Fable: The Lost Chapters

When Fable first arrived on the Xbox in September of 2004, it garnered a lot of attention. Here was a role-playing game in which your character grew and developed based on choices made during the course of the story. If you made evil choices, you might grow horns, and begin to look evil. If you made good choices, you began to take on the visage of one who was a do-gooder.

Of course, there were some aspects of the game, promised in pre-release notes months before the game got to beta that never made it to the final version of the game. However, Fable still marked a change in direction for the single-player RPG experience on a console system.

That experience is heading for the PC with Lionhead Studios and Microsoft Game Studios release of Fable: The Lost Chapters. Slated for release in November, the game still has several months of polish left, but GameZone.com received preview code (with some caveats to not mention The Lost Chapters content) to an early look at this game. And from all accounts, this will be an immersive and enjoyable experience for those who enjoy a robust and entertaining RPG on the PC.

Yes, this is a single-player game, with no multiplayer elements. And the game has some linear elements that must be played out regardless of what else you do. If you wish to advance the storyline, you will have to follow a certain course through the game. And, of course, you will have to do some of the side missions to gear and level up enough to not get swamped by the linear content.

For those who have not seen this game before, the story line follows the path of a young boy through adulthood. The story begins in a small village, Oakvale, in the land of Albion. The young boy is sent out to do good deeds to earn the gold coins he needs to buy his sister a birthday present. He lives in the town with his father and somewhat mysterious mother, as well. Of course, you can be bad and still manage to earn the coins, or you can be the paragon of virtue and get no further along, but still manage to earn the coins. Once you get the coins, you buy your sister a birthday present and then go to meet her in a field near the city gates. There she tells you about a nightmare she had that began when you met her in that very field. 

No sooner does she recount the general nature of the nightmare when it begins to unfold. Bandits raid the town, apparently looking for the boy. They kill his father, burn the town, torture and then kidnap his mother and sister, who have refused to say anything about the boy. The town burning around him, his mother and sister dragged off, his father dead, the boy is at a loss when a bandit sees him, gives some sort of war cry and charges. Of course, he doesn’t get very far (if he did, the game would likely end inside 15 minutes) – a mage named Maze strikes him down and then teleports the both himself and the boy far away, to the Heroes’ Guild.

This is an important building for our young champion. Here he will learn to fight, will pick up quests, and can level his attributes.

In standard RPG fashion, you kill and you get experience points (each mob drops green experience orb, which can be multiplied depending on the combos you score during battles). Gain enough experience and you can level up and acquire some skills (most of the true skills are from the magic tree – like berserker for the warrior, which feels you with rage and powerful attacks for a limited time, while the other trees contain certain attribute points). In atypical RPG fashion, the decisions you make, as well as the type of combat you engage in, may have a bearing on your look. Become a melee specialist, and you will find that each battle may yield a new scar or two. And yes, you will need certain attributes to wield certain weapons. Ironically, as a young mage, you may find that you rely on a melee weapon while charging spells, but even though you do some melee work, you do not seem to gather the scars that a melee specialist does.

Each mission you receive comes in the form of a guild quest card. It outlines the mission, and where you need to go. The maps give you guidance in the form of blinking arrows.

The game takes a cue from the consoles and is far from seamless, at this stage – which means load times each time you access a different portion of the map. This also means that mobs respawn in familiar places as you progress anew into previously visited zones. Some of the monsters are quest mobs, and won’t, but some are obstacles placements.

The boy can specialize in three disciplines – melee, ranged and magic. You can find cards for tattoos, hairstyles and purchase houses to rent out or live in, find a woman to marry (and divorce if you wish). There are locked boxes throughout the land in which you will find items and power-ups.

The Lost Chapters expands the content of the original Xbox title with optional missions, new regions and storylines. There are new monsters and an expanded group of spells, new armor and new expressions.

Graphically this game is very good. Dynamic shadows and lightly add to the immersion of the world setting, the special effects are nice, and there are no magic missiles (ranged attacks – either with the bow or with magic – that will follow the foe wherever they run, which means you can dodge attacks, but so can your foes). The animation is very nice, indeed.

The sound is also very nice with one exception. You can buy a title for your avatar, and it is recommended that you do so fast. The default is “chicken chaser.” To hear the NPCs say, “chicken chaser. Chicken chaser?” dozens of times will drive even the sanest completely up the wall. There are spoken dialogues (your character does not speak), but most of the flirting and expressions come in the form of Sim-lish style jabbering.

Fable: The Lost Chapters is shaping up nicely, though. This is a game that offers immersive and evolving content (though some linearity), wonderful graphics and solid entertainment. The code received was not complete, which makes the November release a little anticipated just so all the items that don’t quite work yet, will then. RPG fans should definitely keep on the lookout for this title.