What if marriage was this easy in real life?
Fable:Lost Chapters, Wasted Time
Well, as most of you know Fable II, the sequel to the popular game Fable, has been released, and in the next few weeks everybody who’s anybody will be commenting on it. So I’m stuck in a bit of a pickle. I’ve only recently gotten Fable II, and I haven’t been able to test it out. So while I want to contribute to the newest fad, I realize that until I finish the game I’m not going to be able to offer an opinion that is actually worth anything. And lets be honest, when everybody is talking about a game, who is going to care what I say when you can listen to Game Informer suck up to Lionhead Studios about how this game is the most revolutionary and immersive RPG in the world for anyone who has never played Elder Scrolls, Neverwinter nights, Torment or Baldur’s Gate. So I, as per norm, will do the most annoying thing possible and take the half way stance. I’ll be on the Fable bandwagon by reviewing the series, but in order to be original and creative (if doing something everybody else did years ago is creative) I’ll review the first game instead. Actually, this isn’t that bad as far as my ideas go, because it not only will remind the people playing the sequel how the first game worked out (or, more accurately, didn’t), it also will let the people who actually had some common sense and avoided the first game to see how it turned out now that everybody is talking about the sequel.
Ok, now as most of you noticed, my description of the series isn’t very flattering. If you haven’t noticed, seriously, you need to improve your reading comprehension skills. I admit, I’m being kinda overly hostile, Fable II hasn’t done anything yet to deserve my wrath, so I really shouldn’t mock it as much, through the first game certainly deserves all the mocking I can give it. Now before we start, I want to address an issue that apparently comes up whenever somebody reviews Fable, “Project Ego”. Basically when the game was first being developed, that apparently famous game designer Peter Douglas Molyneux made a lot of fancy promises, and when Fable didn’t deliver, a lot of gamers got upset and dubbed the game “Project Ego”. Now personally, I don’t see why this was such a big deal, because quite frankly, I expect game designers to exagerate the good qualities of their game, and I’m of the opinion that one should never listen to what designer says about their game. Even if you ignore their monetary self interest in getting you pumped up, they also wouldn’t be making the game if they didn’t think it was the best thing in the history of ever, as only a few game designers have what we call modesty. So I don’t feel that angry when the developers claim that their game allows you to plan murders like no murder simulator ever has before, and it turns out that you are only able to plan virtual assault. What gets me pissed off through is when reviewers who aren’t in the pocket of the gaming companies (they exist) declare the game the best RPG in the history of EvaR, and seem unable to notice the flaws in the game. While I don’t think Fable should be burned at the stake, the way it is so overrated is really annoying.
Fable tries to be the most immersive video game in the world; you can buy your own house, get married, customize your character’s dress, alter your appearance, and choose to be good or evil, etc. A new RPG that goes into uncharted territory, bravely exploring the unknown, challenging the limits of the RPG world by….doing exactly what Elder Scrolls, Baldur’s Gate, and Neverwinter Nights did. Fable’s premise is declared as revolutionary, but it really doesn’t do anything that other games haven’t done before. Now, a game doesn’t have to bring about a new age in gaming to be good, it could take a new spin on things, present an old format in a unique manner, or in the still developing concept of immersive game worlds, it could just try to expand upon the concepts used in later games. But Fable doesn’t do that, any good things that come out of the game (and there are some) are overshadowed by the massive lack of originality. Sticking to a format is fine, but you have to at least expand upon the format, not just blatently copy and reuse it. David Edding’s books may be full of clichés but he makes sure he tells the story well and uses the format in a mature and original manner, while Fable is a bit more like Eragon, which just blatantly rips off other works and doesn’t add anything. It’s like that rip off of “Rear window”, “Disturbia” it just doesn’t bring anything new to the table, and no matter how good your premise is, if you just rehash what other people have done better you’re still just a hack. Alright, I’ve made several accusations, and much as I really do want to claim its bad and leave it at that, I am somewhat obligated to go into detail on the matter.
Right, let’s get started. If you haven’t played the game, well as you can expect, Spoilers below, but nothing really that astounding honestly. The story takes place in the mythical lands of
Well since I have a long list of complaints, let’s start with Fable’s greatest flaw; immersion. For a game that tries so hard to engage you in its world, it does a very poor job, like the fact that you can’t talk to anybody who isn’t a plot character. NPCs (Non Playable Characters) will wave vaguely and make some comments on your appearance, but the game almost glorifies how unresponsive they are. While the reactions are kinda cool at first, they quickly become annoying because they are so generic. At least when you can talk to NPCs you get to choose when you want to listen to them, but hearing “What a swell bloke” or “He is a scary one that Hero” again and again gets really annoying. This also makes the player not attached to the world, because the world is inhabited by a bunch of obviously generic people who all look and act exactly the same.
“Wait a second EE, most games have masses of emotionally dead NPCs, why is Fable at fault here?”
The thing is while plenty of other games have generic NPCs at least you can interact with them. Take Baldur’s Gate for example, the vast majority of the NPCs are nothing more than random people with the generic name “peasant” or “Guard” or “Understudy”, but despite that the player can approach them and engage them. You can learn interesting stuff from them, and they might comment upon the way you act or the things you’ve done, like how in Jade Empire you can go up to anybody and talk to them about what is going on. Even games I am normally critical of, like most JRPGs (Western elitism ahoy) at least have every random dude give you some nifty fun facts about the world. You can talk with people and have some interaction. It’s not perfect, hardly and it certainly could be improved, but at least it’s something.
Now you can use emotes to communicate with the people around you, with your character making a corresponding action, like flirt, dance, laugh, recite Shakespearian poetry etc, to which the NPCs will react. However this really doesn’t replace the ability to talk to NPCs, because their reactions are so shallow. The first time your hero flirts with a girl it is kinda funny listening to their reaction, but after the third time you’ve pretty much heard all there is. When you fart, dance or flex your muscles, every person’s reaction is pretty much the same as everyone else’s and then the NPC interaction goes from intriguing to absurdly tedious. For example, as a good person learned that making people like you increases your good points. To achieve that all I have to do is wave, dance and smile to people, and just generally act friendly. After doing this for ten minutes everyone in town bloody loved me. When I wear black clothes they hate me, but when I change to something happier, they all love me again, which means either the game can’t handle social skills, or people of Albion are more fickle than the crowd in Julius Caesar. Because it’s so easy to change people’s minds it’s not really worth it.
The worst example of this is the romance part of the game. Now I like the idea of being able to marry any person (Boy or Girl) in the entire game, it’s a nice option and I think if handled maturely it could be to a lot of fun. But because the NPC interaction is so shallow, it’s just boring. Here is how you get married.
1) Either become good looking or have a high renown
2) Walk up to a random woman, literally any women and use the flirt emote four or five times.
3) Give her a ring after buying a house and hey, you’re married.
That’s it. I got married and divorced in three different towns in ten minutes, and if I hadn’t run out of money I could have gotten married to the entire female population Bluebeard style. But at no point in this romantic process can you actually talk to your potential wife. On some level the game is remarkable realistic when it come to the post marriage relationship, the wife just stands in the house complaining about your looks and asking you to buy her stuff for. The husband just neglects her, with almost no real love between them, just like all real life marriages (joke).
One thing that baffled me was the same sex marriage. I like that the option is available, although I didn’t use it, and I have to reluctantly praise the game for including it. But I have to ask, how is homosexuality viewed within the game world? I mean, in the Middle Ages it was considered a sin, and even today it isn’t accepted. I mean, in most states gay marriage isn’t legal. So I was rather curious about why it is so tolerated in the world of Fable. Apparently it’s an acceptable if taboo practice, but nobody seems to comment upon it or explain why it is so tolerated. While people take a little pressing to admit to being gay, when they come out nobody actually does anything about it and there is absolutely no mention of its effect on society. I’d expect that the world of Fable would be fundamentally different from our word, but it isn’t and thus gay marriage, in the end, seems to be just a gimmick.
Now Fable is sold on the idea that you can do pretty much anything, and act the way you want. Yeah, these are all lies. The world is like Legend of Zelda in how linear it is, but unlike Zelda it doesn’t make up for that by being creative. The entire world is just a few cities, with a few roads connecting them. You can’t randomly explore the world, or just wander around, because there is nowhere to go. Compare this to say, Morrowind where one can wander literally anywhere in the world from the get go, Fable also makes the claim that one doesn’t have to follow the main quest. One can do all the side quests, but after those are gone there really isn’t anything else to do unless you want to get married or burn a town to the ground. Now this isn’t necessarily bad, BioWare’s games are very linear, but they give you much more freedom of choice. Take Jade Empire. In every chapter before moving on to the main quest, you can do a lot of side quests within a limited area. The biggest difference between Jade Empire and Fable is that the former’s quests tend to be really in depth, like when you have to help fix the love life of the town’s local mobster, while Fable’s are really simple; go here and kill that guy.
I like in Fable how people react to your appearance, despite how shallowly it is implemented. The many different hair styles, tattoos, and clothing designs are a great idea and one of the few things that Fable has to offer that Elder Scrolls would be better off with. Ok, the most badass thing this game has to offer is the voice acting. No, I’m serious; the game has really good voice acting. This might be my inner Anglophile speaking, but the fact that most of the voice actors are British really does go a long way towards making mediocre dialogue really good. I mean I want to kidnap their voice team and force them to be the random voice actors in every game from now on. The only game who’s random people have such good voices that I can think of (and correct me if I’m wrong) is Jade Empire, which has a much smaller cast, and a little behind Baldur’s Gate, which had a more limited number of phrases. The voice acting alone almost forgives the game for all of its other faults. However, despite the great voices, the actual reactions makes it all for not, what a waste.
The absolute worst problem with the game is the alignment system, which makes every edition of D&D look as coherent and comprehendible as the legal system in Russia. Now Fable has this idea that your actions affect your appearance, so a good person will get a halo and butterflies whereas a villain will get horns and creepy skin. Once you get past the gut reaction of disdain, it’s actually quite a cool idea. I mean, imagine if your actions physically changed your appearance, how cool a concept would that be? Good and evil would be viewed in a totally different manner, and people’s way of thinking would change drastically. Even if 1% of the population in Fable had this ability it would be a very interesting feature; the idea that a person’s appearance reveals their inner soul. You could do a lot with that idea, like having a church where the “Halo people” are their saints, and people being very upfront and honest about what kind of people they are because they can’t hide it.
But despite being one of Fable’s most original ideas, they don’t do anything with it. First off, nobody else seems to change like you do, which is disappointing considering how much interaction you could have with other characters in the game. Also nobody really comments on it. Oh they will cower when they see your evil version or feel happy when they see the good you, but nobody goes “hey, that bloke looks like a demonic freak” or “Look daddy an angel.” And nobody tried to burn me at the stake, which I felt very offended by.
But there are bigger problems with the logic of the alignment system itself. One questionable feature is that killing a trader costs you 12 evil points, while killing a farmer cost more? Are farmers more pure than merchants? Is growing food some holy task, while peddling merchandise is somehow evil? And if that’s the case, how is killing the bandit chief after he surrenders more evil than killing a single farmer? I mean, I can see it being evil, but wouldn’t it be less evil than murdering an innocent farmer? Or why is stealing an apple worth eight evil points, but assaulting somebody is worth only two evil points? Bloody hell, how does that make any sense? Also why is divorce evil? Can somebody please explain how realizing that a marriage isn’t going to work and leaving your wife evil? Many of my friends’ parents are divorced, some of my grandparents are divorced, and none of them are evil. And here is the kicker, divorcing your wife earns you more evil points than killing her? Who says video games undermine society’ morals.
Another gripe I have with this system is the fact that killing bandits is considered good. Yeah, it sounds nice, but think about it for a second. Saving merchants? Ok, that’s good. Protecting a village from an attack? Good. Stopping bandits from threatening others? Ok. But why would killing them in self defense be good or evil? Here is an example. My evil character was walking down the road when he ran across some traders, and killed them for no logical reason. Then he was suddenly attacked by a dozen bandits, and after he finished them off, he found he actually had more good points than before the massacre. By the time he got strong enough to wipe whole villages off the map, he had killed so many monsters that it took ages to get him his horns, and then I had to literally run through bands of enemies to avoid losing them. It was really silly when I wanted to do non evil quests, and kept getting good points. When you’re getting paid to kill people, is it really good that you saved the farm, since you were only in it for the money? The “good” thing would be refusing money and saving people for its own sake, but apparently I was good even though I was obviously in it for the money.
The Fable morality system is simplistic and immature. They reduce good and evil to basic numbers, and completely ignore the subtly of human interactions, making playing good for its own sake somewhat unrewarding. I mean, in well constructed morality game, like Jade Empire or Baldur’s Gate, there is a reason to be evil as it’s much more profitable, but I prefer to play good in those games because I actually feel guilty when I hurt the people in those game, because they are so well developed. However in Fable the characters are so lifeless and unappealing that slaughtering them all like McDonald’s chickens is actually enjoyable and I feel no pangs of guilt when I take them to the temple of Skorn to be slaughtered.
It is not a smart idea to make good and evil have equal value in the context of a point system. The nature of good and evil is much too complex to be represented by a such a simplistic construct and it misses the whole point of why players choose to be either good or evil in a video game. For me I like to be good because I want the challenge of being held to a higher standard, and I like to be evil because I enjoy the chaotic thrill of having no standards. Evil people can be expected to do good things pretty often, because it’s in their interest to do them, it furthers their evil plans and it sets up the evil things that they do later to be even more dramatically evil. So by making good and evil a question of numbers it turns morality into a dull two dimensional Sunday sermon and thus really not worth paying attention too.
Bioware uses a number scale in their games, but they handle it in a more mature way, where the numbers aren’t the motivation for change, it’s the reaction of the supporting characters to your good or evil acts. Being evil isn’t about being a serial killer, its about being smart and thinking of number one, but being good honestly feels more satisfying in Bioware games because the NPCs and the world itself are more responsive to you. In Baldur’s Gate, I gain something from being evil more than just “evil points” but I actually feel bad about myself in the process.
Fable was sold on the idea that it was “non linear”, where you free to effect the game as you please, where the plot is determined wholely by your actions. What a load of bull! Fable is one of the most linear Western RPG I’ve ever played. The “choices” you make are essentially the same, you can either kick the puppy or give all your money to the puppy. The game promises a totally difference experience every time you play, but when I played my second evil game, it was exactly the same except the peasants cowered instead of clapping. Hell, even the “Good only” and “Evil only” benefits are exactly the same. While I didn’t get the holy sword thing in my evil file, I just got the evil giant uber-weapon, so it was all-good. I couldn’t do the saving the merchant quest, but I just did the exact opposite and killed a bunch. And while I couldn’t use the good guy spells, I could use the evil ones that were mostly exactly the same but glowed red instead of blue. And the plot is exactly the same no matter what you do. Apart from good and evil points, there is literally no bloody difference if I save my sister or let her die (spoilers, or wait too late).
Now being linear isn’t in itself bad. I like Baldur’s Gate more than Elder Scrolls, because it compensates for its lack of freedom with a really astounding story. Fable’s plot, on the other hand, is cliché and reads like fan fiction, there is nothing there that you haven’t seen before. A weak story line is OK for a game like Oblivion, because of the immensity and overwhelming detail of its world. Fable’s world, in comparison, is very small, very generic and very controlled and doesn’t feel at all engaging.
Ok, time to give Fable some credit here; the game actually isn’t totally bad. It’s just over hyped. If I had to give Fable a “score” I’d give it a 73, like a test grade. It had all the proper requirements, but no real depth and sloppy management. What Fable does have is a great sense of humor. The game is almost worth playing simply to listen to the NPC comments (at least until they get old) and read the in game books, because they are really very clever. Sadly, like most of the games elements, for all the good clever humor, there is a lot of bad crass humor that weights it down (basically it’s a bit like Harold and Kumar), but I’ve heard that Fable II avoids this. There are other cool ideas, but most of them are so minor. I like the fact that you can age, something almost no RPG has every gotten around to doing. I also like how you can regain your youth using the temples. But that’s undermined by the fact that you only age when you level up, which is a horrible mechanic. I mean first off it doesn’t make any bloody sense because I can walk around without leveling up for a real life year without aging a day, then age 4 decades in 1 minute. Secondly it punishes you for getting more powerful, which is a moronic concept.
Right, so I think the Demon Doors are the only good idea in Fable that is actually implemented properly. For those of you who don’t know, Demon Doors are basically giant faces in doors that keep you from entering certain caves unless you perform a task for them. For example one of them won’t let you in unless you defeat a certain amount of monsters, another will only let fat people in, another will only let somebody who’s slept with a few dozen women in etc. Their voices are great and very funny, particularly the one with a fetish for fat people and they were the only reason I felt obligated to finish the game twice in order to open them all. I really do look forward to them in Fable II.
Um, the monsters are actually pretty cool. Balverines, Trolls, Nymphs, and Hobbes are actually pretty cool, both in their appearance and mannerisms, but that really is all there is to them. They don’t have any real detail, background or content other than “random enemy” which is really annoying when it comes to nymphs and Hobbes, who are clearly intelligent and could be really interesting parts of the game but instead are just random monsters, which is really disappointing. As for graphics, I normally don’t give a damn about the graphics, so I don’t have much to say about Fable’s. Generally speaking they are serviceable, not spectacular. The weapons I have to say are really cool looking. Ok the way they are all out of proportion isn’t great, but that doesn’t change the fact they are really cool in design. I have a weapons fetish I admit, but I think they did a great job with the maces/hammers, and a remarkable job with the cleavers and the weird great swords. My only weapon complaints are that the crossbows are creepy looking, and finally….the katana. Now I’m not saying it doesn’t look cool, because it does, but that thing isn’t a katana. It doesn’t even resemble one. Did they just call it one for the ninja crowd? Weird. Anyways, good weapons and I like the augmentation system.
Alright, here is my Conclusion. Despite the game’s many, and I mean, many faults, it can be kinda fun. It does what it is suppose to and lets you manage your character within a limited scope. While it fails to reach almost all of its expectations (voice acting being the exception), it never falls to the level “bad”, except for NPC reaction. An appealing part of Fable is that it doesn’t take itself too seriously as a game. Now I’m reluctant to allow its sense of humor to be an excuse for its flaws, namely because it wasn’t advertised as a parody game like Bard’s Tale, but was instead was sold as the best RPG. But its humor does make you forgive some of its failings. If I had to sum this review up in one sentence, I’d say “Fails to live up to its hype, but is fun in small doses”.
from
EE
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