Game Review: Fable

One of the reasons I wanted to get an XBox was for games like Fable. Having played it, the best way I can describe it is by quoting the a line from the opening of Bon Jovi's Social Disease: you mean that's it? Whatever the game may have going for it, it is short. No, I really mean short. I'm talking 10 hours short. In this day and age, that's a joke.

The game is a role playing game set in some dark-ages like setting. In this world, members of the guild of Heroes roam the land, either fighting evil doers or killing the innocent. The game starts with the player as a child whose home is destroyed by bandits. The child is taken into the guild and trained as a Hero. After training, the player guides the character through a series of quests. The main storyline is driven by learning more about who destroyed your home and getting either revenge or justice.

As is the fashion today in RPG's, the game features morality options. You can play as a good guy or a bad guy, making choices throughout the game play to affect your alignment. Strangely though, this morality has little impact on the game. The guild itself does not care if you are good or bad. They treat you exactly the same. Whether saintly or demonic, women will respond the same to your offers of chocolates and marriage. So, ultimately your alignment affects your character's appearance (horns and glowing red eyes if evil, radiance if good) and how people react to you (civilians will cower in fear if evil, applaud if good), but that's about it. Of the four RPGs I've played with the morality choices (Knights of the Old Republic I and II, Jade Empire, and Fable), morality has the least relevance in this one.

One of the reasons the game is so short is there really isn't much to do. You have your quests, some of which will advance the main storyline, others which won't. The developers tried to introduce more openness by allowing you to, for example, hit on women and try to get them to marry you. Once married, you can even have sex with them, and a tracker is provided to keep up with how many times you have. Apart from having sex with your wife, you can beat her (it's a little troubling to me that wife beating is translated into game entertainment, but that's another post) and she will divorce you, and yes there's a tracker to keep up with how many times you've been divorced. And, of course, you can kill all the innocent civilians you want, if you are playing evil. Oh, and you can buy houses and rent them out. Sure, these things will add to the length of the game, but seriously, how long does Lionhead think you are going to keep doing these things?

Playing the game the first time, it's interesting. It certainly looks good and the combat is interesting, varied, and challenging at times. But then all the sudden it's over, and all you can think of is Bon Jovi's song. Play again? Why?