Well, I was looking for some sorta official Fable thread instead of starting a new one but the ones I've found in the past either discussed the IGN preivew or 'when is the game coming?' or good pre-order deals, so I'll just start an official game discussion thread since the game is upon us.

Got the game today as well as my latest issue of EGM. Before I opened the game I decided to see what EGM thought about it. They rated it:

7.5, 8.0, 9.0

Good: Endless possibilities for character development
Bad: 'Cept story's waaaaay too short
Annoying Thing They Coulda Done Better: The map system

Reading through the review though you would have thought the game would have received lower scores. The reviewers liked the customizeable character creation and the graphics and one out of the three actually liked the combat system. The bad points they seemed to generally agree on are:

*Repetitive combat system

*Lack of weapon/armor choices

*Can be completed in 12-14 hours

*Boss fights suck and each has a pattern that can be easily discovered. (One reviewer said he beat the final boss w/o coming within 20 feet of him)

*The game is too easy, lacks challenges for the gamer, puzzles are lame.

I mean the bad out weighed the good in their review yet the game still scored a silver award and got decent scores. Gonna load it up tonight and give it a shot.

Let us know how it goes. Have looked forward to this for quite a time.

I'm waiting patiently for Outpost.com to ship my copy...sigh.

I am debating either to get this or wait until next week for SW: Battlefront. I will wait for one of these to drop in price, just waiting to hear more feedback to decide which way to go. I have so little time to play anymore that I have to ration my game purchases for now, or else I would pick both of these up on release.

Anyone find this out yet?

I think the IGN (?) review mentioned that you can finish the main story in 15-20 hours, but there are enough side quests and what not that you can keep busy for up to 100 hours.

I like it so far. There was this guy in EB when I was buying it yesterday and he was saying that he heard it was 90-100 hours if you did everything there was to offer, and he thought that was way too short, lol. What the heck?

I have friends at MS, so I had a chance to play this game early. I'd say I completed probably 95% of it and that only took me about 25 hours. I don't know where they get this 100 hours from. Maybe if you tried getting every one of your abilities maxxed out. Granted, I played a release candidate, but I doubt there was anything added. It's a fun game, nonetheless. I'm going to pick up a retail copy later and play through again.

So a 25 hour game for me, with only about an hour or maybe two a night to play will take 2-3 weeks to complete.

Why is this bad? Games cost about as much in the NES/SNES/Genesis days and many of those games were very short, yet people still had fun.

If I have fun with it and enjoy the experience, I'll be happy.

That's where I'm at. Completed Doom 3 just the other night. Plus, Fable has replay value, as you can go through as a good/evil character, and try the different character types.

I didn't say it was bad. As I said, I enjoyed it. I was commenting on the post about it being 100 hours.

Same here.. But I have enough other games to hold me over until it gets here. Definately not gonna complain about the price we got it for.

I picked it up last night from eb games. I like it even though there are some things that could have been different (combat system, character customization, etc). It is still a very solid game and I have no regrets about purchasing it. 8/10. One thing I don't like is how the game will give your character horns if you are continually evil or go bald just because I use to much magic, wtf?

I want my character to look they way I want it to not the way the game wants me to. Battle scars and stuff like that are cool, but I want to choose my hair, eyes, tattoos, etc. You have to talk to traders (some are barbers, etc) to buy customization traits for your character, which is ok I guess. So, the game doesn't choose everything for you. But I still don't like the fact that I will grow horns. Hopefully I can cut them off like hellboy.

And if you're good you get a nice shiny halo.

I haven't played the game, but everything I've read indicates that there is a way to set your own hairstyle and tattoos. Perhaps a shop in some town?

I played about 3 hours last night and thought it was 'ok'. The combat system is nothing great but since the action is real-time you have to figure there's going to be a lot of button mashing going on. Visually the game looks great as well as the sounds. I'm sure its a solid action RPG but its nothing new. I've been anticipating the release of this game for over a year now and I kinda felt let down. Of course, I'm only a few hours in and I'll give it more time before I make any conclusions but if the challenge and length of the game are as EGM says then I don't expect my opinion will change for the better.

You get cards in the game with hairstyles, facial hair, and tattoos. You take those cards to the barber or tattoo artist. How many styles you can get depends on how many cards you find/steal.

Yeah, the EGM reviewed turned me off from buying this game even after a price drop. The repetitive combat and other gripes killed it for, given that I don't care about the open-ended run around find a wife, blah blah crap.

Morrowind is my favorite RPG among the PS2/Xbox/Cube. Nothing has really come close except for KOTOR. From the sounds of it, Fable doesn't appear to be able to top it either. I picked Fable up today, so we'll see.

The good news for me here is that since it's short, it'll be easier to pick up used.

Xbox nation gave it a 9.

The more I play it the more I like it

Played it a bit tonight, not too bad I guess, but it doesnt seem like a long game considering the maximum you can put in skills.

I do enjoy hearing 'look, there's arseface!' ... I need to buy a better title

I chose Arseface, too

"Hey there, Sir Arseface"

I like the game, but I don't see too much that is revolutionary about it. I guess I just expected more from a game that was this long in development.

The character development system is fun to play around with, though: I was a Hero with good alignment, and everywhere I went people would flock to me. Well, just to see what would happen I started to slaughter all these people that were following me around and I turned my character into a truly evil looking guy within an hour. Now my goal is to turn him back into a good guy.

This game can be funny. I ended up buying every building in Oakvale. I'd get a bunch of people to follow me out to the beach, then I'd kill them all and buy their houses. I ended up marrying the barmaid and sticking her in my house. I was going to kill her so I could rent out that house too and make some more money. but just as I was about to decapitate her, she gave me a diamond. I couldn't bring myself to kill her then. Now she occasionally gives me stuff like gloves and even fire augmentation for my weapons. I wish my other wife I have in Bowerstone would do that. Ungrateful whore.

If you follow the store owners home at night and kill them, both their house and shop go up for sale.