17th September 2004, 9:09 AM
I got the game last night and played it for about two hours, and so far I like it. If I hadn't known about all of those missing features two weeks ago I would be thrown the game out the window in anger, but I've been trying my best to play the game for what it is instead of what it isn't. It's tough, it really is. Big Blue Box was very cruel to keep all of this from us, very cruel to let us buy into the hype when they knew we'd be severely let down. So let me get the negative out of the way first.
Everything is blocked off in the game. Everything. See those gorgeous woods next to you that seem to stretch on forever? Well don't even think about them. You can look but cannot touch. It fucking sucks. That is probably the most disappointing aspect of Fable to me, the tiny, restricted environments. And there are load points everywhere! Just as frequent as KOTOR (the environs are even smaller), though the actual load times aren't as long. It's obvious that those early Project Ego screens were never even fully created as the game is chopped up into narrow paths. If I had known this from the beginning I wouldn't have been as disappointed as I am now. They promised chocolate cake and delivered carrot sticks. Not that carrot sticks are bad, mind you, but they're not as good as chocolate cake and that's what they promised. That's what I got my hopes up for for four damn years. I'll go into other details once I've gotten farther in the game.
So what's good? Well so far the good/bad thing works pretty well though I haven't really been able to try it out. And the environments, as restricting and small as they are, are simply gorgeous. They really are. Really gorgeous woods, streams, lakes, villages. The game is a real beauty. It's just too bad that there's no free look mode. Oy.
Overall I'm liking the game and really want to get back to it, but I am struggling with my former expectations.
Everything is blocked off in the game. Everything. See those gorgeous woods next to you that seem to stretch on forever? Well don't even think about them. You can look but cannot touch. It fucking sucks. That is probably the most disappointing aspect of Fable to me, the tiny, restricted environments. And there are load points everywhere! Just as frequent as KOTOR (the environs are even smaller), though the actual load times aren't as long. It's obvious that those early Project Ego screens were never even fully created as the game is chopped up into narrow paths. If I had known this from the beginning I wouldn't have been as disappointed as I am now. They promised chocolate cake and delivered carrot sticks. Not that carrot sticks are bad, mind you, but they're not as good as chocolate cake and that's what they promised. That's what I got my hopes up for for four damn years. I'll go into other details once I've gotten farther in the game.
So what's good? Well so far the good/bad thing works pretty well though I haven't really been able to try it out. And the environments, as restricting and small as they are, are simply gorgeous. They really are. Really gorgeous woods, streams, lakes, villages. The game is a real beauty. It's just too bad that there's no free look mode. Oy.
Overall I'm liking the game and really want to get back to it, but I am struggling with my former expectations.