Fable Reviews

[pg]

http://ga-forum.com/showthread.php?t=11775&page=1&pp=50

funny thread about fable

supposedly the game is supposed to be very short too, like 20 hours.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I think it's quite common for visions of games to naturally change along the early development process though. Wouldn't you agree?

Yes, which is why I said that almost all games do not live up to the hype. With the gaming media as it is now, things thought up during the early development process get put in as 'features' even if the intention was simply to try it out and see if it works. Hype isn't usually by the developers, it's by the gaming media.

supposedly the game is supposed to be very short too, like 20 hours.

It'd do you good to read the rest of the thread or the reviews at least. 20 hours for the main quest, 50-100 hours if you include all the side quests. Those numbers aren't too far from KOTOR's main quest/side quest splits.

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

I think it's quite common for visions of games to naturally change along the early development process though. Wouldn't you agree?

With the gaming media as it is now, things thought up during the early development process get put in as 'features' even if the intention was simply to try it out and see if it works. Hype isn't usually by the developers, it's by the gaming media.

If you'd made that point to start with I wouldn't have jumped on you.

[pg]

the 20 hour mark was from someone who reviewed it iirc. morrowind was probably 300+ hours if you did everything but most people probably only played 20-60 hours.

[pg]

so anyone play it yet? it seemed like lots of people where interested given how big the other thread but it seems to have died down. here is a review i trust enough to take seriously -

http://www.gamespot.com/xbox/rpg/fable/review.html?q=1&tag=gs_hp_flashtop_story

gamespot gives fable an 8.6. in a way you could say that's a failure given how molyneux's hype(which he admited recently in an interview you shouldn't take seriously) said it would be revolutionary. sounds like a fun game but definately a rental given that the reviewer says you can probably beat it in less than 10 hours(w/ 1 hour training). he does mention you could stretch out 20-30 hours if you wanted to.

if you read the review it sounds like they were actually going to make the game they hyped but encountered difficulties and trimmed it down. the training is probably the best part of the game as it seems closest to what the game was supposed to be. reminds me of b&w where the first few hours were amazing but it fell apart after that.

[LDiCesare]

Ever play KOTOR? Story's the same whether you are good or evil. There are just different ways of doing things

I didn't (can't find it around here for some reason). I played Arcanum though, and you had one branching in the story to side with good or evil, you could negotiate, lurk or fight your way around whether you were good or evil (though killing was sometimes the only option). Decisions you took would prevent you from gaining subsequent quests (e.g. repairing a mechanism prevents an alchemist from giving you a quest because he no longer likes you), and would give you reputations on which people would act. NPCs would accept to join you or not based on your deeds, what you looked like, etc. And at the end of the game, there is a small story told about what happens to the world based on what you did. And you could do different endings, siding with the bad guy or not, independently on the previous good/evil choice. This made a good game, with replayability, choices and choices. Fable doesn't look like it's got depth like that, does it:

all the moral decisions you've made have little effect on what happens or how it happens. The game does have multiple endings depending on your morality and ultimate decisions you make, but each version of the epilogue is very brief, and it's fairly easy to see the numerous different alternatives without having to play through the game from the beginning. This is partly because your character's morality can be reversed just by visiting one of two different locations in the game, respectively devoted to a good and an evil god.

This:

The hero himself has no personality (and never speaks, except for a few short, gruff phrases

I also dislike (makes me think of what I dislike most in Morrowind).

[child of Thor]

I think its a little while before you guys in the states get to play it(14 sept i think?).
We wont get it in the uk untill late October

I'll probably get it when it comes out, unless people here who get it before me say its a real dog!
I guess we should just try to forget all the hype of the game and take it at face value??
From the video i've seen of it playing - it looks like a game worth having on xbox......there aren't many rpg's for the platform, so each new one helps.

Still i'm saddend it doesn't seem to be the game it could have been

[Imran Siddiqui]

I guess we should just try to forget all the hype of the game and take it at face value??

That's my advice for any game. The hype is just the magazines and websites pumping up what they like about games up to levels which can't possibly be reached