Fable (2004)

Fable for XBX offers an incredibly extensive story that spans an entire human life from childhood to the old age. The player leads his character throughout this existential path. The adventurer’s development, based on classical experience points gathering, can be focused on one of four basic directions: general, strength, dexterity, or intellectual. Therefore, it is entirely up to us whether we become an average Joe or a muscled warrior, agile archer, or a powerful mage. The chosen path will not only affect the behavior of the protagonist but will also be manifested in his appearance (dignified grey hair and sooner appearance of wrinkles for mages, numerous battle scars for warriors, and so on). Moreover, the latter is influenced by various external factors such as intensive sunlight that causes exposed body parts to darken. Furthermore, practically every action determines the reputation and relations with all social groups (three-level relations expressed with colors: green for friendly, yellow for neutral, and red for hostile) as well as the appearance and functioning of the fully three-dimensional world. For example, should we constantly eliminate various bandits that prowl around highways, more merchants with better wares will come to the cities.

The easiest and most common way of gathering experience by the protagonist is to fight all kinds of hostile creatures. Combat is in real time and every offensive and defensive action (casting spells, swinging a sword, etc.) is assigned a specific combinations of the controller’s buttons. While fighting hand-to-hand, we observe the battle from the third-person perspective but while, for example, aiming a bow, it will switch to the classical FPP view with the so-called shaking hands effect (of course, as the protagonist advances, aiming will become easier if we train regularly). Naturally, the developers of Fable for XBX put their extraordinary skills in creating incredibly detailed graphics to good use.

Last updated on March 8, 2016