Some heroes are made when they rise to the occasion. Others build their reputations over time. This latter case is the subject of Fable: The Lost Chapters, a game in which you get to vicariously experience the life of an archetypal fantasy hero, and, in some respects, decide what eventually becomes of him. Originally released for the Xbox last year, Fable was one of the most highly anticipated games since the Xbox'due south debut, and the latest title overseen by visionary game designer Peter Molyneux since 2001's innovative Black & White. Like that game, Legend invites you to solve problems either by being skilful or by beingness evil, and to watch as the furnishings of your decisions gradually take a noticeable cost on your persona. Fable too features a number of novel elements, such as how your hero'southward appearance gradually changes with age, and how villagers respond differently to him depending on his reputation, looks, and other factors. These elements serve to significantly differentiate a game that's actually pretty straightforward in terms of how it plays. Below the surface, Fable is a well-put-together, merely standard, action hazard, primarily consisting of lots of basic combat and running from bespeak to point. Mind you, this is a decidedly great game, all in all. Its most interesting, riskiest features may lie at the fringes rather than at the core--but they're there.

You become a battle-hardened hero over the course of Fable.
You become a battle-hardened hero over the course of Fable.

If you're already familiar with Fable, you'll discover that Fable: The Lost Chapters is essentially the same game, though it gains a significant amount of new content and at present carries the budget price tag associated with the Xbox's Platinum Hits serial. The new Lost Chapters storyline picks up immediately post-obit the conclusion of the original Fable's main quest, challenging you lot to explore the treacherous north of the world of Albion and conquer a great threat lurking there. Featuring new places to explore, new items to find, and new monsters to fight, plus lots of new dialogue and cutscenes, the boosted content of The Lost Capacity is at least as good as that of the original game, and information technology blends in seamlessly with the remainder. It'southward like getting an expansion pack with the original, and The Lost Chapters helps accost one of the original Fable's problems, which is that it was quite short. Fable veterans will need to play through the game again in order to get to the new stuff (your relieve files from Fable unfortunately don't transfer over) and the additional quests amount to merely a few more hours of gameplay, if you play directly through. So while fans will surely savour the new content, it isn't necessarily plenty to justify getting a 2d copy of the game, even for the low price. Simply if you're new to Fable, then read on--not only will you be better off because of all the stuff that's been added, but you'll besides be in for a lively experience all around.

Yous brainstorm Legend as a young kid, and it'south hither that you're introduced to the game's moral alignment system, its sense of sense of humour, and its nighttime edge--also as its basic controls, which will be mostly intuitive if you've played other tertiary-person-perspective games recently. Your first gild of business is to earn a few gold pieces with which to purchase a birthday gift for your sister. Whether you brand the money by being helpful or by making problem is upwardly to you. This initial choose-your-ain-adventure-style sequence is quite impressive in the corporeality of freedom and diverseness it affords y'all, and it suggests that Fable will constantly challenge you to make moral decisions like the ones presented early on on. For example, will you lot help a little kid fend off a bully, or will y'all join in on the bullying (or beat them both up)? These decisions are so ethically basic that they're not at all difficult to make, merely it'south however interesting to see how the game plays out depending on what you do. You lot'll discover, though, that Legend'southward introduction is not reflective of most of the quests, which don't give you lot many choices. At any rate, before long later on y'all consummate your first main task, something sinister happens. Fortunately for your young character, he is saved past an enigmatic man who transports him to the Heroes' Guild, where he is to exist trained to become an charlatan.

How you treat the populace of Fable's world of Albion is your decision to make. Whatever you do, it can be interesting to observe their reactions.
How y'all care for the populace of Legend's globe of Albion is your determination to make. Any you practice, information technology tin can exist interesting to notice their reactions.

Cut to your hero'southward teenage years. At the Heroes' Guild, you lot're instructed on how to fight with melee weapons, a bow and arrow, and the powers of will--otherwise known as magic. All three of these fighting styles are relatively simple to use, but they work well. It's possible to lock onto nearby targets, and you can switch between ranged and melee weapons hands. Melee combos are unleashed just past tapping the attack button repeatedly. Some foes will block your attacks, but yous can penetrate their defenses either past maneuvering behind them or past using a slower, stronger, unblockable strike that becomes available after every few normal strikes. Archery works similarly but is more methodical--the longer you press and concord 10, the more fiercely you'll draw your bow, resulting in pregnant impairment per hit. The controller rumbles as your shot powers up, effectively giving y'all a tactile sense of when you're about to deliver a very powerful shot. It'south possible to manually aim your arrows from a first-person perspective, but since you lot'll automatically lock onto targets using the shoulder button, this ability has no real value. Really, archery may not seem altogether practical in Fable. Information technology can exist plenty constructive, but since y'all'll be fighting most foes single-handedly, and most of them will apace close the distance betwixt y'all, toe-to-toe combat proficiency will seem like the obvious kickoff choice. A few flight enemies will require you to put your unlimited arrows to good use, though.

Magic is unquestionably valuable in Legend. You'll start off with a elementary lightning attack, but you'll be able to spend feel points on more a dozen other different spells (and upgrades to those spells). There are spells that exercise such things equally temporarily boost your force and speed or temporarily cause time to slow downwardly all around you, letting you hands outmaneuver foes. (Descriptions of these spells brand them sound very useful, and, in fact, they are.) Magic is a little bad-mannered to use at first, since you need to hold down the right shoulder push to access your spells, and so you have to press another button to cycle through your available spells if you have more than three. Only this is easy enough to get used to, and worth getting used to sooner rather than later, considering magic helps make Legend's frequent battles pretty easy, for better or worse.

You lot'll face up a fairly diverse diverseness of foes during the course of the game, some of which will seem reasonably smart. Bands of bandits will fire on yous with crossbows, switch to swords as you approach, and attempt to flank yous. Undead will bound correct out of the ground underneath your feet. Creatures resembling werewolves volition lunge at you from all directions. Yet all these foes tin be defeated handily in groups, using the same types of tactics. Fable'south gainsay has a pretty good, solid feel to it as you lot wallop your foes with swords, axes, maces, crossbows, and more. Only the combat isn't really a challenge once you inevitably effigy out a few key tricks. Items that quickly or instantly restore your health volition be available in copious supplies, letting y'all recover your energies in a pinch, even in the midst of battle. You'll too probably end up hoarding numerous "resurrection phials," which automatically restore all your health should yous exist struck downwardly. Once you learn Fable's controls and effigy out its fairly complex leveling-upwards organization, y'all'll have overcome its greatest challenges.

The game's moral alignment system is intriguing, but isn't particularly deep.
The game'southward moral alignment organisation is intriguing, but isn't particularly deep.

Of grade, you won't be fighting hordes of foes while you're still training at the Heroes' Lodge. After the training is complete, you're invited (rather awkwardly, via an onscreen prompt) to go along on to your hero's adulthood, the fourth dimension during which the vast bulk of Legend takes identify. You can get through the younger years in about an 60 minutes, and the rest of the story is fairly cursory and will take you peradventure 10 or 12 hours on your first run, including the content of The Lost Capacity (and that'southward if you ignore a few bachelor side quests, though these don't pad the game's length much further). Fortunately, Fable'southward world is sprinkled with footling hidden secrets--collectible special keys, talking demon doors challenging you to open up them up in some obscure fashion, concealed treasure chests, and so forth--and these give the game some boosted lasting value. Ironically, though, at that place isn't a articulate incentive to play through the unabridged game over from scratch in one case you've finished it the first time. Even so, notwithstanding you lot choose to spend your time, yous should be able to squeeze a good 20 to 30 hours out of it when all is said and washed.

Legend's storyline, which is punctuated by an elegant sequence of paintings showing your hero's latest exploits, is mostly linear and starts slowly after yous go past the childhood prologue. Past the halfway point, information technology actually becomes fairly involved, since its few key characters become relatively fleshed out. Nonetheless, the hero himself remains silent during all the proceedings, and all the moral decisions y'all've made take little effect on what happens or how information technology happens. The game does accept multiple endings, depending on your morality and the ultimate decisions you make, only each version of the epilogue is very brief, and it's fairly piece of cake to see the numerous different alternatives without having to play through the game from the beginning. This is partly because your grapheme's morality can exist reversed simply by visiting one of two different locations in the game, respectively devoted to a good and an evil god.

All y'all need to exercise is pay a hefty donation and your evil or skilful deeds volition be negated--and, toward the stop of the game, you should have plenty of money to spend. The inclusion of these temples seems somehow unfortunate, as they can undermine the deliberate process through which your character's nature ordinarily emerges. Furthermore, the fact that you may continue exploring the game's world of Albion even after y'all've finished the chief storyline ways that you'll be able to see virtually of what Fable has to offering without having to restart. Part of the appeal of role-playing games that purport to let you alive by the consequences of your actions is that they offer significant replay value. However, that'due south non necessarily true of Legend, though the game does have lots of interesting peripheral content to explore on your first get-round. The matter is, you might miss it if yous simply follow the main quest, terminate information technology, and reckon you're done. If that happens, you'll have experienced a quality action gamble game, simply you volition have missed out on virtually of what makes Fable special.

It'south fun to meet your character develop every bit y'all play. Yous can get a prissy shut-up look at the hero at any time at the touch of a button, and you'll see him visibly age and transform in other ways during his machismo. It's possible to adorn your hero with different hairstyles and tattoos--which don't have much bear on on gameplay (as yous'd probably await), simply may withal cause sure villagers to respond to you differently. Your wear or armor tin take a like outcome, but the most interesting visual changes to the hero occur every bit a result of your moral choices. Human activity evilly, and before long enough y'all'll sprout horns, walk with a hunch, and you'll gain bloodred eyes; act like an angel and you lot'll gradually gain a divine aureola around you. In that location's a dramatic range of appearances possible for your primary graphic symbol, and even though the variations are mostly corrective, information technology'southward however very impressive. Your grapheme even becomes weathered and scarred from constant battle.

You may choose to take certain dares before you go questing, but regardless, your adventures in Fable won't be too much of a challenge.
Yous may choose to take certain dares earlier you lot become questing, but regardless, your adventures in Fable won't be likewise much of a claiming.

There are other aspects to Fable'southward personalization arrangement worth noting. Your alignment will gradually give y'all access to diverse social gestures--a nasty insult if you lot're evil, or an amends if you're adept, for instance. The Lost Capacity adds more on top of the original game'southward options. Using these in civilized settings yields results that are, at to the lowest degree, frequently funny. Ultimately, there really isn't much to character interaction in Fable. All the same, gesticulating in various means and watching as villagers react differently to yous based on your attire and reputation tin be entertaining for a while. So tin a few different tavern games bachelor at the drinking establishments in Fable's handful of villages. The extracurricular activities don't terminate in that location: You may too get married (and divorced), which is another fairly basic procedure that leads to some amusing results; expect your spouse to have some pick words for you lot whenever you change your appearance. You lot may purposely or inadvertently commit all kinds of unlike crimes while in boondocks, from brandishing a weapon to breaking windows to shoplifting, and the guards will come up looking for y'all if you exercise--you can pay a fine, flee, or endeavour to fight them. At that place are other dainty niggling details here and there. As solar day turns to nighttime, villagers will calorie-free street lamps and shutter their doors. Taverns are always bustling with customers. The fashion the game's not-player characters human activity and reply to yous eventually becomes pretty transparent, but messing effectually with them as though this were a virtual ant farm can exist rewarding.

For most of the structured gameplay, you'll exist undertaking quests that are the stuff of standard-issue fantasy. Rescue missions, dungeon crawls, showdowns against powerful foes, and all the other clichés brand their appearances in Fable. None of the quests have very long to achieve, thanks partly to your hero's user-friendly power to teleport effectually the world, as well as to the onscreen minimap that always points you lot in the correct direction. Fable'due south quests offer a scrap of varied challenge in how they allow you to "avowal" for boosted rewards by agreeing to accept on bigger risks. Basically, you lot're able to have dares on certain quests, such every bit vowing to go through a mission "naked" (just in your Union Jack-emblazoned underpants, that is), or to slay every foe from the mission'southward beginning to end, or to complete your objectives in a certain menses of time. These boasts can add an extra bit of challenge and diverseness, but they aren't really necessary. The penalisation for a failed boast isn't severe, but if you fail the quest altogether then you take no selection but to restart that quest and keep trying until yous succeed. It'due south strangely disorienting to be required to restart a simple side quest from the outset when Fable is presumably a game well-nigh living with the consequences of your actions. Again, though, the game isn't difficult, and so the threat of having to replay quests doesn't plow out to exist much of a problem.

Your hero will grow immensely powerful as he gains experience. Even large groups of foes will be unable to stop him.
Your hero will grow immensely powerful every bit he gains feel. Fifty-fifty big groups of foes will be unable to finish him.

As you complete your missions and slay opponents, you'll gain experience points, which you can spend to customize your grapheme and how he really plays. This leveling-upward system is quite good, and different some of Fable's novelty elements, it actually adds depth to the gameplay. Basically, you'll go to improve your character's various abilities within iii different pools: strength, skill, and will. Forcefulness abilities influence your melee power, toughness, and maximum health. Skill abilities bear upon your speed, archery, the prices you go from merchants, and your ability to sneak. Will abilities govern your maximum magic ability and available spells. Interestingly, you gain experience points in each of these iii categories separately, every bit yous fight using melee, archery, and magic, respectively. You besides earn a 4th, general type of feel on tiptop of that, which can be spent on any of the three power sets. All abilities within each of the three pools are bachelor right from the outset, and it'due south a lot to take in. Fortunately, some helpful text and vocalisation-over clearly explains how each option may be useful to you.

Though this system works very well, it discourages pure specialization. You might start out hoping to get the best possible fighter or magic user. But, eventually, you'll discover yourself having to spend exponentially more experience for express gains in your chosen field, versus spending relatively minor quantities of experience points to gain proficiency in new skills. Then you're almost certainly going to wind up as some sort of hybrid fighter/archer/wizard, though you'll withal probably lean toward specific sets of skills, of which at that place are numerous feasible combinations.

The sum total of Fable's elements is a decidedly interesting mix that invites, and ofttimes rewards, exploration and experimentation. That's groovy, but for what information technology'south worth, the game doesn't entirely succeed at making you experience like y'all are the hero. The epic premise doesn't quite translate into an ballsy experience. This is by and large because the course and structure of the gameworld experience contrived. Fable consists of a sequence of relatively small, winding, interconnected maps, separated past brief merely noticeable load times. The hero himself has no personality (and never speaks, except for a few short, gruff phrases when yous brand him emote), and the game's cookie-cutter non-actor characters, while often amusing, don't come up beyond as lifelike. Fable's juxtaposition of cheeky humor and surprisingly serious story themes likewise seems odd, as the humor tends to overshadow aspects of the story that otherwise could have seemed much more dramatic had the game maintained a more than fifty-fifty tone. All of this makes the world of Legend seem very much similar a sandbox (in which your imagination will be the fundamental to your enjoyment) rather than a fully realized and cohesive fantasy setting--the kind that actually draws you in and makes yous feel like a part of it. In Fable, y'all'll oftentimes feel more like the managing director than like the star of the prove.

Fable is first-class from a technical standpoint, featuring highly detailed visuals brought to life past soft, colorful ambient lighting, which gives the unabridged game an appropriately dreamlike, wispy look. Piddling details are everywhere, and character animations are nicely exaggerated, making the inhabitants of Fable appear larger than life. The diverse environments, which include your standard fantasy trappings similar forests, swamps, caverns, and graveyards, are dense with color and niggling atmospheric touches. Conditions effects look very existent, and other effects for spells and such are also neat. Just the best-looking aspect of the game is certainly the hero himself and his gradual metamorphosis into whatever you're trying to turn him into. Watching your hero take shape over time is a ane-of-a-kind experience that, in and of itself, encourages spending lots of time playing Fable.

Fable packs enough memorable sights, sounds, and surprises to make it very worthwhile.
Fable packs enough memorable sights, sounds, and surprises to make it very worthwhile.

The same is admittedly true of the audio, which is quite possibly the best role of the game. A beautiful classical-style orchestral score plays pleasantly throughout the story, changing its tone and mood effortlessly to fit each different type of setting and state of affairs. Ambient sound furnishings match or even surpass the richness of the graphics. The vocalization acting (all of it is British) is of very high quality overall, and there'due south a ton of spoken dialogue to exist heard. You lot'll occasionally hear some repeated lines as y'all wander through towns, and this is really the only strike against a game whose sound is amazingly well done.

Legend: The Lost Chapters is an imaginative game that'south got enough remarkable, unique moments in it to brand it shine. That many of these moments happen to be good for a laugh is all the improve. It'due south true that the game's high points are not always frequent--its ambitions are evident only not e'er fulfilled, and its pervasively playful spirit is sometimes mired by convention. These trespasses are more than excusable, though. Regardless of how much fourth dimension y'all ultimately spend playing Fable, yous're not likely to forget the experience for a long while. Do deport in mind, though, that if yous played the original, yous'll take already experienced most of what the game has to offer, and fighting your way through all the old stuff again just to get to the few hours of new stuff might not be worthwhile.