I played a lot of the original Fable back around 2004. It only became more apparent how many times I played through that game as I loaded up Fable Anniversary and was remembering quotes verbatim, running through quests knowing when the enemy encounters would happen, and exploiting the really simple gambling games to make some quick, early-game gold.

I'm fine with this. In fact, I bought this because I wanted to relive those memories. I wanted to feel nostalgic.

It's a little hard to keep my rose tented glasses on when the character models were hand picked straight from the nightmare section of the uncanny valley.

I'm sorry, but did Lionhead forget art design basics in the past few years? The characters in Fable were never meant to look realistic, and I've disliked that the series has been tip-toeing that way for a bit now, but at least it's been subtle. Here, I feel like they're trying to retcon an art style, and it's so jarring and unappealing that I gave my character the largest beard in the game just to hide his repugnant image. In fact, I'd be willing to say that the original Fable still looks decent, aside from the low resolution textures, because of the creative art style it had. Cartoon-ish stuff tends to hold up better. That's why loading up an old Mario game isn't going to be as uncomfortable as loading up an old Metal Gear Solid game, despite their technological supremacy at the time.

Beside shattering mirrors, this game has a stability issue. It crashes. A lot. I'm roughly five hours in and have had my experience interrupted, at least, four times. Usually I just accept that the game doesn't want me to play it, and I go do something more entertaining like aimlessly look out a window. Or find more effective ways to get rid of forty dollars, like spending it on hookers. At least the gonorrhea performs as expected.

Okay, that's a little rough, because I do enjoy the game. I think I enjoy it anyway. It's just hard to tell between rebooting my 360 and ignoring the characters that look like dolls with human faces stretched over their plastic heads.

A shame to hear about this game's technical shortcomings, since I had never played the original and considered giving this game a chance. And yes, it also doesn't help at how damn fugly this game now looks.

@yummylee: Apparently there is a patch forthcoming? They won't give a date because they want to test it thoroughly to make sure it doesn't actually break things more. The bureaucracy surrounding the way patches have to go live makes me question when we'll see this. Hopefully sooner rather than later, I'm considering shelving this until it's fixed.

I thought about it for a second, but decided to not go ahead with the purchase anyway. Years ago, I was really looking forward to Fable before it came out because it was something that sounded appealing (even besides Molyneux's grand claims). Then the end of 2004 happened and all those other games came out.

I think I played 1 for a few hours. I played and finished 2 and 3, but something about that franchise just didn't grab me. It wasn't what I wanted. Not even 2.

(That screen grab looks like a plastic or ceramic face used by bank robbers or serial killers; bothered me ever since the QL).

@wjb: I like the series, but it has a lot of issues. Honestly, I think the first was the high watermark for them. Everybody loves Fable 2, and it's fine, but it's almost cluttered with all the frivolous bullshit. It's also kind of ugly, graphically. It's similar to Anniversary because it's somewhere between that realistic art style and cartoon style. The story in Fable 2 wraps up way too quickly and neatly to feel as epic as they were trying to make it feel. It gave me a similar feeling to Fallout 3's ending. You're working through all this conflict and the climax is short, couple second dialogue that just comes off lazy. Having said that, it's probably the most mechanically sound of the series. Though, I personally prefer the original control scheme for Fable (an option you have to select in Anniversary).

And god. You're right about that face.

The face makes me think of the bit in American Psycho where Patrick is looking in the mirror with the face peel on.

It's like Lionhead switched its kind of sillyness. From a drawn sillyness easy on the eyes and natural to a game meant to be funny, to a sillyness that is both uncanny and imersion breaking and at odds with its silly themes. Like they switched from artfully silly to realistically silly.

@damodar: It'd be spot on if the hair looked Plasticine trash.

@hatking said:

HD re-releases have historically been getting lazier. It's sad, but the level of care to treat these games with isn't being show in most instances.

@wolfgame: Holy shit. That's so eerily similar that Trey Parker and Matt Stone could probably cobble together a lawsuit.

@wolfgame said:

@hatking said:

HD re-releases have historically been getting lazier. It's sad, but the level of care to treat these games with isn't being show in most instances.

This is exactly what I thought of.

Anyways, like I commented on the Quick Look, I'd rather just go play Fable II. It's just a way better game.

hmmmm

I always expected Fables' art to look like the Jo Chen box art. Manga style, that Fable Anniversary just looks like it's stuck trying to be the original game and limitations of the Unreal engine 3.

But anyway, actually the current team working on the upcoming Fable game Legends are former members of Bioshock Infinite, Rare and 38 studios the abandoned MMO.

@wolfgame: I think the second part is right but this is on a new engine, I don't see how that's lazier than the HD collections that are just upressed versions of the same game.

Can't speak for him, but I'd be happier with a simple high resolution port of Fable if it were stable. This looks artistically bad and runs like shit. It's actually a step down from the version released ten years ago. Then you look at something like the Ratchet and Clank Collection, which is just higher resolution textures, and it's fantastic. That's a team realizing "hey, this art still looks good when we clean it up a bit, no need to change that." And it runs smoothly.

Here's a picture of the PC version of the original Fable. It really doesn't look that bad.