Fable The Lost Chapters (Page 2): Xbox Game Reviews


	Platform PC Genre RPG Developer Lionhead Publisher Microsoft Rating Mature Released September 2005

- Flawless graphics/audio - Rich and rewarding character customization - Plenty of mini-games and quests

- Character strength too high in end game - Minor interface problems - Still a touch short

Review: Fable (Xbox) Review: The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (PC)
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The experience you gain throughout the game is broken down into four categories; general, strength, skill, and will. Many of the core quests in the game are focused on combat and you will spend a lot of your time in quests killing monsters and bandits. How you defeat your enemies affects the type of experience that you gain. If you kill an enemy with your melee combat, you will gain strength experience. If you use your bow, or crossbow, you will gain skill experience, and if you use magic, you will gain will experience. General experience is gained by completing quests. The experience that you gain in each category can be used to increase your skills in strength, skill and will only in that category. Experience gained in strength can only be used to level up strength powers. Only general experience can be spent in any of the three categories. I really enjoyed molding my character to fit my preferred style of gameplay. There are enough choices of spells and skills to create a character that you will truly enjoy playing as. I focused my experience in melee combat and increased my strength skills a lot. I found a perfect balance of attack speed, strength and supporting magic to play as I really wanted to play.

Lastly, you will be paid well for your time and the completion of quests. Money is the general trading currency and is necessary for you to obtain the goods and services you want. Of course, you can increase your guile skill and simply steal items. If you are caught however, town guards will fine and possible attack you if you do not pay. Stealing is an evil action and affects your morality accordingly. On the other hand, you can obtain some great items through stealing that would otherwise be impossible to come across in the game world.

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Another cool aspect of the weapons in the game is your ability to add power crystals to them. By adding different crystals to a weapon, you can add damage or ability bonuses to your weapons.

Much of the gameplay is focused on combat and the battle system is twitch/action focused, rather than turn based, or based on rolls as in most traditional RPGs. Through the real time use of spells, ducking and striking, the combat

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system is fairly simple, but still challenging enough to be entertaining even after the 20th hour of gameplay. There is the unique aspect of the combat multiplier also that keeps things interesting. The more strikes that you inflict without being hit, the higher your combat multiplier increases, thus allowing you to gain more experience after dispatching a group of enemies. This is easier said than done, especially when facing a large, varied group of enemies. Also, after striking many times without being hit, you have the ability to begin a flourish attack. This is an attack that the enemy cannot block, and as long as you continue to land strikes in your flourish combination, you will continue to be able to inflict strikes that cannot be blocked. Again, this is easier said than done, especially when surrounded, even when such a combination is what would help you most.

When not bludgeoning bandits, monsters and werewolves to death, there is actually quite a bit to do in the game aside from the quests. For instance, there are a variety of mini-games in which you can test a whole range of skills, and bet some of your money. You can flirt with the ladies and try to get married. You can go to a tavern and get drunk and then attempt a whole range of stunts just for the sake of playing drunk or you can simply try and make your hero puke his guts out in the tavern. There are a bunch of what are called demon doors that open to secret areas where you can receive rare items. To open a door, you have to overcome a challenge that the door presents to you. This can range from sleeping with a lot of prostitutes, to simply gaining a bunch of weight by eating. You can fish, and search for treasure, although this is as simple as running around and looking for an icon to appear. You can even partake in late night fight clubs to test your bare knuckle combat skills.

With all of this variety and gaming goodness to play through, it is a credit to the designers that they were able to create an interface that made sense and was fairly intuitive. There are three context sensitive keys, 9 keys that can be bound to any objects in your inventory or any available actions, and the standard movement and action keys. The only thing that I found could have been improved upon was the menu system breakdown. While logical, it often took too many mouse clicks to get to where I wanted to be in the menu. Also, the inventory lacked some order as items would be thrown in to it without an adequately logical system.

With the review package I received, there was a letter "from" Peter Molyneux stating that the intention of the Lost Chapters was not to make a straight port of the original console iteration of Fable, but to create a more complete experience and to put back some of the elements that were taken out of the original. As such, the Lost Chapters includes a few more quests and most notably a more significant quest tacked on to the end of the game. And believe me, it does feel tacked on. Although I can definitely see the value in extending the duration of the game, this last story arc from a storytelling perspective is redundant, and the gameplay derived from it is too easy. At this point in the game, your character will be so powerful, will likely have the best items for your character type and should have so many items, or enough money to buy sufficient items, that any battles you must fight will be won decisively in your favor. Despite this new chapter to the game, a major gripe for the original iteration of Fable, that the game was too short, is still true, though to a lesser extent. Although you can continue to play after the credits have rolled, unless you have remaining optional quests to play, there won't be much left to do.

Even though the game is now an average length, it still feels short because the gameplay experience is just that varied and rewarding. The production values are perfectly tuned to the game's style as the graphics and audio are beautifully implemented. Quite simply, I loved the game. For all of you PC gamers out there that have not yet had the opportunity to play Fable, the Lost Chapters is your chance to experience a fabulous action RPG.

- Mark Leung

(September 19, 2005)


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