 |
| | Gameplay
Sound
 | | Graphics
Value
 |
| |
| | Publisher: Feral Interactive  Genre: Adventure & RPG | | | Min OS X: 10.4 RAM: 512 MB Hard Disk: 3000 MB DVD-ROM Graphics: 64 MB VRAM |
| |
|
There's also quite a lot to do outside of combat if you explore a little. There are numerous side quests, minigames, lovely maidens to woo, doors to open, and houses to rob (depending on your preferred alignment). If you're creative, for example, you can easily acquire the majority of the houses in Albion. This requires the previous owner to not... bother you any more, but is doable with the right alignment. It does take a little bit of gold, but bandits are more than plentiful enough to fill your sack of gold if you get low.However, even with all of that, F:LC weighed in at around thirty hours of gameplay before I began getting a little bored. Even with the boasts, playing the same quests over again tended to be quite tedious. Also, as noted above, the good vs. evil mechanic has no real effect and didn't add any replayability at all aside from the occasional alternate quest. After all, you don't have to start over to see the evil endings, you just have to reload before the special event and choose the evil option. As simple as that.
The graphics of F:LC are gorgeous. The cartoony style of the characters fits in well with the surroundings and overall style, the architecture is highly consistent, the backdrops are bright and colorful, the particle effects are beautiful, and the entire world just seems to make sense visually. Also, the characters' expressions were well matched with the scene at hand. My favorite example of this is the Vogon picture in the gallery. Overall, the only places where F:LC tends to fail are the segments with talking. The characters don't lip sync their lines that well and generally just look poor trying. However, this is just nitpicking. From the graphics side, Fable: The Lost Chapters is a masterpiece.
Sound: The sound is at roughly the same level as the graphics. After playing through the game two times, I can't remember a single time I was jarred out the game by a poor sound effect or an annoying tune. All the sounds meshed perfectly with the gameplay, the music was very atmospheric, and the ambiance fit nicely with where in the world I was at the time. Once again, however, there were a few problems with the spoken roles in the game. Aside from a few notable efforts, the majority of the voice acting sounded pretty poor. Thankfully, there are subtitles for every conversation, so you can just turn the voice acting off if it annoys you.Value: After looking at Fable: The Lost Chapters in detail, it all comes down to the question "Is it worth buying?" Yes, it is worth buying, but with one caveat. F:LC is definitely worthy of its mature rating. You can have multiple wives, you can kill your wife without penalty, and you can pretty much be as evil as you want to be. This isn't exactly suitable for young children. If you're buying this game for a child, I would recommend against it. The price ($50) is also a little steep for thirty or so hours of gameplay. However, if you've got the money and you don't plan on buying this for a twelve-year-old, Fable: The Lost Chapters is an excellent purchase.Pros • Light learning curve
• Numerous quests
• Extra content when bored
• Entertaining fighting systemCons • Not suitable for children
• Good vs. Evil system has no repercussions
• Slightly expensive
|
|
