Mindbat

Bought, installed, and played Fable for the first time yesterday. I know, I’m behind the times, but for the past six years I’ve only had access to Mac games. I’ve heard a lot about this game, though, so I picked it up and installed it on the one Windows box I could get my hands on.

At first blush, the game’s a bit of a letdown.

First of all, the environments look 3D, but it’s deceptive: you can’t jump in game, which means I might as well be playing a game that looks 2D instead of one that tricks me into thinking I’m playing a 3D game. The graphics looked great until I realized my avatar can’t do something as simple as jump over a fence. It’s the fracking 21st century, and we’re still putting out games without 3D interaction?

Second, there are way too many cutscenes. I can understand a cutscene at the beginning to set the mood, and maybe one near the end to wrap things up, but one every five minutes of gameplay? Do I really need a cutscene to tell me I’ve got to rush down to meet the GuildMaster for the day’s lessons? Couldn’t they have just had a character conversation tell me what to do, or even a simple note? Worse still, do I have to spend 30 seconds running in game just to go from one cutscene to another? In Fable, every piece of story or gameplay information is conveyed to the player through cutscenes, even if it’s the most inefficient way to do it.

Third, the main character looks like the worst kind of hick. I’m from Texas, I’ve seen his kind. Never imagined I’d be playing one.

Fourth, the cutscenes keep making choices for my avatar (and thus me, the player). For instance, the cutscene I mentioned above that started by telling me I’d overslept and had to run to meet the Guildmaster. Of course, I run down to where the Guildmaster is only to be griped out for being late. “Wait a minute!” I thought. “I’m not late–I’ve been playing this game since it started!” This kind of thing made me stop playing the game; my frustration level was too high (it didn’t help that these cutscenes are so frequent, I never feel like I’m getting to actually play my character much).

All that said, though there were some great moments in the game. The bow gameplay is awesome, combining greater realism with a better experience. And I like the way you get awarded experience based on what weapons/skills you’ve been using; it makes sense and is easy to grasp.

I’ll keep playing, if only to see if the cutscenes calm down and I can figure out some of the emoticons they provide (no thanks to the game manual, which doesn’t say which emoticon does what).