11/27/05 >> Fable: The Lost Chapters (PC)
Genre: RPG
Ah Fable, shockingly enough for a Peter Molyneux game it was hyped to the moon, in fact he promised the moon, as he does with most games but that is a different story. The X-box version was met with great anticipation and the jury is still out on whether it is actually a classic or not, on the PC port we're treated to "The Lost Chapters" a short expansion that adds a little extra gameplay to the original storyline.
Story
The storyline of the original (or main) area of the game is that you are a nameless hero, your family tragically broken up and trained to be a hero. From there you're allowed to pick and choose what you want to do (with the exception of certain quests that are required to advance the plot) the problem is the majority of these quests tend to be poorly executed. Escorting traders, save the village (by killing 5 monsters in 1 on 1 combat), speak with this character, unlike many other RPGs where there's real depth to get into the role and feel a sense of urgency to do these quests in Fable there is little, which with the length of the main quest is a huge disappointment, it's just clichéd and shallow. The long lost sister, the enemy that can only be defeated by the chosen warrior, the clichéd assortment of supporting characters. It all adds up to being very disappointing.
Now along the way of the main quest you meet a handful of characters who'll help you and hinder you at various points of the game, unfortunately these half dozen characters are the only characters that receive any development besides the main character, the rest of the characters inhabiting the game world are completely generic NPCs spouting off the same 3 phrases over and over (although which 3 phrases they are depends on how good or evil your character is), which to a degree destroys the illusion.
The paltry selection of optional quests does extend the storyline in places but when the entire game clocksthe same kind of mileage as a single act of Baldur's Gate II, a single great House's quests in Morrowind or 3 good raids in Worlds of Warcraft it doesn't extend it by much. The "Lost Chapter" or additional content fares even worse, while the main quest at least allows limited good and evil choices the only real choice in the extra content is right at the end. Though this storyline does add 2 or 3 additional hour’s worth of gameplay.
Graphics
Now on a high end machine the graphics are great, obviously great care has been taken to physical changes to the main character as he progresses through being good, evil and the other changes that come from the various skills, invest in strength skills the character gets bigger, invest in speed the character gets taller, use a lot of magic and it gains a faint blue hue on the veins which becomes stronger with time.
The landscapes themselves are also very nice, picturesque, no shuttering in combat, though they could have used to put a lot more variation into NPC looks. Generic is one thing, but at time it's so generic that 2 men working side by side look identical.
Sound
The music and the majority of sound effects within the great are wonderful, the music has a suitably epic feel to it (though the battle music cue sometimes seems a little off) and the effects themselves land with a visceral thud or twack as you bludgeon, stab or shoot your foes down.
The voice-overs are a mixed bag, a couple of the main NPCs are well voice acted, others come across badly and phoned in. Ditto for the quest NPCs who to a degree work, until you stop to think that half the male characters who speak all sound identical. As I've already mentioned outside of quests the random assortment of phrases supporting characters throw out quickly grow tiresome.
In the Lost chapter section it becomes even worse, half the speaking roles in the additional content seem to be voiced by the guy who did Thunder's VO and his accent gives it away no matter how much he's trying to disguise it, while it's a minor thing it's something that I found noticeable, surely they couldn't have sprung for another voiceover guy?
Gameplay
This is where the problem starts. For all the claims and all the hype what this game boils down to is a game of 2 halves:
On the 1 side you have a simplistic and extremely easy hack-and-slash, that while is fun, it's short. When your hacking and slashing to advance the plot it's one thing, unfortunately because of the length of the plot (even with the added "Lost chapters" the game itself is over all too quickly. There's little skill to anything in it, jab this button to attack with the sword, don't even worry about blocking because of the ludicrously low difficulty level all you need is the money you can easily earn to keep you in health potions. Archery is a similarly simplistic affair, hold the mouse button for a half a second and release, complete with auto-lock on. You can aim manually but since you can't move doing this is leaves you so vulnerably you're left with little choice but to take the easy road.
Magic is a similarly simplistic affair, not even an aim needed for most spells as the game auto-targets and while the variety of spells on offer is quite large and it will take 2 or 3 play-through to try them all at high levels you'll be wondering why? The first time the game is story driven, but once you know what happens in the story it's just a hack and slash affair to advance for advancements sake.
The second half of the game is a fairly simplistic sandbox basically, inside towns people react to you, fall in love, go about their business, marry you etc. Hailed a major feature unfortunately there's actually very little depth to it, assuming you didn't assume the role of the most evil bastard possible getting wed is a simple as 2 pickup lines, a gift, a wedding ring and carting your new sweetheart off to your home, the rest of it is as shallow, people run in terror or stop to cheer, you can buy businesses but aside from bringing in piddling amounts of gold (which at this stage in the game means little) it's all straight forward stuff. In much the same way the sandbox itself falls flat the thief skills do in a similar way, because of the high amount of experience needed to unlock them, by the time you have unlocked said skills there's little need for them and they're just another toy in the box.
Speaking of other toys in the box, there’s the "Expression" system. Basically because your character doesn't speak (a couple of phrases aside) you communicate through a series of gestures, unfortunately there's no real need to use any of them except a couple and much like the rest of the game it's promised as one thing, and arrives as something simplistic that doesn't work that well.
A feature a lot of people on the X-box seemed to love is being able to play after the quest has finished and while there's some fun to be had slaughtering towns (if you're evil) or wandering around collecting rent (if your good) it still relies on the rather simple sandbox. Overall the gameplay is a mixed bag, it's really fun while it lasts, might even be fun for a second run through but in the end there isn't all that much to do before you have to start repeating yourself.
The Bottom Line
Overall while it's a fun game while it lasts I come from a world where a PC RPG lasts me many a moon, the shallowness of this game only betrays it's console roots, when it comes out on a budget label at a lower price I'd recommend it, but at full price for such a short game I honestly couldn't recommend it.
Like many Peter Molyneux games, it promised much and seemed to get steadily watered down from what was originally promised, what we have here is a decent start and something that I'd love to be see improved and expanded in the future. The engine is great, it's just such a pity the game running on it is mediocre. Something else to note is the absence of mod tools that have become a staple of the PC RPG market, there are no such tools for this, a pity but not something a game deserves to be marked down for, just something to be mentioned. Indeed it's a pity as with an engine such as this and the seemingly infinite time and effort modders spend on such projects this game could have been expanded to such a degree the original was unrecognizable but alas that's not to be.
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Game Score: 6.7
Reviewed By: John Whitney
