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I have one thing to say. Fable. Two. rocks.
I know the review is really late, but gimme a break; it's getting really difficult to get video games whether or not there's a huge problem in your budget.

This is almost exactly what a fantasy world would and should look like. lush forests, leaking and misshapen caves and tunnels, ghastly ruins of familiar places like Oakvale and the [in]famous chamber of fate; and of course the bustling towns like Bowerstone and rathole communities like Bloodstone.

The story itself may not be one of the most compelling until you get to Lucien's castle in the prologue to the main game, as all it's about is buying and using a magical music box. Afterward, however, you get drawn into a familiar yet remarkable and twisting adventure. You may not shape much in the main story, however every side quest and other action affects the entire realm of Albion, and for the Live players, outside. Even accidentally running into someone affects the majority of the town the resident lives in. Thankfully, drawing either weapon you have equipped and having the safety off won't bring up a fine, but will just piss off a lot of people in the area.

What's said about your canine companion [i named mine Bowser after my dead kitten], is true. You can teach him tricks to go along with your social actions like dancing or the unorthodox fart which match accurately. There's even a Demon door that wants you to make your dogs do tricks, to make the treasure hunters more inclined to 'pamper' their dogs. You can even make him PEE on command! Even their appearance does change. He starts out as a normal dark-to-off-white color furred adorable hyper blur of joy into either a snowy colored angel of a dog or something scarier than the first look at the newly made Balverine. he's almost as modifiable as the hero themself! It's too bad your dog dies right before the end.

And speaking of new looks, the game's in-game graphics look a LOT better in every way. it doesn't look like action figures like Halo 3, which is a nice surprise for me and many people who get stuck playing the same thing on the game for hours on end- it's a good game, it's the people playing it that can irk me. [back to Fable!] Anywho, the game itself looks like a refreshing take on a cartoon-ish live-action movie. [Let's count how many people thought of Live Action Cow from Drawn Together...] Not one person could say that those graphics aren't refreshing. Even the Hollow Men's eyes seem new, and all that was added to them was the glow around it hidden inside the skulls.

The sounds! We can't forget that area either. The music, again, familiar yet comPLETELY redone, like the rest of the game. Not one sound in the game doesn't fit where it was put. The ambiance fits in perfectly in each region , as well as the combat sounds of the multiple swords' swings humming in the air, the near silent whistle of arrows flying through the air, the heavy, faint whoosh! of the hammers and maces being swung, and the pops and CRACK's of the guns long range and annoying fury. The voices themselves can be humorous and almost as often annoying and confusing as if many villagers are high on pot and for sure drunk off of hobbe's water. The only voice- er... voices that seem out of place would be what sounds like a seriously pissed off leprechaun taunting you. The gargoyles own those evil voices and, thankfully, you get to kill them for their treasure. wahmbulance HINT!! bowerstone bridge river holds their treasure depot. wahmbulance

Finally, to the center of the game itself, the gameplay. Other than the long-awaited world-defining actions feature MANY games should have, they've upped the ante of combat and other types of both violent and nonviolent interaction. You can finally search into subcategories of actions, and even have a partner or two! That's right, co-op, and with its own set of glitches you can exploit. I'm not gonna say which, although i will ruin the ending choice. With or without co-op it is VERY fun and VERY fluent, even when surrounded by twelve or thirteen enemies and spamming different spells. WHICH brings me to an important warning; you WILL be surrounded by enemies and they WILL basically beat your player to death. Upgrade force push right before this game's version of Witchwood Arena, and level 3 or 4 would work VERY well. As for upgrading, the spells have been redone, guile has been replaced with Dextrous styles [i.e. the dodge-roll, zoom, etc], health and toughness became the same and the missing spot is now brutal styles [flourish, block, etc.], the only thing relatively the same is Raise Dead, but then you can't upgrade the creature/s. there's far more clothes and styles with their own ups and downs. Armor rating has very little meaning in the game if you'd played either fable game before it, as in this one you can't die- just get knocked out [which can make little difference even with its un-collected experience tax], and all the apparel has low armor anyway. Some neat features about the character development would be the mix of will marks and character alignment. Your character can't necessarily age unless you're good- as is a tax many who haven't played will find out. Evil with will lines will make you look like an unusual form of an ice djinn, as without or with faint lines would make you look kind of idiotic. Good, however, would either make you look like some variation of what many may believe as a humanoid form of a god- hair needed of course. But then- you could make your character look like a ***** with the right clothing and without the marks. It's actually amusing what people could come up with.

Ahh, sadly the review must come to an end. on a happy note however. 5/5 Nearly every aspect of the game is as perfected as could be. I suggest a few improvements if any of the people in the Fable team decide to read this, Have the actions taken toward the citizens from the hero determine what the name is, like if they're polite then have the citizens call the person 'the original prince charming' or something like that, or if the hero constantly bulldozing through crowds or into people have them label the hero a brute; or probably having certain things be of massively multiple stock like in the first fable- particularly the potions.

now for the spoiler!!
at the very end you get 3 choices; you could revive the hundreds of thousands of people that were used to build the spire, leaving your family and dog dead; you could revive your family and dog, leaving the hundreds of thousands dead but giving you back your lovable little pile of kill-on-command, or you could take riches i haven't bothered to measure, but i'm sure is just enough to buy castle fairfax.
either way you get guilt-tripped