There are very few games in which I buy within a week of their release. Fable was a game I tracked for well over a year with anticipation. The hype behind the game was a phenom. "Fable will reinvent the RPG world." This was going to be the end all be all of console RPG games.

I had a good 3 hours time to get home and play this game right away plus a good amount of time over the weekend to continue on with it. When I write this review I have logged in a good 16 hours play time.

To start this off, I am going to say this. Don't believe the hype. This game did not re-invent anything. It is a console RPG game. But to break it down farther read the review below.

The first thing that I noticed is the Graphics. The graphics are detailed and well done. The problem I have with it, there is some haziness over all the graphics, and it always seems like I have to wipe the screen of fog. The colors are not that vibrant and that will always bother me. My guess it is a way to keep the processor from working so hard.

The camera angle for the game is tough to get used to. I enjoy looking all over the place and exploring areas that maybe end up being empty and useless but the search is the fun part. You can zoom in on your character, wheel the camera around but 24/7 you have your character in the middle of the screen.  Your only option for this is to take out your bow and you can manually move it around. Seems cheesy to me.

Interaction between character and NPC's are pretty fun and unique. As you grow powerful they act different. If you are Evil and well known people run in fright from you. They cower and stutter when you are around. If you are well known and good, they stand and applaud you. They walk up and thank you, they whisper how great you are and they women start to fall in love with you. The one good benefit of being good is you will have the pick of the litter with women, including married ones. This is by far the most unique part of the game.

The options you have to interact, range from a simple wave, to farting in the middle of a crowded pub. As your power and recognition grows so does your interaction options. This ranges from giving someone a Middle finger to giving a posed heroic laugh that makes girls melt. You can even attack innocent people if you wish but this will reflect badly on your good/evil rating. That would be good... if you are bad.

The actual combat play is very close to perfection in my opinion. You can lock onto a target and hack and slash, you can just hack and slash widely (when there are many attackers), you can aim your bow manually or a lock on. The use of bows and crossbows are truly a fun part of the game. From long range you can hit a target, but it takes skill to do it. There are many feature to the combat from combinations, to an unblockable strike when you avoid being hit for so many swings. Usually by now I am tired of the combat, not so in Fable. I still enjoy a good flogging.

The menu system has some great features and some horrible features. Someone mentioned that the menu system is very similar to clicking the START button on windows XP. Very true. Some random options pop up in the four bar quick menu system, but usually they are too random to even notice. When you get low on health the health potion option pops up on the quick menu, so all you have to do is click the D pad to the left and you use it. Nice touch, and easy to do.

There is some real odd features to the game that seem more like a work in progress then an actual working feature. The "spade" feature where you can dig up the ground for treasure seems to be some truly random thing. There is a five piece puzzle in regards to some huge treasure that can be found. I have only found one piece and I have to ask, what’s the use if by the time you get it if the game is almost over? Another feature is the fishing pole. This is actually kind of fun. You set yourself up along a shoreline or off a bridge and fish. Sometimes you catch a fish, sometimes you catch something else. Definitely a cool feature that they added.

You can have sex in the game. Get a wife and shag her all day and night if you wish. Don't worry Fable took out the possibility of having kids among many other features out of the game. So screw with no worries! You can buy a house, rent it out or live there with a wife. They even give you options to upgrade. There are demon doors through out the land that you have to either solve a riddle or perform some task for them to open up and give you some treasure.

The main plot line that you get dragged along is nothing to write home about. I will not divulge the details because I have already run through allot of the fun extra's I discovered. The point I would like to make is that this game is NOT open ended. It is very linear and you have to follow the main quest or you will be stuck in a time warp almost. The hype was based around being able to do whatever you wanted, and that is not the case.

If you take away the hype, the game is a fantastic RPG that will keep you entertained for a good 20+ hours. The replay value is pretty decent considering things change when you are good OR evil. You can even play it down the middle neutral. So realistically you can go through all the plots 3 different times with three completely different characters. Though this is quite a limitation it is a unique feature to the game to make this different.

If you don't take away hype, this game is a disappointment. It is a shell of what it was originally supposed to be. Lions head studio has done this before with the Black and White game. I have read how people say they can't wait for the follow up, and I just shake my head. It took them 3 years to develop this game that realistically only takes 15-20 hours to play and finish, we can expect the next one in 5 years with more hype and more let down.

I give the game a 35.00 rating. If you can buy the game for less then 40.00 it is probably worth it. But in the mean time rent the game and you have a good chance of beating it before taking it back. This game will be a steal next year when it drops to 19.99/29.99.