Fable: The Lost Chapters

by Microsoft

Product Features

• Dolby Digital

Product Details

• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. and to APO/FPO addresses. For APO/FPO shipments, please check with the manufacturer regarding warranty and support issues.
• ASIN: B0001UEHP8
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches ; 5.1 ounces
• Media: Video Game
• Release Date: September 27, 2004
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (360 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #875 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)

Product Description

Platform: Xbox

From the Manufacturer

Fable is a ground-breaking role-playing adventure game from Peter Molyneux, in which your every action determines your skills, appearance, and reputation. Create your life story from childhood to death. Grow from an inexperienced adolescent into the most powerful being in the world. Choose the path of righteousness or dedicate your life to evil. Muscles expand with each feat of strength; force of will increases with each work of wit. Obesity follows gluttony, skin tans with exposure to sunlight and bleaches bone-white by moonlight. Earn scars in battle and lines of experience with age. Each person you aid, each flower you crush, each creature you slay, will change this world forever.

Fable: Who will you be?

Features

• Forge a hero based on your actions: Age and evolve a hero or villain through the actions you choose and the path you follow--be it for good, evil, or in-between. Ply the way of the sword, and see your muscles bulge. Weave the dark arts, and witness power crackle at your fingertips. Skulk in the shadows, and watch your skin bleach.
• Engage in intense real-time combat: Collect battle scars as you duel with a world of cunning foes and deadly creatures. Master an array of deadly weaponry as you hone the art of blade-craft. Hunt your quarry using subterfuge and stealth. Weave death from the elements, as you harness the dark arts of the arcane.
• Build your living legend: Through deeds and actions, build a name for yourself across the land. Recruit allies and followers. Gain glory or notoriety. Make friends and enemies. Interact with a living world of people, places, and event all reactive to you. Hero or butcher? Who will you be?
• Explore and shape a living, evolving world: Champion or manipulate an ever-changing land with competitive and cooperative heroes, dynamic weather systems, and deformable environments. Interact with teeming cultures, creatures, and citizens from various towns and cities.
• Hone your character with scores of unique skills and extras: Master new abilities and add possessions as you develop.
• Never play the same game twice: Once you finish your adventure, go back and try the experience again, forging your character and thereby a new tale with unexpected twists and turns, new skills, powers, influences, allies and enemies.

Product Description

Fable is a groundbreaking roleplaying-adventure game from Peter Molyneux, in which your every action determines your skills, appearance, and reputation. Create your life story from childhood to death. Grow from an inexperienced adolescent into the most powerful being in the world. Choose the path of righteousness or dedicate your life to evil. Fable: Who will you be?

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

133 of 157 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I'm satisfied due to reasonable expectations., September 21, 2004

By 

Lane Fox (Huntsville, AL United States) - See all my reviews

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Fable: The Lost Chapters (Video Game)

Title: Fable

Description: What path will you choose? The highly anticipated and arguably over-hyped fantasy/ adventure game from an extended Microsoft developer. This unique game claims to have extreme character versatility and game possibilities. Your appearance and skills will be altered by things you do in game. If you eat too much you get fat if you fight a lot you will get large and brawny and you also age. Fight the forces of evil or join them. You can adventure with thieves or settle into domesticity with your new wife (male or female.)

Platform: Xbox

Learning Curve: 7- With so much to do in the game expect to spend some time familiarizing yourself with the many skills and spells and also basic social interaction. I don't think you need to have "1337 g4/\/\3R" skills to fight and advance in the game, but the fighting system might take a bit of practice and the game gives you tutorials early in the game.

Replay Value: 9- The standard storyline will have the limitations of what it is, but if you stray from the intended path you can play the game many times altering your persona to be good or evil. Slaughter merchants or be a dastardly polygamous the possibilities can go on and on.

Difficulty: 5- This game has an average level of difficulty from what I can tell. With proper training and skill purchase most enemies shouldn't pose a problem.

Guide: Available through Prima publishers for $14.99. I'm surprisingly satisfied with this guide so far. The guide helps navigate the game easier and might help you get through some puzzles if you are stumped.

Pros: Versatile gameplay, awesome graphics, hilarious dialogue, addictive gameplay, and interesting follow through storyline.

Cons: Main character is as imagined "generic" to permit versatile play, camera angle with bow can get jumbled, D button controls are sloppy, and "noble" heroes will have to be careful for villagers wanting a part in battles with monsters and I often found myself accidentally hacking the occasional merchant.

Time Expected to Invest: As much time as you want, but I imagine most people will find a good month or so of solid play before they are off to another title. I think I will enjoy this title for a bit longer though.

Retail Value: $49.99

Suggested Purchase Price: worth over $40. Try to find it used if possible or wait until the price goes down.

Overall: 9- I admit I really like this game, but I'm trying to keep the casual gamer and expectations in mind when I rated this over all. I think some will be disappointed by the gameplay not being as "versatile" as many thought it would be, but really if there wasn't some kind of guided story involved for more "linear" gamers you'd just have a pet character on a game that would wonder around aimlessly with no direction. I like the option to do either in this game and I think many gamers will feel the same. Was this game too overly hyped? Perhaps, but I am still satisfied with the outcome. Is it a disappointment? No, disappointment is getting ready for the second time for a lunch date only to have the person inform you when they call that they are too "tired" to meet that commitment. I swear I had to get ready, drive into the city, and wait until she got off again and then... sorry off topic. Anyway, no I was satisfied by this game and that is enough for me to consider my purchase worthwhile. I recommend this title and I think while not "revolutionary" the game brings something new and fresh to gaming.

83 of 101 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fairy Tale Graphics with diabolical controller setup, November 28, 2004

By 

D. Couse "darkman1969" (United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Fable: The Lost Chapters (Video Game)

I resisted the temptation of writing a review too soon for this game; I have now played nearly 10 hours of Fable and here are my thoughts.

The graphics are just plain crazy; wonderfully done! I'm still fascinated at every ray of light that comes down through the forests and trees. Truely a marvel in gameplay.

Sound is also another home run with a surround sound setup. The sound will suck you in to the realm of the game and bring you that much closer to the ever blurring fine line of reality and dreamland.

Fighting. Well, lets put it this way. If you are after a hack and slasher hero, then the game is set up pretty good for you. Just hit the X button multiple times to increase your attack multiplier and then hit the B button for a flourish kill. However, if you want to cast a spell somewhere in there, then things get a little interesting. It can be very difficult to keep an eye whats going on the screen while scrolling through your spells to figure out what you want to cast.

Controller config is where the game has it's downfall. The problem is that there is too much customization you can have going on. Unlike many games, EVERY single button, trigger, joystic and pad is used during combat. This becomes an absolute nightmare when you start to get attacked by more than 5 creatures at any given time. What's even worse is trying to prioritize your victim in the melee is virtually impossible. A very typical combat scenario turns into the floundering of the controller as you try to remember to hold in the right trigger and hit Y to scroll to the right spell setup. All the while you are getting slashed. So you want your spell to get the guy in the back of the crowd that is shooting at you? Keep that right trigger in, now hold in the left trigger and continue to click to target different enemies; again, all the while getting slashed. This doesn't even take into consideration trying to keep you health up and Will by using the D-pad somewhere in that battle.

Don't get me wrong, the game is a definite purchase. However, the developers have created so much here that it is overwhelming when it comes to the combat.

But hey, I still can't put it down.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful and Unique, October 16, 2004

By 

Daniel J. Gilley (San Jose, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Fable: The Lost Chapters (Video Game)

Fable is a wonderfully implemented and impressively beautiful game. The game engine, character interactions, fighting with weapons, magic, everything - works really well, generally just how it should. And the graphics are beautiful leaving little if anything to be desired. I guess it doesn't have the advanced lighting, shadowing, etc. of a game like Splinter Cell but they are certainly nice enough.

I've not finished the game yet but I've already gotten my money's worth. I can see how a 12 year old game maniac who plays continuously might finish Fable quickly and feel like $50 is a lot of money for just a few days of solid play. But for a busy adult, whose game skills are not olympic, and $50 is not noticible, you WILL get your money's worth. I think I'll be playing this game in my spare moments for weeks and then I'll periodically return to it over years to play a bit more.

With regard to the freedom factor - its true that this game is not as free-form as Morrowind or Baldur's Gate. You can wander around, but mostly over a relatively small set of paths and towns. Its not a gigantic unexplored world to get lost within. I think this game's freedom is a different type. The freedom in this game revolves around what type of hero you want to become and I think in this case the game does a great job of allowing you to select what you want to be. And there look to be many acceptable, fun answers. In this way I think this game is a step above Morrowind or Baldur's Gate.

Overall, Fable is amazingly well built. Balanced, smooth, fun, without excess frustration, and a pleasure to play.

Hopefully the creators will use the same technology to build a sequal with even greater flexibility and world size to satisfy all the RPGers.

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