Genre: RPG
Publisher: Microsoft
Developer: Lionhead Studios
Release Date: September 20, 2005

At this point, Peter Molyneux is essentially a man of two reputations. On one hand, he's the well-respected game developer who headed up Bullfrog Studios and turned out Populous, which is widely regarded as a really good game, as well as games that actually were good such as Syndicate and Magic Carpet.

(That's your cue, by the way. I will not pretend to be writing unbiased prose in this preview.)

Peter also has another reputation. He's the guy who promised the world that Black and White and Fable would be games rich in player-created fun. I'll be focusing on Fable in particular, since that's kind of what this preview is all about. Fable was promoted originally as a game with a truly open-ended world behind it, a game where your character could be anyone, do anything, have kids and grow old in a world rich with exploration and open-ended possibilities, a land in which you could roam until death, start up again, and never have the same experience twice.

Okay, no. That's not Fable.

What Fable turned out to be was a quite good action-RPG which lets you make some morality choices and explore some predetermined paths through a world, a game that tried to be fairly open-ended but hamstrung that lofty goal with a limited number of missions to take from a central Guild and only a few side quests open and offered at any one time. That's not to say it was a bad game, but it was far from what people had grown to expect.

Fable: The Lost Chapters does not dramatically change the nature of the game. It's still a game with limited predetermined paths through it, a number of side quests open at once, and a large game world to explore when you're not doing missions from the Guild. The thing to realize is that Lost Chapters is all about more: more missions, more room to explore, and many more things to do and experience. Playing it flipped a switch in my brain, turning Fable from "fun but kind of a letdown" into just plain "fun."

Before we get into the new features, I'd like to recognize that some of you folk are PC-only players and never got around to the Xbox original. It's probably important to note that Fable is firmly not a PC-styled RPG. The attacking scheme is very console, using the spacebar to hold a "lock" on an enemy and the mouse buttons to swing an attack, block or fire off magic or archery. Attacking is fairly hard to coordinate at first. You'll find yourself swinging at the target behind the guy you actually meant to hit, or firing off a wave of lightning bolts that roast three bad guys, two good guys and a relatively innocent tree. Archery fares a little better on the PC; First-person aiming of your bow is still a little awkward but improved over using analog sticks for such things. Over time, you get a little more used to changing targets on the fly and adjusting your aim, so with enough practice, you can start to do things like fighting around certain NPCs without laying hands or weapons on their person.

The gameplay structure of Fable revolves around either wandering the world exploring, selling and buying goods (it's entirely possible to make your living as a wandering trader) or taking on a steady stream of work from anyone who cares to hire a hero. Note that "hero" doesn't strictly mean "good guy." You're allowed to be a hero and a complete scoundrel at the same time, and there's a stream of paying work for those seeking to slay the innocent and aid the thieves and murderers of the world.

Along the way, you can buy new clothes and hairstyles, devour tofu to make you more of a good person (or baby chickens to aid your evilness), get married or just make as many people as possible fall for you, and so on. There's a lot to do. Hunting secret hidden buried treasure or just hanging around fishing fulfills a sort of childlike need for adventure in my book, and that's one of Fable's great strengths. It feels like childlike adventure and wonder.

Really, Fable is all about the details. Fans of playing through a game from start to finish in a straight line shouldn't apply here because at least a quarter of the content is found by just roaming about and screwing around, while taking nothing but a series of Hero missions will soon find you under-leveled and plowed under.

For those who do enjoy staying glued on the plot, though, Fable is longer than ever before. Many new missions have been added along the main quest line, taking you to several new locations and filling out areas previously visited. Among other things, The Lost Chapters adds in the Frozen Northlands, because all RPG expansion packs must add the Frozen Northlands at some point. In addition to this, we're told the endgame sequence has been filled out greatly, adding more of a sense of closure and success to the previously somewhat flat ending.

The rest of the content in The Lost Chapters lets you twiddle the look of your characters and gives you new stuff to look at. New hats and outfits, as well as a bright shiny new sword, round out the equippable aspects of the expansion. The tattoo editor is probably the most shiny of the new features, though. Wear whatever you want on your chest, back or forehead, or other body parts. Just import a bitmap file, and you can plaster it over your character's body for increased personalization. Since message boards and web pages devoted to Fable on the Xbox were buzzing with "Check out how my guy looks!" threads, one can imagine that PC gamers might also get into the customization act. Then again, maybe not.

Also included in the new content are a handful of new expressions and gestures, which are an interesting part of the Fable experience. Your character doesn't speak with words but with actions, as is kind of fitting a hero. With the tap of a button, you can wave hello, pose smugly and impressively, fart, or just belch loudly. All of these things communicate different messages to the people around you. My own personal hero speaks to others only via Russian dance and air guitar. (Yes, some of the new expressions are very silly. The rest of the game isn't very serious either, folks.) Expressions also cover things like sneaking and stealth, which aren't very useful for anything. No missions really require a thief, and stealth isn't used for much of anything besides swiping various items from townspeople. Even if you're caught, you can simply apologize politely and the town guards will go away.

The final upside I've seen isn't so much an addition to content as it is taking advantage of a feature the PC was already happy to provide. A keyboard hot-menu contains up to 10 abilities, spells, or gestures over the Xbox's four configurable hot buttons. It's surprising how much is possible in combat with 10 abilities at your fingertips, as opposed to just a small number. It almost made the game feel like a City of Heroes experience. The buttons are a little cumbersome to set, though, as getting to the options menu for them required navigating through several other menus.

The major downside I've seen is that several of the glitches and odd tactics from Fable for the Xbox have been carried over intact to this port. For example, overlapping magic that boosts your character's speed and lowers the speed of the enemies makes it pretty simple to thrash outright any combat encounter that comes your way. What I've got here is still an early preview, however, so hopefully that balance will be tweaked for the final release.

Fable looks and sounds great; there is some clear audio boosting going on over the Xbox take. Voices have some additional reverb and echo, people who are supposed to sound looming and impressive now actually sound remotely passable. While Fable on the Xbox certainly looked nice, the ability to crank up the detail level means you can see the world of Fable in the best possible light. (Light effects, incidentally, are very pretty. Yay for expansive shadowing.) As your character shows signs of hardship and battle, the increased graphical abilities only enhance the emotional connection you build up while playing. What other game actually allows you to zoom in on your protagonist to see the scars on his face and torso? The world of Fable has a variety of environments, from lush and vibrant areas, heavily populated with trees and undergrowth to dark scary caverns and ill-lit bandit hideouts. While none of this really has any real game play functionality, it makes wandering around from quest to quest a pleasurable experience and has a way of pulling you in to the story. Most spectacular are the effects when casting the various spells you learn on your journey.

Most of the new additions to The Lost Chapters could be put together by a dedicated mod team in a few weeks, but the new missions are the real focus here. If you've never played Fable, you'll be getting the best edition with this purchase, provided you can handle the system requirements. High-resolution Fable could well be worth the cost over the Xbox re-release. (The tattoo editor? Not worth so much, but a cool toy anyway.) Folks who enjoy RPGs that are action-oriented, pretty and engagingly weird should be watching this one closely.