Games get hyped. Developers talk big. Some things just don't come to fruition. Such, so I read, was the tale with Fable, an action RPG for the Xbox where everything matters - or so we're lead to believe.
The story is as old as time. A child destined to become a hero. Tragedies are to be overcome, lessons to be learned. But how will it all unfold? I've very little knowledge of the Fable series, so I'm starting where it all began, back at the beginning.
Fun Times
I'm playing the Anniversary release of Fable, complete with overhauled graphics. I doubt it looked this good, or even this wide, on the Xbox, so squint a little when you're looking at these screenshots.
We are but a boy. A weirdly proportioned mute English boy with no present to give his sister on her birthday. Blimey, that's more like me than I thought. Our father tells us we can earn some coin by doing good deeds around town, so our heroic tale begins in earnest.
The default controls have you move around with WASD and control the camera with the mouse. For some reason, it took me a little while to get my head around, and even then I wasn't amazingly comfortable with moving it too much.
A minimap and HUD detail key information, but perhaps the best feature of all is that interactable objects and people glow with a green highlight when you're close enough to tab into a conversation with them.
This little girl has lost her teddy bear, which needs a change of stuffing. Can't say any of mine have needed a change of stuffing, but whatever little child; I know a good deed when I see one.
It's not long before I find the bear, though to get it back requires me to fight a bully. A press of the space bar locks onto your target, and the left mouse button lets your fists go to town in a quick, satisfying manner.
After a few more good deeds - watching over some stock while a guy takes a piss, telling a woman her husband is cheating on her, that kind of thing - we're rewarded with enough pocket money to buy some chocolates from a creepy looking trader, and start to track down our sister.
It seems heavily hinted at that she's special, in that she appears to be having visions of the future. "Burn the witch!" I think, as someone screams in the distance. The village is under attack!
Wow. Fable isn't messing around, eh? How's that for an origin story. You're definitely destined to become something if your entire village is slaughtered just to get to you.
A mysterious, clearly magical man by the name of Maze whisks us away, and into the life that will lead us toward heroics.
Frustrations
And then Fable gets boring, and tedious, as we slowly learn the various systems we'll be using on our travels. Combat and magic, mostly, all taught at this guild.
Tutorials are a necessity, I don't argue that. I just wish they were more than a straw dummy or a fighting ring. Can we not learn by doing? Or is this kids schooling essential to the plot?
As if Fable heard me, an alarm sounds. Something has triggered it in the forest, and our tutor clearly knows it's nothing that will kill us, so sends us to deal with it. Into the woods, we go.
Sure enough, giant beetles are no match for a big stick, and we slug away at our targets with thwacks and spurts of slimy insides. I don't know how much of this is the Anniversary and how much is inherent in the Fable experience, but it's not bad.
Then we grow up some more and do more training. Ugh. At every opportunity to branch off and do my own thing, I insisted on continuing to trudge through all these tutorials. Do you want to earn some extra coin? No, thanks. Want to explore the guild halls? Nope, story, please. Are you ready for the final test? Oh, yes, definitely. Anything but this.
Further Fun Times
After what felt like an eternity, we graduate and can disperse into the wider world. It's not an open world, it's a bunch of linked rooms and corridors really, but any amount of freedom is better than what we've been through for the past half hour or whatever it actually was.
We've got to start small, I suppose. From beetles to wasps. Though the beetles were killed years ago now... Anyway, mini-map armed with map markers, we set off to deal with some menacing wasps.
Despite them swarming around me, there wasn't a whole load of threat from these fellas. I just kept swinging, locking onto whatever was in range to make sure at least some of those swings hit. I might have lost health, I simply don't know. It didn't seem like it anyway.
After a few 'little' wasps came the queen bee herself. Well, queen wasp.
It would seem to be a great opportunity to get the bow and arrows out, but no, I just wailed away at her with my sword, ignoring any other wasps in the area. I presume they flew into my sword on their own, in all honesty. After a few seconds, everything was dead and I was celebrated.
The Renown system, and the idea of becoming good or evil in general, is the big feature of Fable. If you want to be a murderous dick, you can be, and not only will your character model change to reflect that, but so will the actions of the people you meet.
Speaking of actions, you have an expression bar down the bottom of the screen with several things you can express to the locals. I'm not sure entirely what it is, serving as a sort of dialogue option but outside of dialogue.
This bullied beggar asked me to explore the expression bar to get the bully off his back. One of the options looks suspiciously like an arse. Sure enough, I farted on the bully, and he ran off.
Not quite sure I share the sentiment, but that was definitely something you generally don't find yourself doing in other RPGs, or even other games, so, uh, congrats Fable.
Heading into a town whose name I've already forgotten, we're greeted by many more English accents. If there's one game where you'll hear them all (though I wouldn't say accurately), it's Fable. Though all the kids seem to have that weird cartoon kid voice that's clearly an adult dumbing down their speech. But that's just me not liking kids, I guess.
Anyway, quests pop up through meeting people out in the world, and this lady would like us to help her sick son out, despite his ailments not being life-threatening. We even meet a witch who confirms this to us.
So we've got a quest that we don't even need to complete with any urgency. Great! Oh, no, wait. What if we do need to complete it quickly before an unseen slider decides we're being too much of a bastard to the locals, and we slip into the evil side of the story?
What do we need, some mushrooms? Okeydokey then.
On second thoughts, I'm really rather bored with Fable.
Final Word
Bit of an abrupt stop there, but that's more or less what I felt right at that moment. I had a few quests running, a few options available with regards to where to go and explore, but I felt like doing none of them. The whole training period sapped me of my interest, and no amount of silly English accents can restore it.
Fable has gone down in video game history as one of those games that promised much and delivered much less. You can plant an acorn and it'll grow into a tree. Your kids will have an impact on the story. No acorns grow, and no kids show, but your actions do at least have an impact. You will, rather drastically, turn into an evil version of yourself if you act like a villain, and that will impact the story. How I don't know, but it will I'm sure.
I can't call Fable awful on account of it having tutorials - though I am reminded of Dara O'Briain's joke to game developers, pleading with them to unlock character skills based not on skill trees, but on everyone knowing that hiding in a bush and pressing Triangle will kill a man quietly.
Maybe I'll go back to it with a different mindset. It wasn't awful to play and did look pretty good, though that is the Anniversary release talking. Oh, I don't know. I do want to see more Fable. How much more, who knows? When? Ditto.
Fun Facts
The humour in Fable tends towards the absurd, feeling like a Terry Pratchett novel. I've not read any to know, though.
Fable, developed by Big Blue Box Studios, first released in 2004.
Version played: Fable Anniversary, PC, 2014.