Fable: The Lost Chapters

Peter Molyneux's ambitious hero simulator wings its way to PC - but can Lost Chapters deliver its promises?

	Version PC, Xbox	Developer Lionhead	Publisher Microsoft	Genre RPG

By Andy Robinson

Fable for the Xbox was one of 2004's most enjoyable titles; its charming world and unique character development made it very appealing to more than just RPG enthusiasts. Now fully optimised for Windows, PC gamers can enjoy the Xbox masterpiece with expanded content (as we exclusively revealed) and gorgeous visuals in Fable: The Lost Chapters. And even better, the upgraded version of the game will also come to Xbox.

In this ambitious role-playing game from Lionhead, the game's blog claims that "your every action determines your character's skills, appearance and morality" - and thankfully, it's not just PR dribble; your character is one big canvas for you to get scarred, drunk and a funny hair-cut - just like in real life.

This is no shoddy conversion by any margin. The whole game has been tailored to the PC platform, it really does play as if it was originally designed for the PC. The adapted control scheme works fantastically well, which is a pleasant surprise from a console port of any genre. Everything is clearly displayed and tightly converted to the mouse and keyboard interface, there are plenty of slots for you to customise the placement of your spells and items, thus making accessibility as little troublesome as possible.

The game itself is still as fantastic as ever. All of the original Xbox version's hours of content are there for you to enjoy, along with over a third more than the original offered, including plenty of new story content, enemies, weapons and character expressions. If you missed the Xbox version of Fable, this is the perfect opportunity to play the game more improved and polished than the first time around.

After a lengthy introduction to the game which gets you to grips with controls, combat and the storyline, you'll find yourself in the Guild of Heroes, a guild which - you guessed it - trains heroes. Being a Lionhead game, the story is full of pleasant humour, and never treats itself too seriously. As a hero, you will go about Albion (a place where Lord of The Rings meets Heartbeat) performing quests given to you by the guild. There's quite a variety in the missions you perform, and you never feel like you're performing the same hack and slash mission repeatedly.

The game world feels alive; the charming characters around Albion really feel like they love or fear you, a whole catalogue of voice work and simple (yet effective) social animations successfully create a believable atmosphere - no matter how big the characters' heads are. Having said that, Lionhead could have perhaps chosen a more, shall we say, 'tolerable' English county to employ their voice actors - it's like my nightmare of being trapped inside a dragon-infested, fantasy Yorkshire village has come to life.

Fable's combat, being a large chunk of the action, has unsurprisingly seen a lot of attention. The experience multipliers, together with flurry attacks, build a deep and enjoyable action game. Combat can be approached in a lot of different ways - up close and personal with a sword or melee weapon, or quick and stealthily from afar with your trusty bow. Thanks to some excellent character animation, the weapons feel 'solid' and are fun to use, each character carries both a ranged and melee weapon, so it is to your discretion to mix and match as you wish.

One of Fable's main touting points is your character's ability to change based on your actions. People who have played Knights of The Old Republic will be familiar with the good/bad points system straight away; do an evil deed such as murdering innocent villagers and you will swing to the evil side, good deeds will swing you over to the good side. Being good or evil will change the appearance of your character accordingly, affecting how Albion's inhabitants react to you.

Fable takes the player's stamp on the game world even further than KOTOR did however; getting into fights will leave you with scars, jumping into battle with a melee weapon will build muscle, and eating too much will make you fat. Your character will also 'age' according to your experience, another of Fable's celebrated features. When you're eventually all-powerful, killing enemies left, right and centre, you'll find yourself at the grey old age of 50-something. Although a welcome feature, it's purely cosmetic and has no effect on gameplay, and it unfortunately also looks rather silly when none of the other characters in the game age at all.

The game is large in scale and it's hard to talk about all it has to offer. I found myself rather unhealthily intrigued with the romance side of the game, you can flirt with any NPC in the game using the large array of emoticons on offer. Once you've managed to get a NPC to fall in love with you through muscle-flexing and gifts, you can get married to them with a wedding ring, buy a house together and even take your polygonal-lover to bed for some interesting voice-acting and stats.

If you're one of the unfortunate souls who missed Fable on the Xbox, you should definitely feel an obligation to give the PC version a look-in. It is a wonderful role-playing game which will allow you to develop a sense of connection with your character like no game before. Fable takes bold steps forward in character development and the player's effect on the game world.