Fable: The Lost Chapters (TLC) was released a few years ago on the PC and Xbox - but I’m going to review how it plays for the 360, since that’s the way most of you are going to play it.

TLC is a 3rd person RPG - you’ll play as a young boy, and as you play through the game you’ll see him grow up to become a powerful hero. The overall RPG experience, on the whole, is nothing new. You travel around the world, finishing quests, levelling up, and creating the character that you want - with the usual weapon range of sword, magic, and bow. Its not going to redefine the RPG experience, but it does a good job.

The main selling point of the game - which sets TLC apart from other RPGs - is the amount of choices. For everything you do - ranging from sparing a mans life to eating particular foods - it will have some effect on your characters alignment, appearance, and strengths. Its a good feature, and one that’s been implemented quite well in the game, but the consequences are fairly limited - either its good or its bad. But the way the game plays works with this, so you won’t feel the limitations as much as you’d expect.

The way TLC reacts to your good/bad choices is obvious - you’ll be fat if you eat too many pies, if you’re evil you’ll start growing horns like a demon. In turn your appearance will affect how people act towards you. If you’re a good character, the people will welcome you with applause as you walk into town, and if you’re wearing a flowery dress, expect to be mocked. Its simple, but effective, and it makes the world feel much more real.

Another factor in making the world feel real is the way you can interact with the people in the various towns. There’s quite a lot of things you can do - but the one that was really advertised was that you could marry - and consequently bed - another person in the game (including the men). I think this was the first Action/RPG game that allowed you to do this, and when I was young[er] I found it highly amusing. But this, like the other features in TLC, is pretty pointless, and you can play the game without bothering to do them.

The fighting works quite well: with both melee and ranged X to attack and Y to block - and while using melee weapons you can use B as a more powerful attack. Pulling the Right trigger will allow you to use your spells - this might seem fiddly at first, but after a while this aspect of the controls will be like second nature.

The weapons themselves are quite varied visually - but you won’t find a lot of variation between them - all variants of longbows play the same, all one handed melee weapons hit the same, etc. The only thing that varies is the weapons damage - which can vary massively, considering the weapons looks and play identically. Nearly all the weapons can be customised a little, with various augmentations, but its not as deep as other RPGs that came out before TLC - like Morrowind (prequel to Oblivion). The spells are much more varied in appearance and use - so you’ll find that for almost all styles of gameplay, TLC will have a spell that compliments it.

When playing TLC you will notice some minor issues - I’m not going to nitpick about graphics, because its a 3 year old game - but there are some minor performance issues. Occasionally the frame rate might stagger in a bigger fight - but this doesn’t happen all too often. The graphical annoyance is that sometimes the textures will fail to load, and this makes the game look very ugly. When you get a new haircut or tattoo, this will occasionally cause a failure in the textures on your character. This can always been sorted with a quick save and load, but it doesn’t make it any less annoying.

The other main fault is just how hyped up the game has been - its not open ended, as it claims. There is a straight choice between a good ending and an evil ending, and only a few of the quests will offer 2 choices; plus, considering how short the storyline is (even if you play through all the side-quests and really put effort into levelling up you’ll only have about 9 hours of gameplay), this makes it a disappointing experience, especially by today’s standards.

Overall I’d say Fable: TLC is still a good game, and if you like RPGs you’ll definitely have a laugh with it. The issues are minor - and its not as if any of today’s games are without fault (see my Mass Effect review).

8.25/10 - TLC is a good Action/RPG and the other Sim element is a nice bit of relief. Hardcore RPG players will be a little under whelmed - its pretty shallow, and doesn’t really add anything to the original. But its genuinely funny, and any game that allows you to get drunk and throw up in the middle of a boss fight is ok by me! People looking to get into RPGs should definitely start with a title like Fable: The Lost Chapters.

You’re probably wondering when I’m going to review a game that I don’t like - well I’m getting round to that! I’m going to rent out Turok this weekend, so I’ll see how that goes. I do want to get some variety in my review scores though.