It’s a lot to do with sound. It helps
that everything is cued up by Danny
Elfman’s sweeping opening theme.
Hearing it stirs up all sorts of buried
memories, like smelling the same
flavour of Lynx you wore on your
first date with the
person who shattered
your heart. These small
moments help it feel
special. The voice
acting is amusing and
unique – the kind of
crisply-delivered West
Country chatter you
expect of something
written by Stephen Merchant.
Other things age less well. It still
feels like a system designed for the
Xbox 360. Emotes are especially
clumsy. Finding the desired response to
a situation feels about as natural and
enjoyable as fondue with sociopath
in-laws. By the time you find the
response you want, the moment has
passed and you’ve accidentally farted
twice. You could, of course, make use of
the PC shortcuts, but it somehow feels
like it’s against the spirit of things – if
you really want to flirt with that sexy
chicken you must earn
the right by blundering
through Fable’s
wretched menu system.
Combat holds up
somewhat better, even
if the controls feel like
they’re from the
strange, bygone age
before standardisation.
It’s satisfying enough that Fable’s core
loop of ‘pick a quest, smash up some
hobbes, earn renown’ still feels
enticing. The Boast system is also
great fun, letting you bag more gold
for stupid stuff like doing quests
naked, not taking any damage, or not
using weapons, just fists.TELLING TALES
It’s impossible to talk about Fable
without some reference to Peter
Molyneux’s pre-release bombast.
Many of us went into it expecting to
be able to plant an acorn and watch it
grow into a tree. The game doesn’t
allow quite that level of influence on
the world, but the richness and depth
is impressive when divorced from the
initial hype. My childhood decisions
don’t have the weight Molyneux
promised – not least because they’re
limited to ‘find apples’ and ‘end
childhood’ – but other mechanics still
impress. It’s hard to criticise any
game that lets me get plump by
eating too many pies. Or more evil by
devouring adorable chicks (“It’s the
bones that make them crunchy”).
What could be seen as a limited
system for good and evil by modern
standards is now enjoyably binary,
eliminating the stress of moral
ambiguity by removing all doubt.80
Still fiddly and obtuse,
but Fable’s weird,
esoteric, arch-British
strangeness make it a
pleasure to go back to.VERDICTI
t’s been said countless times before, but there’s something weird
about playing HD remasters of old games and some incorrect part
of your brain deciding they look and feel the same as the originals.
It’s especially deranged in the case of Fable Anniversary, with its
god rays, wafting leaves, and upgraded faces, which now no longer
resemble manhandled plasticine. But there’s a very good reason why
returning to Albion feels so cosily familiar.
WEIRD ALBION
Apple pie and awkward flirting in FABLE ANNIVERSARY
My childhood
decisions don’t
have the weight
Molyneux
promisedNEED TO KNOW
WHAT IS IT?
Like trying to read
Lord of the Rings at a
cider festival
EXPECT TO PAY
£27
DEVELOPER
Lionhead Studios
PUBLISHER
Xbox Game Studios
REVIEWED ON
Intel Core i7-7700 CUP
@ 3.60GHz, 16 GB RAM,
NVIDIA GeForce GTX
1070, Windows 10
MULTIPLAYER
No
LINK
bit.ly/3ABMvNWOLD GAMES REVISITED by Matthew Elliott
THEY’RE BACK
Don’t grow up. It’s
a trap!