Remember all of those fairy tale stories you heard from a young age? How Disney coated them with a “glamerious” look? Well, during this five part game those stories and tales became a little dark.
Starting off the game I actually played the first chapter of episode one for free, thanks to my XBL gold membership. I was anxious to see what happened in the chapters that followed but like most, I didn’t want to spend the extra cash to find out what happens in the end. Well knowing Telltale Game’s background I experienced with The Walking Dead video game, the game would be released on a retail disc and that day finally came. All five episodes and chapters are contained on a single disc but this game has got mixed reviews from many.
A HUGE downfall to this game that most encountered, along with myself, was the lagging frame rates. I played the disc version on two different Xbox 360’s and one was much more “laggy” then the other. Some dialogs got cut short due to this lag in frame rate so it might be wise to put the captions on to read what they say just in case you experience that issue. Controls are easy and simplistic to follow but again, it can be a royal pain when you can’t dodge an oncoming object because of the frames jumping early to cut. You cannot skip the cut scenes, intro or credits but they are short in length. And just one more thing I will say on the “negative” side of the game, after fighting a specific character in episode 4, chapter 4, all decision making choices were in Spanish until I hit the next chapter. For me it didn’t hurt my decision making too bad because there was only 3-4 decisions at that time.
Now, I don’t have an extensive knowledge on my fairy tales but this game covered most of the popular ones that Disney showcased through various of years. This game has a solid story. You play Sheriff “Big Bad Wolf” in a city that is filled with issues that of course, you must figure out. There are allot of characters in this game from the fairy tale land and they all have a much different perspective then what most books paint their picture as. The game can be breezed through in a fast pace and some episodes are longer then others. Most of the gameplay is slow but there is a few action scenes that will pop-up, sometimes out of no where.
If your looking for some easy achievements then this game will deliver that with no real issue. Your decisions depends on what Fables you unlock during the game. This means, you will have to play through the entire game more than once to obtain all Fables. In the end, this is not a 1000G game for the Xbox versions so don’t get your hopes up.
In conclusion, I would simply rent this title over buying it. Reason why? After your done playing it twice or three times for the achievements, you really don’t have much else to do within the game. For me, I’m not a HUGE fairy tale person so maybe that is the reason. But, if you do like this game, I would recommend finding the Fable graphic novels at your local comic book store. I, myself, wouldn’t mind picking up a trade paperback to see what happens in the comics vs the game.
For now, I’m off to play more games and work on some achievement guides. Please checkout the majority of my work on EverydatGamingSociety.com and expect more ‘Recaps’ once I get the time to sit and type on my computer.
Thanks for reading everyone!
-Steve
stevegaming 