Excellent
Pros
Great, compelling storyline, beautiful graphics, soundtrack, spells and spell casting, humor, character, side-quests
Cons
Linear map design, melee combat and stats system too simplistic, some redundant features that could've played a bigger role in the game
