[Professor S]

I won't bother you all with some half-assed review of Fable, since the entire world seems to have done that job pretty well already. What I want to talk about is what you want from the inevitable sequel to this monster hit of a game. Since my recommendations are going to involve ponts that I feel that could have been improved, I will say this about Fable:

Fable is a great game, as it succeeds in the many things that it attempted to bring into one game... BUT... it does not EXCEL in any of the areas that it has success in.

With that said, here are my ideas for Fable 2

A Larger, Free Roaming World - The biggest area that hurts Fable is that at no point did I feel immersed in the game. I always felt like I was simply running from area to area and quest point to quest point. The fenced in area inhibited me from feeling the sense of exploration, freedom and adventure that Morrowind was able to achieve so well. In fact, most RPGs give you sense of great travel and experience from the beginning of the game to the end, but Fable never really achieves this. The designers were trying to achieve accessiblility, but in doing to so they stripped their role playing game from one of the most important aspects that one can have: The loss of self into another world.

A More Diverse World - The whole world of Fable seemed very cookie cutter to me. Every town look a lot alike and all of its citizens seemed very similar. I'm not sating that the NPCs were clones of one another, but they all looked alike. Here are a couple ideas for a more diverse world:

1) More races. More races give you a better feeling of both exploration and adventure. Plus it also gives you the opportunity to explore the idea of personality traits even more and give you the impression that you are meeting different kinds of people whose lives don't just revolve around you (another complaint I had).

2) More Diverse Archetecture. This involves having a sense of travel and adventure also. In Morrowind (I'm guessing you can see I'm using that game as my measuring stick) most of the towns had a very distinct look to them, which gave you the feeling to traversing a entire world, and not just a small island nation.

3) More Weapons. Fable really needs more weapons... a LOT more. There are honestly only a handful of weapon types to choose from, which had a few (and seemingly meaningless) upgrades and that really bothered me. I'm not saying that Fable needed to go as far as Diablo in the weapons selection, but a little more diversity would have been appreciated, if only in appearance. This goes for the spell selection also.

A Better Story - To put it nicely, the story sucked. When thinking of the some of the great villians in RPGs and even other adverture or action games, The Jack of Blades doesn't even register. They need to do better, or offer a more immersive environent to create your own story in. Bottom line.

Now I know in writing this I'm sounding really critical of Fable, but I love the game and still play it daily even after having beaten it. Each time you play, it seems like the game is truly different and reacts to almost everything that you do, and that is a rare achievement in the world of gaming. The graphics, design and animations are nothing less than spectacular (if a little cartoonish). But more than anything, its a lot of fun.

Still, it can be improved, and the fact that I and many others can love this game but still see so many areas that it can be expandied and improved, only proves that Fable has hit a fresh nerve. Fable is a game that has brought to the table, developed and produced a concept that developers have been too afraid or inept to attempt: The Complete Game. Where Lionhead and Big Blue Box go from here, we can only wait and see.