Fable

What comes naturally to a couple engaged in holy matrimony is no secret, but making it happen is not necessarily an easy task. I won't give it away, but suffice it to say that, if you make sure to show as much appreciation after the fact as you did during courtship, you should be cool. In any case, courtship was challenging enough at first, but after I reached a certain level of renown, I found that most of the ambient, adult characters in town were in love with me. It kind of took the thrill out of the chase, if you know what I'm saying. Maybe it's just par for the course, if your exploits are known throughout the land, but it's just funny to walk into a barroom, and see a room full of giggling people with hearts floating above their heads.

Here's a Little Story that Must be Told

Just like the world it's set in, the narrative driving Fable isn't too different from what you'd expect, given its genre. Rather, the production values surrounding it are what are impressive. All the dialog in the game is spoken, and it's all well-written and convincingly-delivered. Given how dark the story itself is, most of the dialog not directly associated with it is actually pretty funny, too. The pacing of the story, however, is a little abrupt; once it rears its head in earnest, it's over before you know it, and, consequently, so is the game.

Yes, Fable is short, with an average game time of 12 to 15 hours. This isn't considering, of course, the amount of messing around you could do outside of quests and the like. You could conceivably buy every house in the world, level every single ability, kill every inhabitant of every city, or whatever artificial goal you want to impose upon yourself, but in the end, it's hard to see why you would want to. One solid playthrough of Fable is more than enough to get all of that out of your system. This doesn't diminish how satisfying all of this is in any way. It just means that Fable isn't the nigh never-ending experience many of us hoped it would be.


In the end, though, what matters is just how meaningful that one playthrough is. Fable is lovingly crafted, accomplished, and, most of all, entertaining. Everything that makes it unique has been implemented so seamlessly that you don't notice it immediately, but once you realize it's there, it encourages you to further explore its rich world. This is something that any RPG fan with an Xbox should definitely experience.