Once upon a time, a gaming guru called Peter formed his own new company, proclaiming that His Way would revolutionize how we play games. And so Peter toiled away with his other visionary partners, and when he did not toil, Peter did boast about how grand and bold His Way would be. Peter promised new levels of depth and interactivity, a program that could think and learn for itself, and a grand world in which to play. Then, one day, Peter delivered Black & White, and while it was good, it did not measure up to his promises. The ungrateful gamers, fickle and vengeful creatures that they were, spurned his creation in favour of other, trite titles. And so Peter did go to lick his wounds, and work on his new masterpiece, titled Project Ego'

That was then however, and this is now. After literally years of anticipation by some, Fable, once known as Project Ego, has hit the shelves of retailers and gamers everywhere. Easily the most eagerly awaited Xbox RPG ever, it was also one of the most significant releases for the box this year, and Microsoft had pinned their hopes on Fable's success. The big question is, is Fable a tale worth telling, or is it destined to become the scary fairytale you scare your kids into good behaviour with?

Your story begins in the magical land of Albion, as a little Caucasian boy with brown hair and big blue eyes. This is worth mentioning simply because you don't get to choose your character; you can't be a girl, you can't change your race, this is who you are. Most of us have known this would be the case for a long time, but first-time Fablers may be a little put off that a game that purportedly has so much choice doesn't even offer a fundamental gender/race option. At any rate, your nameless boychild wakes up and surprise, surprise, like most male siblings the selfish git has forgotten his sister's birthday.

Thus begins your Fable tutorial, which sets out to show you the ropes by giving you a variety of ways to earn some money to pay for a present to give your poor sister. The most common example that seems to be bandied about is the cheating husband scenario: you can either dob the cad in and earn some good karma and a few coins, or you can take his hush-money and go to the dark side. Of course there's always option 3, which is to take his money and blab to his wife anyway, and watch the hilarity ensue.

There's a reason why this example is regurgitated so often however: it's one of the few times during the game that a scenario like this will present itself. While RPG's like Morrowind and Knights of the Old Republic have a wide variety of optional side-quests, Fable only has a few of these. It's a disappointment to be sure, especially because it provides so little opportunity to delve into the alleged crux of Fable; that choices have consequences.

Which isn't to say that this dynamic is not present, rather that it comes in a more unscripted format than you may be used to. By way of an example, you can walk up to a shopkeeper and ply them with vast quantities of booze, and then coax them out of their store, staggering and slurring until you find a secluded spot. From here you can either let them sleep it off normally or send them on the long dirt nap- either way, their store is now ripe for the picking, and anything that isn't nailed down will become yours!

Fable is filled with little moments along these lines, and half your fun is gleaned from just going wild and testing the limits of the game by doing things like this. It's a little unconventional, and no real substitute for scripted sequences of moral dilemma, but it does work really well and will provide you with quite a few good laughs. The only real grievance here is that the game is far too forgiving, and even if you massacre a whole town the deed will be forgiven (but not necessarily forgotten) within 10-15 minutes playtime. The end result of this is that as a player you never really feel like you have to be afraid of the consequences, which detracts a great deal from an otherwise immersive experience.

Fable's other hyped-up drawcards are largely aesthetic: the outstanding graphics, and the evolution of the player character. The way your protagonist transforms during the course of the game is quite remarkable the first time you see it in action, and it occurs primarily due to your character's alignment, age, and grooming. Evildoers will eventually sprout horns for example, while paragons of virtue and irritating righteousness will garner themselves a glowing halo above their head- sans Covenant of course! This transition is quite gradual at first, but once you start down the path of good or evil, it starts to snowball quite quickly. Age is much more subtle unless you are a magic-user, which expedites the process quite a bit. You'll start to wrinkle and your hair will eventually turn from grey to white, although there's no need to contact Advanced Hair Studios, as the fantasy world of Albion doesn't suffer from baldness'

Unless you volunteer of course! Fable also allows you to round out your appearance by choosing your own hair, beard and tattoos, providing you with a huge array of varied appearances. You can become a dashing Casanova who makes the ladies swoon, or an unkempt hermit who scares little children; it's entirely your choice!

However the environment will take its toll on your character, as will excessive consumption and a lack of exercise. Failure to block or dodge blows in combat will result in some pretty nasty- but very cool looking- scars, while pigging out on meat and beer will see you develop a patently unheroic potbelly. Shrek may pull it off folks, but you'll just look fat. Don't fret if you're one of those sick freaks who eat Vegan though, as Fable is probably the ONLY game you'll find that actually offers Tofu snacks. I kid you not!

This is all well and good, but it's incredibly narcissistic and ultimately quite superficial' almost like dress-ups for boys really. And by the later stages of the game, it's also quite redundant, as your reputation will be enough to make even the fattest, unappealing ogre a hit with the ladies. When you consider that one of Fable's highly touted features is its unique villager AI that means different people react to you differently depending on your looks, appearance, reputation and their own personal preferences, it's even more of a let-down to know that ultimately only reputation will matter.

At least it looks good though! Fable's ultimate fallback defense would have to be the incredible visuals that push the Xbox to its limits. The world of Albion is gorgeously unique, feeling like a Grimm's fairytale or one of Tim Burton's twisted takes on the world, while still maintaining a charming innocence and beauty that belies the dark content. The absence of fantasy staples like orcs and elves goes a long way to distinguishing Fable from the pack, but the graphics are truly to die for, even in mundane locations like forests and paths. The lighting in particular is excellent, even if the bloom lighting is a bit excessive, giving the game the Vaseline-lens look so common in daytime soaps.

Nothing tacky and 80's about the combat however, which features some brilliant animations and spell effects. Similarities are present with the recent ocular-orgasm that was Sudeki, and while it would be hard to pick a winner, Fable's combat is easy to get into and looks super sweet. Much like Prince of Persia, Fable's melee system is fairly simple in its execution, but the onscreen results are like an action blockbuster. Magic users won't miss out either, since magic spells look terrific. The effects are many and varied, ranging from your common fireballs to short range teleportation and a very cool time slowdown. Sadly ranged combat is a let-down, as is so often the case in real-time combat RPG's. Enemies close the distance between you in a matter of seconds, so it becomes a matter of running away, shooting, then running some more. Repeat until opponent resembles echidna, or until you are bored to tears.

Thankfully Fable isn't one of those RPG's that locks you into a character type or style of play. Freeform in nature, the level-up system revolves around four types of experience: strength, will, skill and general. Strength obviously affects things like toughness, endurance, combat prowess and, well, strength. Will encompasses all things magical, from the amount of mana you have to the types of spells you can learn. Skill is a little broader, covering things like agility, haggling, and felonious applications like lockpicking. Finally there is general experience, earnt from besting beasties or conquering quests. General experience can be used to augment any of your specific experience, so if you have 1000 strength experience points and you need 2000, you can dip into your General pool to make up the difference.

It's a fairly simplistic system to be frank, and the lack of depth and arbitrary nature of advancement seems out of place compared to the rest of the game. The once-organic progression is now gone, so unlike Morrowind, wielding a sword won't slowly increase your sword skill, it will merely give you strength points that can be used to improve your swordsmanship, or how many hitpoints you have. Purists will find it all a little trite, but in Fable's defense the system is designed for accessibility, and in this it succeeds: anyone can pick up Fable and get stuck into it without having to worry about base-attack-bonuses or how to advance their herb-picking skills the fastest.

Sound is one of Fable's strongest departments, boasting some of the funniest voice acting on Xbox as well as wonderful music and general audio. 5.1 Dolby surround sound makes a huge difference for those so equipped, but Fable sounds beautiful through normal stereo too. The main theme is scored by Danny Elfman, and bears more than a passing similarity to his work for Tim Burton on Sleepy Hollow and Edward Scissorhands. The rest of the soundtrack takes its cues from Elfman too, giving Fable a real fairytale musical air. It's almost mesmerizing at times, especially when you're just wandering around town or through the woods. It's not all understated though, and it will take it up a few notches during combat until it reaches an orchestral crescendo. The sound effects are great too, working well to create a sense of Albion ambiance that brings the land to life. Every area has its own unique sounds too, so that a trip to the farm feels like a lazy afternoon in summer, while prisons and dungeons feel dank and oppressive just like they should.

Fable's voice acting really sells the package though. It's all very British, and while the actual delivery varies in quality a bit, the dialogue is quite quirky and will regularly make you smile, if not laugh outright. The only real gripe is that with so few well-developed characters to choose from, it's hard to get attached to any voice in particular, though Jack-of-Blades should stand out from the crowd at least.

In an ironic twist, it is character development that ends up being one of Fable's greatest failings. Not your player character of course; in such an egocentric title that would be impossible. Rather the rest of the world lacks depth and distinction that, while not always necessary for a good RPG, go a long way towards true immersion. For example though you are in a guild dedicated entirely to heroes, you'll only know enough by name to count on one hand, and even those few you will know little about.

Additionally, all the supposedly unique villagers with their own AI are like civilian clones with no names or obvious personalities of their own. Again, this hits the immersion hard, and undermines the nature of consequence in the game: who cares if you kill Generic Male Villager #37 when Generic Male Villager #208 will respawn in his place? Perhaps more jarring is the sudden introduction of characters throughout the story who you know nothing about, but get the distinct feeling you should. It's disorienting to say the least, and makes it feel like Fable isn't quite as complete as it should be.

Speaking about completion, hardcore RPG fans will be chagrined to discover that all the early reports about Fable's brevity were true. At its core, Fable can be completed in around 10-12 hours, 15 if you're really slow. It's easy too, and even the novice gamer should have no trouble knocking Fable over in this time-frame. Even the final boss battle is a cinch; in fact it's one of the easiest and underwhelming of the entire game, which is a real disappointment. Not only that but the endgame is extremely brief and unassuming, hardly a fitting conclusion to what many believed would be the greatest RPG on Xbox.

The near-total absence of side-quests doesn't help either, rounding out what is an extremely short experience. There are plenty of non-essential things you can do though: hunt for treasure, get married, buy houses, trade commodities'but none of it really means very much by the end of the game. You can continue to play after the final battle, but the world carries on as though nothing at all has happened, and by this stage all you need to do is pelvic thrust in the direction of most men and women to have them ready to ask for a wedding ring. Collecting Silver Keys and opening Demon Doors adds a bit more to the experience, but even these are in short supply.

Another bemusing design decision also involves the quests in Fable, and has to do with replaying failed missions. In a game that so heavily promoted actions and consequences, it seems entirely out of place that you are forced to replay a failed quest, even if it is one of the non-core missions. This is made more exacerbating for evil players, whose roleplaying choice may well have been to kill the traders you have to escort or let the little boy in the cave die, but Fable won't allow you to do this. It's a quibble that doesn't ultimately affect the game, but it does force a certain linearity onto what is an otherwise freeform experience.

On the plus side, Fable is definitely fun enough to warrant a second run through, especially if your first time was spent at one extreme of the alignment-o-meter. Playing through as evil after a game as pure good is particularly amusing, and while the plot doesn't vary at all; reactions to certain situations will vary a surprising amount. It's a shame though that your character's morality doesn't play a larger role in the game however.