Fable: The Lost Chapters
publisher: Microsoft
Developer: Lionhead Studios
Genre: Action RPG
Players: 1
System: Xbox Original

Fable 2 is coming up, so it might be a good idea to do a "pastview", eh?

Fable had promised gamers the world; or at least leader of lionhead Studios Peter Molyneux had promised it. One of the oddest surprises about the original Fable which had failed to deliver anywhere near the promises of peter M. was that it was still an absolutely fantastic game.(I wasn't really mainstream at the time, so wow, I could only imagine what he actually said was gonna be in the game at the time o_0) Fable still held its own in the gaming world for a few reasons; one, it had an intense magic and melee combat system. Two, it had a hugeopen world and lots to do. And three, you could be a hero in the game, or a villain, and the line wasn't drawn that clear either.Fable: The Lost Chapters was essentially Fable 1 with some the stuff that SHOULD have been in the original. This included more side missions, weapons, magic, and other things, but nothing truly warrenting a repurchase of the game. if you were like me, however, and never had the game in the first place, it was a spectacular deal.

Fable had a pretty average combat system for its time; emphasis on melee without many different combo attacks, magic that was sweet but ran out too quickly, and a bow for ranged attacks. But the combat system was very fluid, and battles commenced in seamless real time on the overworld. Boss battles were grand and fun. The only problem was that the combat system wasn't very deep. Racking up combos then delivering finishers was fun with melee, but thats about as deep as it went. magic was pretty fun, but overall not as helpful as melee, and rendered pretty useless in comparison. the Extra skills that you could purchase at the Guild made things a little more interesting, but not by a huge amount. Overall, Fable had a very fluid and easy to use combat system, but it didn't contain the depth of such games as Ninja Gaiden and God of War. The control you have in battles and the overworld is spot-on. The controls don't stick, the camera isn't jumpy or messy, and it all around works well.



What was probably the main selling point of the game was its twisting storyline. This was one of the few games where you have immemse amounts of decisions that truly affect how the rest of the game will be played out. And a lot of these decisions actually are decided by your moral standing.(A study once showed that only 5% of the players of Fable could actually stand to be bad all the way through. I know I ended up with a halo, though I wanted to be an assasin :/ )These choices don't just affect the story, they effect you and the people around you. If your bad, people will tend to avoid you or run away when they see you. If your good, people flock to you, and usually bug the crap out of you. but its not so black and white. You can be good or bad, or a mix of the two. Or closer to good then bad, or vice versa. Even the quests you complete at the Guild will decide how people veiw you, so much that if you don't actually do anything, people won't know you. on the other hand, if you take on many quests and emerge victorious each time, you'll get famous. If you drink too much booze you'll get a beer gut, if you work out enough you'll get buffer, and really many things effect your character in adverse ways. And best of all, the choice is up to you. It could even be called a 'benchmark in gaming interactivity', if you use the term loosely.

Score:
With Fable 2 on the horizon, it may be a good idea to pick up Fable: TLC if you haven't already played it. Its selling for dirt cheap now, and its still a fun game today. Its backwards compatible with the 360 as well. So if you've run out of games to try and want a new experience for cheap, give it a go. Be sure to look out for our DCEmu Fable II review coming soon.

Opening:
The original Fable was quite a controversial game. The game's creator Peter Molyneux had promised the world to gamers, and much of that promise went unfulfilled in the first game. The strange thing about it, was that although many of the features that were said to be in the game weren't, it still proved to be a very fun game, and the features that were in it were very innovative. The opposite of the scandal is true with Fable 2. This time around, Peter Molyneux under promised, and over delivered. Whereas Fable was a good game, Fable 2 takes everything from Fable, entirely new concepts, and a world ten times larger the the original, and expands upon it in every way imaginable. Funny, thrilling, emotional, and entirely too short, Fable 2 is everything people wanted it to be and then some.

Story
Like the original, Fable 2 is all about its satirical nature, that is, its very very funny. What makes it stand out from other "funny" games is that its GENUINELY funny in its nature. While containing a very serious plot and story, everything from the people to the expressions, which are basically your way of communicating to people, to the things that the characters say, it has a unique charm and humor to it.( A bit of an understatement; this is one of the most unique game worlds ever created, in part due to its charming atmosphere.) This atmosphere of Fable sets it apart from the countless other fairy-tale style games, and it truly gives it its own image and personality as a game. This is by and large the most endearing aspect of the game, and what will have you coming back for more, even after you've completed all the quests and the story. And about the story...

The original Fable had a rather weak story, although thats what in part made it so fun(Not many times had a game been made where you can choose which way a generic fairy tale will be told). Fable II's story, while by a good margin better, isn't great. What it boils down to is a rather generic story of a hero who must combine powers with 3 other heroes to save the world. Not so original. What makes it original, is how you can essentially choose the way the story is told.(For all I know you might be able to even kill the mains, I never tried.) Everything you do, even down to the small chores you did in the beginning of the game influence how the world is shaped for you and how the story and sub stories will play out. This also means you sometimes have to be careful as to what quests you don't do(For the most part, quests you do do won't mean the desolation of entire cities) Still, the story mode itself

Graphics
The graphical style for Fable 2 is one of those games that you could call art and not have Kojima slapping you across the face for it. If a game should have ever been called "art" due only on its visuals, Fable 2 is up there with Okami and Shadow of the Colossus. The bright and colorful vibrant shades during the daytime in such places as Bowerstone lake and Market make you entranced by the world as very few games have been able to accomplish before. Just as well, in contrast the dreary, dark and pale colors of such places as Wraithmarsh and The Bandit Coast give the game a true air of tense feeling. Its these great graphical styles that really suck you into the world, and make it a treat to just run through the roads and look at the world itself.

The game isn't so much technically impressive as it is creative. The graphics are simple, as are the water effects and most of the game. The magic is positively striking, but the effects do have some negative effects on the game. For instance, most massive level 5 spells will cause the game to slowdown for a few seconds. Nothing major, but defineatly an annoyance. The thing is, as colorful and fun-filled as the graphics are, the sheer lack of technicality in this age of gaming is disappointing. Also, when night falls on the forest levels and other levels where the color attracts you to them, the levels appear very drab and boring.


Animations are something that needs work as well. Stiff looking attack and magic animations, and enemies are no different. Expressions are well done. The characters movements pertaining to interaction with your character, such as fear, joy, admiration, and most actions on the parts of the villagers just feel fake and hollow. Despite this, your characters animations are fantastic when it comes to the customization you can do. Instead of the animations being absolutely terrible to fit with all the different clothing possibilities you'll have, the animations stay the same, even if the same does need a bit of work.

Gameplay
Fable 2 has a very fun and repetitive combat system. That sentence about sums up what you'll be feeling by the combat. The thing about it is that it stays mostly fresh throughout the entire game. Its absolutely simple and has, as the creator pointed out, a one button combat system, yet the feeling of combat in the game doesn't get boring for a long while. This is due in part to the upgrades you can level up during the game. As you earn experience from killing enemies, you can use the experience to level up different areas of your character, such as power, skill, and will--or in other words, swords, guns, and magic. Each time you level these areas up, you gain a different skill in that area--whether its the ability to block an attack, zoom in on your gun, or get a far more powerful spell, the combat will stay fresh until you've unlocked everything that can be unlocked. Unfortunately, unlocking everything doesn't take a huge amount of time to do, so the combat may bore some people after a while. Its simple, which is a double edged blade in this case. Figuratively and literally. The control is responsive, though there are occasional hiccups during combat. Movement could be a little more fine tuned. But the choices for how you kill the enemy are still there. Tons of different weapons, both melee and range that have their own special attributes make it very fun to swap out weapons every so often and see how the battles will play out that way.

Also, leveling up your character in these three aspects will produce physical changes on your characters appearance as well. Level up power and you'll get buffer. Skill and you'll grow taller. Will and blue magic lines(which I thought looked kickass) will start appearing on your skin. For the most part, these changes are appealing in the game. The problem is, if you don't want these changes to occur but still want the benefits of that certain level, your outta luck. For example, if your playing as a female character and actually care about appearance in the game, then your not going to want to level up power much or you'll start to look like a berserker from Gears of War(i.e. like a freak). Or, if you don't want to be a Goliath looking creature you'll probably refrain from upgrading skill.

Thankfully, Lionhead seemed to come prepared for this. They split each group--skill,power,and will-- into 3 groups each. only one upgrade group within each group effects your characters appearance, and thats the group that determines the amount of damage they will do. And once you have legendary weapons with massive amounts of damage, you will no longer need those possibly-freaky enhancements. Just in case though, Lionhead made a feature where you can downgrade at any time, one of your upgrades. So if your extremely tall but want to be shorter again, simply downgrade that skill. Its simple.




Another feature that will effect your characters appearance is also one of the most innovative features in an RPG, that of the ability to choose your path in a non-linear fashion. Most of the actions you take in Albion will yeild you either Good or Bad karma. This can be anything from stealing random stuff from someones house or killing your spouse, to making a crowd of people upbeat by playing the lute to donating to the Temple of Light. The game lives up to its motto "For every action, a consequence. Who will you become?" But all these choices you make won't be for nothing, and many of them will certainly be very hard to make(especially if you plan on being good.) Depending on how evil or good you are, your physical appearance will change. You hair will become golden and you'll get a halo if your good. If your bad, your eyes will become red and you'll grow horns. There is also a more subtle layer of "good and evil", which is more of the grey area in between, called Purity and Corruption. Doing kind acts and eating good foods will give you purity points, which will make your character look attractive. Eating pies and meats all the time and charging your tenants massive rent will give you corruption, in turn making you fat and ugly. These features are where Fable 2 shines its brightest, and are one of the most fantastic innovations in an RPG in years.

There is also the world around you that reacts to your actions. For instance, if you go on a crime spree in a town and kill people, then crime and panic will break loose in the town. The economy will drop, and it will become a miserable place to be. On other other hand, if you spend tons of money there and charge your tenants less in that area, it begins to flourish, and the economy will skyrocket. People will love you more, and more people will begin to appear there. Your ability to influence and change the world around you as well as yourself is, too, a fantastic innovation that Fable 2 introduces well. Oh, and yes, P.M. was telling the truth when he said that you can buy everything in the game world of Fable. Pretty much, everything.

Sound:
A good bit of the music is recycled from the original Fable with minor changes in what instruments seem to be used to play the song. Still, the music sounds like orchestral music, which fits the game's "epic fairy tale" premise well. Sound effects are nice and varied; different blades and guns yeild different sounds, as well as each different spell you cast. The sound also helps the world come alive to you, as this game plays fantastic in Dolby 5.1(Lets give a round of applause to Thomas, who let me test his surround sound to the point of almost breaking it. Sorry Tom.)

The game also runs on some fantastic voice overs. Each NPC has some well written and executed lspeech they want to say to you, and the greatest thing about the VOs is that they are done comically, like the rest of the game. In fact, I'd be willing to go so far as to say that without the VOs being as funny as they are, the game simply would be far more boring. At least to your ears it would be.




Replayability:
The game's story takes about a mere 12 hours to finish. But to be perfectly honest, thats not what your gonna be doing most of the time anyway. After opening all the doors, buying all the property, spending a good while at the crucible and finishing most of the quests, I found that I had taken about 50 hours, give or take a few. That means, after basically finishing the game, it took a good deal of time to accomplish. This really isn't much in the way of Oblivion or a JRPG, but its fairly long.

Co-op won't have you running back for more. Playing with a friend whos right beside you will end up being more funthen the online co-op. This is due to a number of reasons. First off, the joining player can't play as his character, only a premade one. Second, your Skill powers get flushed down the drain. Third, if your "friend" is bored, he can just as easily slaughter a very important character who you can never get back. And fourth is the lag. Lots of lag. Stupendous ammounts I have experianced in fact. If you can get over these issues, then you may yet have some fun here. Well....

Closing Comments:
In all honesty, I love this game to death now. Pretty much one of the only games I've really went back and did all the side quests after finishing the story mode. I bought this game with moderate expectaions, which made it a pleasent surprise to find out it was worth the money. But I won't lie; errors and glitches mess this game up badly. If you can get over those errors though, you'll find an experiance deeper then any RPG or JRPG you've played in the last ten years.

Major Selling points:
-Fantastic and colorful graphics
-Addictive Combat system
-Ability to play the game on your own path, and be as good or evil as you want to be.
-Lots of cutomization and choices that reflect on your character
-Wide, open freeroam world
-Huge game; many quests and things to do

Major Breaking Points:
-Lots of technical hiccups
-Co-op sucks
-Story mode is a bit short

Final Scoring:
Graphics: 4.5
Story: 4
Gameplay: 5
Sound: 4.5
Replayability: 4

Overall Score:

Published by: THQ
Developed by: Volition
Genre: Third Person Shooter / Open World
RRP: £44.99
ESRB: TBC

Release: Jun 2009

I was lucky enough to be able to grab a keycode for the new Red Faction Guerilla demo.

*edit - the demo is now up for download by the general public - go try it!*



I haven't played much of the first few games - I think I rented red faction 1 ages ago. I was impressed enough by it's Geomod(1.0) technology which allowed you to burrow holes in levels with rockets, create trenches, etc. However, it was limited back in the day and only so much damage could be done to a level before everything became un-destroyable.

Now we have a handful of games which expand on how destructible scenery comes into play, such as Battlefield: Bad Company, and Mercenaries 2.

Mercenaries 2 I felt was particularly underwhelming in this respect, it's graphics lacked polish (terrible water effects) and, whilst you could indeed destroy every building and structure in the game, there was again a lack of polish, and the feeling that quantity was prioritized over quality. For example, a building took a set amount of damage before it began to crumble and raise dust, and shortly after a standard pile of rubble was left. Of course, within minutes these buildings were magically reconstructed so as not to break gameplay.

Battlefield Bad Company tried a more subtle approach, with a lot of fully destructible scenery, and buildings, which could be skeletonized, rather than completely demolished. It worked fairly well, though it could get annoying that you could destroy some things and not others.

So, given that destructible scenery is one of Red Faction: Guerilla's major selling points, this is the first aspect I wished to investigate.



What I can say for certain is that if you like breaking stuff, and seeing things destroyed in an overly gratuitous fashion, then you will not be disappointed. The buildings on Mars, from military installations to flimsy shacks, will shatter, splinter, explode, collapse, break, twist and fall. Pipes, bricks, bits of metal and concrete all break apart as you'd expect and secondary explosions caused by good old fashioned exploding barrels can really rack up the carnage.



The smashing-up-of-things is the star of the show, no doubt, but a concern I had is one exemplefied by Battlefield: Bad Company's single player. This is the fact that in BF:BC, the enemy AI had trouble distinguishing between broken scenery, and untouched, solid walls. Red Faction: Guerilla's AI seems to handle it well enough, and at no point in the demo (although short) did I feel like the AI was being especially stupid.

In fact, the AI worked better than I thought. In the open world of RF:G, there are friendly miners going about their business, not bothering anyone, and driving random cars and trucks about (which you can 'borrow').

Then there are restricted areas, which, if you enter, the local guards will pop a cap in your ass, provided they see you. You can back up against walls, and crouch walk to avoid detection, and there's also a handy minimap to show nearby guard positions.



Of course, being fairly open world means that you'll probably get spotted sooner or later and then the guards come - with re-enforcements depending on how much shit you are fecking up - cause too much mayhem and truckload after truckload of enemies will bail in, overwhelming you.

Dealing with the enemies is fair enough too, there's usually accuracy issues in 3rd person shooters but enough has been done to eliminate frustration. For example, 3rd person melee attacking can tend to be a bit fiddly in most 3rd person games, but an auto lock on/lunge makes this a bit more satisfying. Though it could be cheap in multiplayer if the lunge distance is as it is in single player, I'd be annoyed if I got whacked by someone ten feet away, because the lunge auto-targets the nearest person. Still, works well in single player.



The guns, in the demo at least, are intuitive to use and feel meaty in sound and effect, and the remote detonation mines - whilst a little inaccurate when thrown, are a hell of a lot of fun, and creative use of them can result in some crazy situations.



So the actual mission in the demo is to first 'liberate' an Aliens-style mech loader from a garage which is in a restricted area. I had a few attempts at this. First, running in with guns and bombs was fairly effective, but as you raise more attention, you need to be on the ball or else you'll get swarmed by guards.



The second attempt I used was stealth - carefully avoiding enemies where I could, and taking the less travelled path, this too proved to be a valid - if slightly more boring option.



The third attempt I enjoyed the most. Hijacking a random truck which looked like a martian bin lorry, I proceeded to stick 4 remote mines all over the truck, after driving it to a secluded location. Once I had the explosives stuck to it, I began driving it straight at the enemy compound, jumped out whilst at full speed, and watched as it bore a truck-shaped hole through a major building, with girders and pipes crashing down in it's wake, and the enemies who were all about the building, naturally came to assess the damage and shoot at me through the gaping truck-shaped hole.

Detonating the mines on the truck soon stopped their shenannigans and pretty much levelled half of the building, with the other half collapsing shortly after, due to a lack of wall support.



So it's good to see different directions and tactics that you can use for the missions, it does scream replayability if you are free to approach all missions in the game like this.



So we get to the garage containing the hulking power loader mech thing, and jump in. At this point, stealth and subtlety are smashed into a crumpled heap, along with anything or anyone else who has the misfortune to get in your path.

The mech is a lot of fun to play with; the triggers on your controller swing the arms like windmills, mashing up guards, vehicles, and anything else. The bumper buttons do a left or right arm sweep, useful for smacking pesky trucks away.

With the mech you gain a good bit of damage resistance, although turrets and guards in great number can wear you down eventually.

You have to take your mech to a waiting truck, which parks outside the compound. I found the best way to get to it was to ignore any other enemies behind you, and walk in a straight line towards it - cutting through any buildings or vehicles like a hot knife through butter, destroying anything in your path - it's a lot of fun.

Of course, it's not that easy, you have to stay clear of explosive things when ploughing through scenery, and if any turrets or heavy weapons are hassling you - you need to back track a bit to smack them about.



Once at the waiting truck, your mech gets loaded on, and you hop out to man the vehicle's turret for some on rails shooter action. A brief chase ensues, with you pummelling any attacker who dares get too close to your cargo. This bit was perhaps the least fun part of the demo, but it was relieved by the crazy carnage that you could bring down on anything behind you.



All in all, I'm cautiously optimistic about this game. It is definitely fun and the physics and Geomod2.0 powered destruction are very well realised and work with the gameplay wonderfully.

A multiplayer demo would have been interesting, to see how they balance the powerful weapons to prevent one jerk flattening anything and everything on the map. It will be interesting to see if this is possible in the final build.



Let's keep an eye on this one.

- Bratman Du.

Puzzle Arcade
Publisher: Eidos Interactive Limited
Developer: Ctxm/Say Design
Genre: Puzzle
System: XBLA
Price:800 MS Points


Let's get right into it, this is a jig-saw game. Everything you do in this game is a type of jig-saw, either in the traditional sense, or with constraints placed on you in certain challenges, such as, having a minute to complete a jig-saw, a distorted image which becomes clearer the more pieces you get, and so on.

There are varying degrees of difficulty, which affect things like, amount of pieces, whether or not the pieces are laid out in a mess, with some bits facing the wrong way, or you can have all the pieces facing the right way and even pre-rotated to the correct orientation.


You can have the pieces separated into a menu of edges and colour groupings, allowing you to quickly find and select certain pieces.

To start with, I did a few of the challenges. Picking a few at random, I found different twists on the 'put the pieces in the right place' type fun that this game promises.

Twists such as bots who make frustrating attemps to complete the puzzle ahead of you. This is the equivalent of having 3 people over your shoulder, grabbing bits of your puzzle and moving them around, shouting - 'that bit goes there!'. Now, if I was actually doing a jig-saw puzzle, first of all, I'd have to be 80 and an old woman, and second; I'd be doing it to relax and have a bit of peace!

So this being the case, the last thing I'd want when doing a jig-saw is other people annoying me, or even time constraints, or missing pieces, or any thing in fact.


So after these challenges, I took to the main, 'just do a friggin regular jig-saw puzzle' mode. So here i thought I'd set up a puzzle, with the pieces not sorted - scattered about, upside down and six-ways from-Sunday, with the maximum amount of pieces (somewhere in the region of 1300).

So I spent about two hours, slowly grabbing pieces, flipping them if needed, sorting the edges and corners to one side, and getting ready to tackle a large puzzle.

Do you know what? It was actually quite relaxing, theraputic even! But after a couple of hours (at which point I hadn't even put two pieces together - I was still sorting edges!), I decided to take a break, and finish my monster puzzle later. It didn't allow me to save my progress. Gutted.

After sorting that mess for two hours, I wasn't able to save my progress and resume later. How in the name of shitting-crikey are you supposed to finish a 1300+ piece puzzle in one sitting?

I've given more than enough words out for this game so I'm going to get to the point - which is this - what's the point?

Why? Why would you play this game, who would play it? How long would they play it for?

Why would you play this game? I guess if you really like jig-saws, and think it's be cool taking pictures with the XBox Vision Camera and turning them into said puzzles, then yes, go for it. But who is going to want to do jig-saws on an XBox 360?

The lack of a save function for some puzzles means that there really is no point starting a huge one, as you'd have to do it in one sitting. Although some do allow saving.


The multiplayer aspect is a strange addition, and I guess it would work like the mode with the bots who keep grabbing bits of your jigsaw and moving them around (i.e. annoying). But I can't say for sure because I couldn't get an online match, ranked or otherwise, as presumably only someone with a very sad life would play online jigsaw puzzles at half ten on Saturday night. And as sad as my life is, I was reviewing it so I had an excuse and if I had found anyone playing this online I would have been interested to talk to them and possibly find out who they are and alert the authorities about a potential suicide risk.

So I'd struggle to justify buying or even playing this game. If you really want a taste of last century (or the one before that even) then go for this, if you think jig-saws belong in the past along with ball-in-a-cup, ludo and slap-the-stepchild, then avoid.

If you're that into jig-saws, then you probably aren't going to appreciate the extra factors and difficulties put into place by this game. You're better off with the real thing.