Fate and destiny are two words we all yawn at when we pick up yet another generically predictable fantasy game from the bargain bin. Yet when you clasp your eyes on a box asking “will you be good or evil?”, you wonder how a Lionhead game fell in with the secondhanders. Quite frankly it would be criminal if you didn’t.
The legacy of the Surrey based games company barely stretches over one decade, and in that short time, they’ve only belted out two series. So why would you want to play Fable?
Don’t be swayed by the horrendously general title. Fable is without a doubt the crowning glory of the UK gaming circuit. Throw away preconceptions of terribly repetitive missions and Hollywood voice acting in a clearly non-American landscape (shudders). This game is as English as seeing Lord Nelson, William Shakespeare and Robin Hood down the village pub enjoying a pint of cider and a game of tiddly winks.
The game begins at a comfortably slow pace, where, as a young boy, you potter around your small village: the picturesque Oakvale. As night falls, bandits raid your home and tear every shred of innocence from your childhood, leaving you with visions of your family’s torture and murder scarring you forever.
Fresh out of a troubled past and a decade of training (half an hour, in fact), you’ve grown into a big strong boy and are subsequently thrown out of into the immersive and charming world of Albion: bloodthirsty for revenge and answers to Oakvale’s destruction.
This is the turning point which separates Fable from the others, the crucial element of choice. Will you be good and kind, donating to the poor and defeating bandits? Or will you kill innocent people, steal from their homes and seduce their lady (or man) folk? The choice, as Lionhead’s director Molyneux eternally preaches, is yours.
At this point, geared up with a bow, sword and ‘Will’ – that’s magic to me and you – you can gallivant the woodlands and glades of idyllic medieval English countryside hacking bandits or traders to pieces. Indeed, the game sometimes offers quests with a ‘good or evil’ choice element attached to them. Will you protect the farm from bandits or help them and get a cut of their loot?
Fable is by no means the easiest game out there, but the fighting system is straightforward. The only struggle will be affording weapons and armour to give you seriously unfair advantages, but this is rewarding as you force push a team of ten bandits head over heels. Either way it’s a joy to listen as bystanders either cheer or cower in an amusingly broad west-country accent.
This lends to the fantastic musical score, which lazily rolls as you explore corners of Albion. Alternatively, the orchestral music roars into action in fight sequences with aggressive brassy notes, and jumps through ghostly environments with chilling chorus.
It’s the perfect accompaniment when splintering a horde of undead skeletons lunging at you with their satisfyingly chunky weapons and cartoonish style: a design applied to the game as an entirety. The landscape is atypical of your stereotypical middle earth style, with swaying trees spitting shards of sunlight onto a leafy woodland floor. Towns are buzzing with busy townsfolk and caricatured building designs leaving you with a real feast for the eyes.
This is the true success of this game, the abilty to simply watch as life goes by. Like with Black and White, Fable’s people are entirely independent and will get up, go to work or rummage around their house. As the day draws to a close, the majority will treat themselves to a night down the pub and end up staggering out at midnight.
Day turns to night and night to day, without a single drop of rain ruining the lush green and blue scenery, leaving you with nothing better to do than fart, burp, dance, sneer, flirt, flex and of course, assault people.
And that is Fable: the true essence of a fairytale England. Where the orchards throb with scrumpy apples, taverns breathe with life and everywhere you turn you’re pinched with a snippet of humour. Enjoy this fantastically immersive gaming experience as soon as you can.
