You know you’re in for a treat when Peter Molyneux’s involved (Black & White, Theme Park, Magic Carpet, Dungeon Keeper) and Fable is certainly no exception. This accessible RPG flourishes with a rich sense of humour and a fantasy adventure storyline.

Although the plot is much less serious than others, such as Baldur’s Gate and Planescape: Torment, it’s still highly entertaining and fairly well written. In true stereotypical RPG style you begin the game as a farmer’s son with little power, dreaming of adventures and so forth. One day, along come a horde of evil bandits who burn your village, kidnap your sister and your mother, and kill your family (ouch). You are rescued by a mysterious wizard named Maze who takes you to something called the ‘Hero’s Guild’. There you train for the next few years to become a hero.

As an adult you may roam freely about the realm and help or hinder people as you wish. Quests in Fable are mainly received from the Hero’s Guild. You can view the quests that have been ‘posted’ in the guild and choose which ones you wish to attempt. Sometimes you will have a choice between the evil and good side of a quest; for example, you may help defend a farm from a horde of bandits, or you may help a horde of bandits attack a town. I think it’s safe to conclude at this point that Lionhead Studio’s definition of a ‘hero’ waver’s slightly from the dictionary.

After choosing a quest you may decide to take additional ‘boasts’ to improve your risk, but also improve your reward from a quest. Such boasts take the form of things like ‘perform the quest naked’ or ‘perform the quest without getting harmed’. These boasts are shouted out on a podium outside the hero’s guild to a crowd of cheering peasants.

The character setup in Fable is much the same as other RPGs; you have a group of stats and skills that you can improve by gaining experience. There are four groups of specific experience that you gain for performing actions, killing monsters and successfully completing quests. These are skill, magic, physical and general. All experience apart from General is gained through your actions and the usage of weapons or magic. General experience is gained through killing monsters.

Experience can then be used, at your discretion, to improve your character. Every time you do this your character ages aesthetically by 0.7 years. This has no affect on anything but your character’s appearance, but it’s a nice touch. Specific experience, such as physical, can only be used to improve things of that type, such as health or strength. General experience can be used to improve anything you like.

Taking a wife, which is something you can do in-game, is probably one of the more fun non-crucial things to do in Fable. Essentially this involves a sims-esque routine of courting. First you find a lovely young lady, and then you chat to her, flirt with her, give her gifts, and eventually buy her a wedding ring. If she says yes, you may then buy a marital home, chat her up some more, and then, yes, you may have sex with her. There’s absolutely nothing graphic here whatsoever (thank God) but there are some rather comedic moaning noises.

Lionhead have, unfortunately, not catered for the potential female hero in this game. Watch out, there’s a feminist with a sniper rifle in the back row! Aim for Peter, it’s his fault!

As you can see, the graphics in Fable are quite exceptional. The character models are very pretty, the scenery is seamless and the spells are fantastic. However, it is the astute attention to detail that really brings the game alive graphically - the subtle aesthetic changes that occur to your character throughout his life. Things such as, the wrinkles that appear with age, the scars that appear from battles, the faint halo that hangs over his head as he performs good actions, and so on.

Aside from the player cast spells, Fable features a system of teleportation pads around the world which allow you to transport between locations you have previously visited. You can also, at any point, teleport yourself to any of these locations and ‘mark’ the spot you teleported from. The ‘marked’ spot is then temporarily added to the list of locations you can teleport to until you either teleport to it, or ‘mark’ a new location. You begin with this ability right at the start of the game and it costs nothing but time to use – a monster attacking you interrupts the process.

The voice acting in Fable is just absolutely top notch and is definitely worth a mention. You can’t help but burst into laughter when at the start of the game a scrubby cockney lass guffaws in your direction, ‘Chicken Chaser? What’s all that about, eh?’ (referring to your apparently low rank as a hero) I’m quite certain that people from outside of the UK will have no idea where the various regional accents are from, but for me, as a Brit, there’s a certain added hilarity because I do.

My major criticism of this otherwise fine game is that there’s just not enough of a challenge for avid gamers. This is perhaps a good thing because it adds to the accessibility of the game, and that’s something that is hard to come by in the world of RPGs. Furthermore, the apparent depth of the game fades after extended periods of play. Perhaps a more complex character attributes system would have amended this, but at the cost of alienating the accessibility market.

Overall, fable is a very accessible and pretty RPG. Perhaps it could benefit from added complexity and higher difficulty. However, it’s certainly something you want to be buying – if not for yourself (as I’m sure you’re a hardcore gamer. Right? Right??), then for your young-teenage brother. Playability, humour, graphics, quality voice acting, and a competent story line make Fable a very decent game indeed.