Hero or Villain?
In Fable, you'll begin in the role of a young boy whose village is raided. As the sole survivor, you are taken to the Guild of Heroes to train and live up to your potential. Depending on the actions you take, you could become a loved and respected Hero or a feared heartless criminal. Which will it be? It's up to you to decide.
Gameplay:
The gameplay here was great and very natural. You really begin the game upon graduation from the Hero's Guild, and then it is your duty to take various quests. By doing these quests, you'll come upon decisions that will affect your moral alignment. For example, you can take a quest fighting on the side of bandits as they raid a local farm, or you can fight on the side of the farmers, and defend the farm against the bandits. Your interactions with people also impact your morality. You'll definitely earn points toward the evil side if you rid a home of its occupants by murdering them in the night. You'll also earn renown as you do quests. The more famous you become, the better people will react to you. You'll walk through a town and people will cheer and clap for you.
There is a lot of customization involved in this game, which was great. You could customize your character's abilities to be just about any kind of warrior you want. You could become a master of will (this game's version of magic), a strong warrior, or a stealthy assassin, and you can mix and match as you see fit. You can also customize your character's appearance. Throughout the game, you'll find various outfits and armors to wear and many different tattoo and hairstyle cards that let you mold your character to your tastes. However, there's one factor about your character appearance that you couldn't really control, which was his age. Each time your character levels up a stat, he ages a little, and Father Time eventually takes his toll as his hair turns white and his body wrinkles like a prune. I didn't think that the aging really made sense in the game, since time passes from day to night. When the game is complete, only a matter of days has passed, yet your character looks like it's been decades. And no other characters in the game seem to age with you, so I felt that that could have been left out.
The game was very short, which was both blessing and curse. It's good for a quick fix, but it ends rather abruptly. You can continue the game after the credits roll, but if you completed all of the quests beforehand, then there's not much else to do.
Combat felt very natural in this game, and you were free to go about it however you preferred, be it going in and slicing everyone to hell, or taking them out from afar with your trusty bow. The only hitch I found was that oftentimes, it was very easy to accidentally target innocents or hit them as you're striking your enemies. And on a side note, this game probably could have used a difficulty setting. It was a little on the easy side.
Graphics:
The environments here were just gorgeous. I love the amount of detail and color that they used here. Even the dark and creepy graveyard looked fantastic. The character models were a little frumpy though, but they weren't too bad either.
Sound:
The soundtrack to this game is fully orchestrated, and it's gorgeous! All the music fits the moment. The voice acting here was great, too. Neat accents! No complaints whatsoever here!
Value:
There aren't too many games out there like this one. Plus, it can be a different game each time you play. This game really stands on its own two feet.
Overall Experience:
Great game. Lots of options. Good story. Go play it.