Everything Fable

[Professor S]

I made this Sticky in response to the interest in Fable and the fact that it is being released in two short weeks.


VIDEO
Gamespot has an excellent collection of videos that are free to the public and you don't have to sign up for anything.

http://www.gamespot.com/xbox/rpg/fable/media.html?gcst=fable_vp827.asx

http://media.xbox.gamespy.com/media/016/016526/vids_1.html

SCREENS
Straight from the Lions mouth (pun intended). A ton of screens, almost all that are available

http://www.lhtimes.com/fablescreens1.htm


INTERVIEWS

With the IGN Reviewer
http://alterego.lionhead.net/info/interviews/interview9.php


PREVIEWS

http://www.gamespot.com/xbox/rpg/fable/preview_6106196.html

http://www.gamespot.com/xbox/rpg/fable/preview_6105958.html?tag=gs_xbox_flashtop_bg

http://xbox.ign.com/articles/537/537930p1.html

http://xbox.gamespy.com/xbox/fable/537969p1.html?fromint=1

http://www.1up.com/do/previewPage?cId=3133974&did=1


REVIEWS

http://xbox.ign.com/articles/542/542632p1.html

http://reviews.teamxbox.com/xbox/775/Fable/p1/5839/

http://www.gamespot.com/xbox/rpg/fable/review.html

http://www.1up.com/do/reviewPage?cId=3134377&did=1

http://xbox.gamespy.com/xbox/fable/546898p1.html


DEDICATED SITES

Fansite - Formerly EgoManiacs
http://alterego.lionhead.net/wordpress/index.php

Lionhead's Official News Site
http://www.lhtimes.com/

The Developers
http://www.bigbluebox.com


As more info comes in, I will post it here.

[Dylflon]

I saw Dyne playing it at PAX. It looks really fun. Expect a full synopsis of the experience when we get our PAX post up.

[Acebot44]

Team Xbox Review Number 2 (http://forum.teamxbox.com/showthread.php?t=289353) (9.5)

Interview With The IGN Reviewer (http://alterego.lionhead.net/info/interviews/interview9.php)

[Professor S]

Team Xbox Review Number 2 (http://forum.teamxbox.com/showthread.php?t=289353) (9.5)

Interview With The IGN Reviewer (http://alterego.lionhead.net/info/interviews/interview9.php)

Nice finds. I added the interview to my list as it added a lot of perspective to the review. The alternate review I didn't add as it was a forum review and pretty much just said the same thing everyone else did, but with higher scores.

Honestly, the more I read the reviews the more overblown the whole length of the game is. Fable was built around emrgent gameplay. If you rwad any of the interviews with the Carter brothers or Molyneux they explained how the real story was the one you wrote yourself in a "sandbox" game world. I think the more time people spend with this game the more they will see the gameplay beyond just the linear quests that the developers threw in your lap.

[Professor S]

Sorry for the double post, but I wanted to point out a curious revelation in the Interview with IGN Reviewer that Acebot44 found at Alter-Ego.com. I'll quote it for you:

1. Alter Ego: Did you feel like the hours you spent with Fable gave you an accurate view of what Fable was and how it played?

Ben Talbot: Over the course of two days, I must have played the game for around 20 hours. That's considerably longer than it takes me to complete a lot of games I review. During that time, I made it over halfway through the main quest, but I spent just as much time just running about doing stupid stuff and trying things out[/b]

That lends an interesting perspective on the gameplay-length issue that seems to be the hot-button of the reviews. The reviewer never even finished the game but still put a time length on it that was not a reflection of his experience, just what he thought it would take if you went whole hog on the linear questing.

I think the estimate of 40-50 hours may be a more realistic estimate of game length when you take into account how people will play the game (at least how I know I will play it)

NOTE: Added Fable-dedicated sites to the main index

[Professor S]

Added most recent hands-on impressions from Gamespot to the top of the PREVIEWS index. It doesn't really reveal anything new or surprising, but its there. Also, Gamespot added new video of the game.

[The Germanator]

I suppose this is mildy off topic, but meh.

Well, today I have officially purchased my Xbox, mainly because of Fable. While I was there I did buy ESPN football 2K5 because hey, it's $20. I blame this purchase on Fable though...bastards.

[Acebot44]

Excellent........EXCELLENT! Soon we all shall be playing with our XBOX's! Hahahahh! MUWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!



<--------New Fable Shirt that I hope to be getting.


...this is why I don't/didn't want Fable to go to the PC. It is a console seller.

[Typhoid]

I was going to buy an Xbox for Fable, but then i thought i would be much happier keeping my soul. Much much happier. Im not knockin the game, but the more hype i hear, and the more i hear people want to play it, for some reason i want it less. Overexposure perhaps?

But I am buing a GC for the new Zelda game which i am hopefully getting. Or else my GC wouldnt have games to consume and play.

Damn, I cant wait for Zelda or San Andreas.....damn..

[Acebot44]

Gamespot Review (http://www.gamespot.com/xbox/rpg/fable/review.html)

Much better than I expected :D

[Acebot44]

Q&A With Peter Molyneux (http://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/09/02/news_6106400.html)

[Acebot44]

New York Times Article on Peter Molyneux and Fable (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/02/technology/circuits/02pete.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5090&en=96719b490e9a4f5f&ex=1251777600&partner=rssuserland)

[Dyne]

Gamespot Review (http://www.gamespot.com/xbox/rpg/fable/review.html)

Much better than I expected :D

Actually, I was expecting 8.9... interesting.

[Professor S]

Actually, I was expecting 8.9... interesting.

That would have been too close to IGN's score for Greg Kasavin's liking. :D

[Professor S]

UPDATE: Added 1up.com review to index.

[Acebot44]

FABLE 1.5! (http://games.kikizo.com/news/200409/004.asp)

[Acebot44]

OXM UK Review (http://alterego.lionhead.net/wordpress/index.php)

[Dyne]

Apparently the EGM scores:

XBOX
Fable 7.5, 8.0, 9.0 (Jennifer, Mark, Greg)

[Professor S]

Gamespy has released a pant-load very big and very pretty direct feed videos of Fable here:

http://media.xbox.gamespy.com/media/016/016526/vids_1.html

Enjoy!

Updated main index with video link

[Professor S]

Gamespy Review has been added to the index.

4/5 Stars

[Fox 6]

HA there is a deal thing going on at Zellers, if you cash in some of those reward points you can get $20 off of fable.

[Dylflon]

Gabe of Penny Arcade's fable review.

I was worried that when Fable came out I’d get sucked in and I wouldn’t have time to play Burnout 3 and Phantom Brave. So I’m actually kind of glad that Fable was a huge disappointment.

So in Fable you have a very small world divided up into dozens of tiny zones. Each of these zones sufferers from the “you can go anywhere you want…as long as you stay on the ****ing path” school of game design. A winding path will take you through each one of these zones and you don’t need to worry about accidentally wandering off the path and getting lost. You’ll quickly notice that someone has placed sturdy impenetrable bushes, broken fences, rocks, and impassable pools of shallow water all along the road. The entire game may as well be played on rails as your options for exploration are essentially zilch. The really awesome thing about these tiny, linear zones is that they require an insane load time. Traveling from one side of the map to the other will require you to spend nearly as much time loading as playing. Thankfully at some point the designers realized that traversing their bull**** world was a real pain in the ass and so they decided to let you teleport wherever you want. I imagine this conversation went something like this:

Girl: “Wow, running around in our game ****ing sucks.”

Guy: “What if you could just teleport wherever you wanted to go?”

Girl: “That doesn’t solve the underlying problem. Shouldn’t we instead address the fact that navigating our game world is a bitch?”

Guy: “We should have sex.”

Whoa, that certainly got hot! In my imagination all work place encounters between men and woman result in clandestine sex.

Not only do these tiny zones require loading but you also have to load every time you want to use a shovel or a fishing pole. The idea is that there is treasure buried all over the world just waiting to be dug up. However each time you want to dig you need to select the spade from your menu and then wait as the game loads the digging animation, at this point you will either get some treasure or you’ll see your character sigh. Then you get to wait again as it takes you back to the regular game. I dug twice before I was totally ****ing sick of it.

So what’s going on in-between all this loading? Well you’re playing an extremely linear and limited hack and slash adventure game combined with a ****ty version of the Sims mixed with animal crossing only minus all of animal crossings charm and inspiration. If you want to just play through Fable as fast as you can, it’s a boring but passable action RPG. The combat is awkward at first and the camera is frustrating but you can have some fun with it for a couple of hours. Thankfully that’s all the time you’ll need to invest if that’s how you decide to play the game. If you decide you want to buy a house or flirt with a girl you certainly can. You can also spend an insane amount of time dressing and building up your character. In fact a huge part of the game revolves around making your character look awesome. I can see how this might be cool in an MMO where you could show him off to other players but in Fable no one else will ever see your character. You can’t even take screen shots and upload them via live into some kind of online Fable hero’s picture album to share with your friends. You spend so much time in this game working on a character that you can never share with anyone else. I actually saw forum threads in which people were trying to describe how cool their characters looked to each other. They would try and explain how their particular hair cut really accentuated a certain tattoo. These people are so desperate to share their characters that they were trying to take photos of their TV screens.

In my opinion, none of Fable’s “open ended” game play works in the context of a single player game. Things like owning shops, becoming renowned and impressing people with your sharp dressing just aren’t cool when the world is populated by pre-programmed puppets rather than living people.

Also if you can’t understand why it looks like ass on your HD television here’s a little trick. Fable will sometimes refuse to run in 480p, but you can force it to by going into your dashboard. Open the tray with Fable in the drive and then go into your video settings in your dashboard. Turn off 480p and then turn in back on. Now hold both triggers and click both thumb sticks. This will force your Xbox into 480p mode and you can just close the drive and start Fable. Now if there was a series of buttons you could press in order to make it worth 50 bucks.

[Acebot44]

I agree with it.

[The Germanator]

Hmm...*sells his Xbox right back* :-o

[Acebot44]

In my opinion, the hype and broken promises Killed, Buried, then dug up this game just to shoot it in the back of it's neck in order to rape the hole.

Don't get me wrong though, the game is good at what it has, but just the lack of having what it was originally supposed to have is enough to leave anyone with a knowledge of its history wanting SOOO much MORE.

[Typhoid]

These people are so desperate to share their characters that they were trying to take photos of their TV screens.



*Stares at Acebot*

[Acebot44]

Oi! My Hero Was Cool Looking! :D

Anyway, the Penny Arcade thing is not a review, it's just an opinion that brought up many different points on his dislikes of the game. A LOT of people still love this game, they're just not the one's who waited for it ;)

[Acebot44]

PM Apologizes (http://allboards.lionhead.com/showthread.php?t=83152)

[DarkMaster]

Sounds like another PA rant, they could at least give credibility where its due. No matter how much crap was cut out from this game, it is still a GOOD rpg. All that talk about how the game might as well be on rails... guess they've never played any other RPG in their life, ever. And what is all this crap and complaining about the stupid god damn digging? WHO CARES, you are required to dig maybe 3 times in the whole game, I hardly think the game suffers terribly from lack of an awesome dig system. Sorry but I've heard just waaaay to much constant crying and whining about this game. It's not God-like, get over it.