Despite Fable's popularity as a series, it has a tendency to oversell itself with hype. Let's take at the pregame for Fable one: Polyneux promised us real time foliage, a unique social system for interacting with npcs (which he's since called "gimmicky" in an X-play interview) and the ability to "choose" your path. hindsight is 20/20... So how'd they do as far as any of those things go? Let me get something straight right off the bat: I like Fable. Hell, I love Fable; but Fable isn't what it could be, it doesn't live up to its potential (and I largely blame Lionhead for this). The problem with the Fable series is that it's a game about choice with no choices to made. Every single cutscene in Fable II talks about making important choices that effect all of Albion, but honestly the only choices you make that actually effect the game world are whether you give the warrants to the guard or the creep at the beginning of the game, and if you decide to give money to Barnum to renovate Westcliff. Shouldn't a game that defines itself with choice show some kind of consequence for action? Shouldn't our hands as the players be more apparent in the game world? Furthermore; both Fables didn't put enough weight on either good or evil. Okay, we could give the warrants to Nicky the Nickname, but why? The only benefit is that the town won't have guards later in the game and we can pillage the hell out of it- consequently, there won't be any shops in that part of town either. So, should we be evil just for the sake of being evil? If we want to be, sure. Hell yeah! But what if we want to play the dashing rogue who's forced into a life of crime simply to survive? Someone who does less than honorable things for acceptable reasons. The main problem with Fable's view of good and evil (and a lot of games with moral dynamics for that matter) is that they polarize the spectrum too much. In a game like Fable, it's assumed you're either the Whitest Knight in the land! or the Evil, baby-head-munching dick. The game even judges you if you choose the middle ground trying to force you into one spectrum (there's hardly ever a neutral choice when there are choices to be made). In real life, every criminal can justify their actions to themselves at least; also, even the paragons of good in reality aren't perfect. I'll get both games. Fallout first though. I know I loaded this post with criticism for Fable and no justification for Fallout, but that's not necessarily because I can't think of any I just don't want to write anymore.
