Review: Fable Anniversary > 자유게시판

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Another big improvement is that of the interfaces. The previous ones were rough even in 2004, seeming basic enough to be more at home with PS1-era games. Thankfully, they've been completely overhauled for this release, matching up better with the subsequent Fable games. Navigation-wise, they’re a bit too clumsy. The triggers, shoulders buttons and analog sticks all come into play when scrolling around, resulting in a learning curve that shouldn’t exist for menus. Still, there’s only so much that can be done and at least the old interface wasn't simply re-skinned.

Fable eventually was released in 2005 to high anticipation, but the game failed to live up to Molyneux’s sky-high aspirations. The game earned acclaim for its real-time combat and various methods of dispatching foes, but the morality system was much more limited than originally pitched (good and evil were the only really distinctive ways to progress in the game) and a number of features such as the children component were missing. The abilities to impact the story and the world around you were disappointingly limited as well. But despite these problems, Fable was still received with enough praise that it became a full-fledged series, with Fable II dropping in 2008 and Fable III in 2010.

There were many secrets to discover in Albion, which was necessary to pad out the game. The main story campaign was short by RPG standards, so having optional side quests and secrets added value to the title. Demon doors would have treasures such as legendary weapons if you could solve the riddle to open them and there were many silver keys scattered across the land they were needed to open silver treasure boxes. They may have have fixed this in the subsequent reissues of Fable, but in the original Xbox version there was a glitch to get unlimited silver keys. This worked by getting a key, doing a hero save but not a world save and then load the file. The character will have the key in their inventory and the key will be waiting to be collected in its original spot.

Peter Molyneux’s role in the gaming industry has been one of the longest in the industry’s history, with his first game, The Entrepreneur , being released in 1984. The Entrepreneur , despite Molyneux’s enthusiasm toward it, was a mass commercial failure, said to have sold only two copies (one of which rumored to be from his own mother). After the game’s brutal release, Molyneux left the industry for the next three years, until he teamed up with Les Edgar to begin the game development company Bullfrog Productions. Though the company released a scrolling shooter named Fusion a year before, 1989 marked the release of Populous , Molyneux’s claim to fame and what is arguably the very first "god game." Populous was a commercial success, becoming the best-selling game from the company and becoming the progenitor for future strategy games of its kind. Further Bullfrog games like Dungeon Keeper followed in Populous’ wake until Molyneux created Lionhead Studios to produce other god games like Black and White . Molyneux steadily continued experimenting with new ways to play with Fable on Xbox and use of Microsoft’s Kinect peripheral (with the tech demo Milo ). Currently with 22 Cans Studios, Molyneux is developing a "spiritual successor" to his game Populous called Godus , which met funding goals on Kickstarter in 2012.

Fable Anniversary is a port of ten year old game released on eight year old hardware after we’ve witnessed the power of next-gen. Yet even with so much stacked against it, it manages to impress. There’s not much of a "wow-factor" because of its ill-timed release, but with the exception of completely rebuilding the game for Xbox One, there simply isn’t much else that could be done that isn’t accomplished here. Sound, functionality and graphics are all substantially improved and breath new life into a game that has aged remarkably well. Even after two sequels and console generations, Fable has the uncanny ability to suck you into its Adventure Game hunting guide through the world of Albion. Anniversary is more of a preservation if anything, ensuring that the entire franchise can now be played in the same manner on the same console. As a museum piece, it’s a wonderful effort that ensures the game will remain relevant for a new generation of players. As a game, it’s the definitive edition of a superb title that has a lot to offer even in 2014.

And really, Peter Molyneux, for all his broken promises and enormous aspirations, is an innovator. He’s proven his enchantment with taking well-tread ideas and making them into something unexpected. Populous remains one of the most important games of all time, and that couldn’t have happened without some desire to step beyond the established setting. Fable to a lesser extent and certainly with the Milo demo, Peter Molyneux hasn’t made anything flat-out terrible in decades. But his tendency to get excited about his new ideas so much has led to a negative perception of who he is: many in the gaming community consider him a dreamer, not a doer. Quite frankly, I think that’s unfair to say. Some companies are perfectly content with what they’re doing in gaming, but Molyneux has proven time and again that he’s never satisfied with his creations. He’s always reaching further, even if his eagerness to progress has made him despise the past and ignore the present in awkwardly narrow-sighted ways.