I was pretty surprised today to see that Peter Molyneux (otherwise known as the king of hysterical pre-release hype) actually made a public apology for all the features that were talked about over the course of Fable’s development but didn’t actually make it into the game.
Reading this is pretty strange. I have always had a soft spot in my heart for Molyneux, as Populous remains one of my favorite games of all time and it was also the first networked multiplayer game I’d ever played (direct-dial 1200 baud, baby!). But Fable was relentlessly hyped from day one, and the finished product is very, very different from what we were told to expect. I’ll go into specifics on all of that in my review, which I’ll probably post later this weekend, but basically if you’re expecting an open-ended and epic RPG you’re going to be horribly disappointed. I wasn’t, so I’m not, but I am a bit sad that the game doesn’t live up to its own potential.
Oh, and for the record, just to follow-up on an earlier post, I never once died playing the game. Not once. I never even needed to use a resurrection phial, and I had tons of them by the time I finished the game.
In any event, this Molyneux title may have been a bit disappointing, but I’m still looking forward to The Movies. And don’t even get started on Unity. I don’t claim to understand or know anything about it, but I just know it’s gonna rock. After all, the head Llama said so.