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Simply Fable-lous!!!

Hey there dudes. It's been a while since the last update. Darryl still hasn't updated his blog. Either that, or I can read his mind. So anyway, on to the entry.

Yo.

It's been a while. Let me see if I can remember everything.

About that chem com... we-

What happened? Will Darryl master bankai? And will Samuel find something better to do? Stay tuned for the next commercial break...

There's been pretty much nothing to do these days. I've taken to reading about log.

I HATE THE LOG.

While the logarithim form was invented for calculation purposes, it's really a pain in the ass having to convert these into exponential form because you're so used to it. To vent out my frustration, here's a quick pun.

Logari-doom.

I seriously need to get out of the house.

Anywho, I've been stuck in the artificial world of Fable: The Lost Chapters. It's a game that gives you a great amount of freedom. While it's not GB- er, GTA kind of free, it allows you to make simple ethical decisions.

The fun in making those decisions is not so much about whether the decision is right (beat up little kid or beat up bully? Nerve racking, isn't it?), since the right decision is practically baring it's butt at you (speaking of which, you can actually fart at people). Rather, it's the fun of watching them react to what you do. For instance, kill a guard in front of some villagers and they'll say expected things like, "That's a bit too much, isn't it?" or "Err... not nice...".

I just have to credit the developers for programming such accurate responses. It's not something every Martian can do.

But seriously, it's really fun watching the AI characters react to what you do. If you save them from a giant wasp or bandit, they cheer and applaud for you, giving you the opportu- I mean, giving you a sense of pride.

Anyway, I'd like to start my official mid-gameplay review of Fable

Fable: The Laws Chapters
First impressions

It all started when I was rummaging through my dad's CD cupboard(never you mind what sort of gir- er... CDs I was looking for). I uncovered Fable: The Lost Chapters, still mint fresh (at the time, that is) in its case. Having already covered just about every game in this household, I decided to give it a try.

Before actually playing this game I vaguely remember Dominic getting the game for Damien. I don't remember the details because it was so long ago... I think Dominic STARTED searching for it recently.

Anyway, Abi told me about the "awesomeness" of the game. At first I was skeptical about this game. Hitting a kid over and over again while he just stands there and lets you do it? Call all the villagers in a town around and proceed to set them on fire, then kill the guards as they come running to you as well? Preposterous.

It was just too good to be true.

Of course, I didn't believe a word of how good this game was still I hit "Install".

Mind you, the game was actually ported over from the Xbox to the PC.... or vice versa? It's a bit complicated. The original Fable was released for the Xbox. Then additional content was added for the PC version, Fable: The Lost Chapters, and then later an Xbox version was made.

Anyway, I have to start grading now!

The game starts off with you, the unnamed Hero, as a pre-teen age kid. Your father tells you to run off and find your sister, who should be playing around the small crop field in the town (I wonder what's his occupation this time...) And it's also her birthday! Which means you need to get her a present. Of course, you haven't bought her one, so your father makes a deal with you. Do good deeds, and he'll give you a gold coin for everyone that you do. And so you run off to get those coins.

This sequence of the game was basically to introduce you to the flexibility of the in-game decisions. For instance, not too far, you'll find a woman who wants to know where her "filthy layabout husband" is. If you run off and find him making out with this chi- er, slut, he attempts to bribe you into silence, when he's actually much bigger than you. Anyway, he attempts to bribe you into silence. You can either take the gold coin he offers and gain a "Badness" point, or refuse to take the coin and report to the woman, earning you a "Goodness" point, or, being the epitome of evil, accept the bribe, run over to the woman, rat on the pimp, then run over to your father to get the one gold coin for the "good" deed.

While this does seem rather awesome at the time, later you'll find the options you have are just mostly limited to a "good" and an "evil" option. it's not really mind boggling in terms of ethics, although the reactions can be pretty hilarious. Though this decision making does get a bit boring after a while. There are some scenarios that allow you to either take the good or bad mission involving the same incident, but that's pretty much rare anyway. Overall, this system does entertain you for a while though.

The Morality Meter pretty much is affected by the decisions that you make. Doing bad deeds earns you evilness points and good deeds earns you macdonalds vouchers... with that said, your character's appearance will start to reflect your morality, such as evil characters growing horns and angelic characters having halos and being butterfly friendly. Villagers do react to this, though, making it a bit more interesting.

Combat is pretty much rounded down to three main categories... You have Melee, Ranged and Will powers. Melee is.. well, self explanatory. Ranged is... well, also self explanatory. And Will is magic, which is well... also pretty self explanatory.

Anywho, taking a look at each individual form of combat, or Hero disciplines as they call it, melee would definitely be the easiest to master, ranged a little harder, and Will powers, near impossible. Here's why:

Melee- Mastering the art of melee combat requires a certain degree of skill. You must be able to mash your left mouse button at near neck-break speeds while making funny noises (also known as battle cries). Never block, since this will only work when your attackers are from a single general direction. Rather, simply roll to the side of your attackers and start hacking away at them again. As long as your weapon is in your hand (do I smell super glue?), and your attackers are in a group, there's absolutely no way they can harm you unless you're surrounded. While enemies may be able to block, after landing a few hits on them (whether blocked or not), you'll be able to unleash a Flourish attack using the right mouse button, which is completely unblockable. This indicated by the glowing X at the bottom right of the screen and your sword glowing a deadly lightsaber Purple, which makes you Mace Windu whichever way you look at it.

Overall, Melee is the most mindless, and easiest, form of combat out of all three. Great for masses of enemies, players will usually find themselves using some form of melee at one or more point(s) of the game.

Ranged- Ranged combat is slightly more complicated than melee combat. It requires good spatial sense and a sense of distance. Firing arrows is fairly simple. You take out either your bow or cross bow(you can only equip one at a time, but can carry an unlimited number of bows in your hypercube backpack ((which is also completely invisible)) ), then hold the left mouse button to draw back an arrow. The longer you hold, the further back your character pulls back the arrow, determining the amount of damage you cause to your enemies. Attempting to use the bow as a machine gun does not help, since most machine guns don't fire in parabolas. Therefore, it's much better to take your time and draw back the arrow, then fire the arrow (don't forget this step!) to deal the maximum possible damage. A well placed shot can deal an instant kill, sometimes a second arrow required, but is definitely more powerful than a single melee attack. Not that the location of the arrow actually mattered, because it's apparent enemies die where ever they get hit, be it the crotch or the face, in the exact same manner and magnitude. the number of times they spin around is also the same, as well as the look on their faces.

What's more challenging in archery isn't dealing damage, but rather targeting the guy you want to shoot. Your character has no sense of shooting in a parabola, and therefore can only shoot in a straight line (thank god he can shoot in a STRAIGHT line... anyone seen sine curves?).

In Fable, you have the choice of locking on to your enemies, ala the style of the Z-targeting feature from Ocarina of Time. While this sounds great, it's not actually necessary unless you're in a dark place or you want to avoid hitting allies. It's usually way more convenient to use the freestyle mouse camera and whack away at your enemies since that gives you a view of all your enemies.

In ranged combat though, targeting becomes quite useful. It allows you to move while keeping an eye on your enemies, and any arrows you fire while locking on are automatically sent towards the locked-on target. This way, youcanfocusmoreonyourspacing.

Unfortunately, while this is sometimes a blessing, it can be a pain in the *ss at times. After killing the enemy (or innocent merchant) you were locked onto, the game automatically locks onto another nearby enemy for you, and this is either good or bad. Usually the camera locks on to the enemy closest to you, which is a good thing mose of the time since you want to pick off that enemy first before he gets to you). However, when it comes to dealing with archers AND melee enemies, it's a problem. While you might be wanting to pick off those archers first, you can't. There's no "switch target" button, so you have to unlock, and then (here comes hell), shift your camera so that the desired enemy (is there such a thing?) is somewhere near the middle of your screen. He/she/it/none of the previous will then be highlighted in red, and you can press space to lock on to him/she/ah you know what i mean. This takes a crap load of time and the complete lack of a crosshair when not locking on doesn't make this task any easier. This wasted time may just allow those melee enemies to surround you.

And while you CAN switch to first person view while you're drawing back your arrow by clicking the right mouse button, you can't move in this mode, which makes no sense since the mouse is used for aiming. And to move you've got to right click again and then run, and then if you want to, draw back and arrow and then right click again. Of course, just using the the highlight method works much better most of the time, though sometimes your enemy can be behind a tree and you'll still lock on, so you'll have to shift into first person mode to take him out.

So really, all in all, ranged is a highly damaging form of combat, but a little tricky. And there's also no way you'll be able to take out all your enemies without some form of melee combat, especially in caves and dungeons. This is especially distinct in "protect random wailing kid or villager" quests, where you'll find yourself shielding the protectee and since you can't run away, you can't gain distance.

So ranged is useful, but not fully reliable. Period.

Will- Perhaps the most "weenie" Hero discipline of all, there's absolutely no way you can be a specialist when it comes to Will powers. Period. Will powers generally consume a lot of Will energy (Mana), and so you'll find yourself gorging on Mana pots. To that extent, Will powers are meant solely for support, and are much more useful than when used solo.

To prove that, under the Will powers section, there are even some spells called "Physical Spells", which may sound like hangovers, but are actually buffs that come into play during melee and ranged combat.

So you'll find yourself much happier as a Spellwarrior or Spellhunter than trying to steal Gandalf's job. Oh, and you still cannot pass.

Anywho, Fable is a pretty awesome game. It's just that the ways that you get to interact with people are a bit limited, but still more than you get in the average game. It's a great game and worth picking up if you're the kind of guy who wants something different from the usual third person action game.