Fable

So, as I suspect many other X-Box owners have, I’ve been playing Fable a fair bit lately. I’ve not finished it (although Leah has – twice!), but I’ve played enough to get a fair bit of experience about it, and enough to toss out my $0.02 to the world. So here it is:

Overall, the game is fantastic. My quibbles are few and far between. The graphics are glorious, the sound is lovely the pacing even, etc, etc. It’s one of the best CRPGs I’ve ever played. You really get you money’s worth with this game. To re-iterate, I love it.

Now, onto my quibbles about it:

  • This game, which features numerous green or red glowing outlines on items of import, is very hard to play if, like me, you’re red-green color blind. Once I got used to looking for the white-edge that outlines the glow, it was ok, but it was really hard at first. And fishing, I always had to go by the feedback on the controller, as I really couldn’t see what was going on in that bar
  • The lack of critters: Compared to other computer-based RPGs, there was a definite lack of critters in this game – several variants on a theme, but not enough that they didn’t quite quickly feel repetitive
  • It’s too easy: It may get harder yet, but I’ve never felt that surge of adrenaline as I desperately fight for survival. Sometimes there’s a trick you’ve got to learn, but for the most part, I’ve been able to power my way through virtually every encounter without much thought – it’s too easy to get health potions & resurrection potions.
  • Missing content: I’m pretty damn sure there were some late cuts to the content of this game – specifically, dragons, of which there are several mentions of in the game, but as far as I can tell, no way to actually see/meet/fight/etc one of these – so probably, a whole area of the game is missing.
  • Difficult menus: The menu system, a massive tree-menu, get quite annoying when you have lots of items – especially as you can’t seem to sell some of these things, so they just get stuck there, taking up room.
  • No ‘Live’ content: This, which, until I had Live, I never cared about, now seems like a serious weakness – especially as there appears to be missing content. What could be better to enhance the playability of a game then to be able to get a whole new area, with new baddies, 2,3 or even 6 months down the road? While the new area in KOTOR wasn’t huge, just the fact that it was there was nice. It made playing through the game again just slightly more enjoyable.

So these (truly) minor issues aside, Fable is an awesome game, and everyone who owns an X-box owes it to themselves to buy it.

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