* Hugely ambitious, open world games, conceived of as having unprecedented player control

* Star developer with track record of revolutionary 'God games'

* Talked up with great excitement by said developer early in the game's conception
(For those miffed at Will Wright, Molyneux said that 'I'll regret saying this, but: Fable will be the Best Roleplaying Game Ever'. He was half right...)

* Acquired a devoted fan following for an early version of the game, focusing on specifics of screenshots, demos, interviews etc ('Project Ego' in Fable's case)

* Simply could not be managed with the given team, in the given time, with the available technology

* Was scaled back in ambition quite drastically, and severely disappointed many expectant fans

* Whilst under the management of a vast software corporation (Microsoft in Fable's case) - inevitably blamed for the 'dumbing down'

* Actually a pretty fun game after all

* A great community underneath all the grizzling and moaning


I may have missed some things - more points of comparison? Disanalogies? I'm sure there are loads.

Oh, and a glimmer of hope, maybe: Molyneux was much more careful second time round; Fable 2's out next week and looks like it promises to be much of what people had hoped Fable might be...

I only played Fable a bit but it didn't look glitchy to the point of random unplayability. Also, Fable has a sort of mediocre, maybe even decent, RPG under it all whereas Spore has several RPGs under it all that are more basic than any of the predecessors they ever could have conceivably been based on.

* Actually a pretty fun game after all

* A great community underneath all the grizzling and moaning

i agree with those

Okay, Fable was just an RPG, rather than a mix of several different genres like Spore. Though there were off-topic things to do, like buying houses, making friends/girlfriends/boyfriends(!), getting married etc.

One of the most striking (and infuriating) claims about Fable's persistent world was that you would have been able to plant an acorn and come back to see it had grown into a tree; or carve your name in said tree and it'd still be there when you came past after the end of your game...

Crosbie wrote:* Hugely ambitious, open world games, conceived of as having unprecedented player control

* Star developer with track record of revolutionary 'God games'

* Talked up with great excitement by said developer early in the game's conception
(For those miffed at Will Wright, Molyneux said that 'I'll regret saying this, but: Fable will be the Best Roleplaying Game Ever'. He was half right...)

* Acquired a devoted fan following for an early version of the game, focusing on specifics of screenshots, demos, interviews etc ('Project Ego' in Fable's case)

* Simply could not be managed with the given team, in the given time, with the available technology

* Was scaled back in ambition quite drastically, and severely disappointed many expectant fans

* Whilst under the management of a vast software corporation (Microsoft in Fable's case) - inevitably blamed for the 'dumbing down'

* Actually a pretty fun game after all

* A great community underneath all the grizzling and moaning


I may have missed some things - more points of comparison? Disanalogies? I'm sure there are loads.

Oh, and a glimmer of hope, maybe: Molyneux was much more careful second time round; Fable 2's out next week and looks like it promises to be much of what people had hoped Fable might be...

I think Spore delivered on far, far more of its promises than Fable did, but other than that, this would be a largely accurate comparison.

I played Fable, I liked Fable ... But, then I didn't see the ads before my husband bought it for me...

But aside from liking or not liking ... Fable worked...

Spore = Fable

# echo "Spore = Fable" | sed s/ab/eeb/g

I had more fun with Fable- it was a better game than Spore is.

But Spore is a better tool for customization and creativity, and for that, I find it more rewarding.

Your creatures are neat. I like the one on the left, and the puking frog.

Could you restrict that to a pm or comment on my creatures next time? No need to bump a post with an off-topic message. Oh, and thanks.

The only similarities between Spore and Fable is that they are both quite buggy =D

Pcguy: I also like the red one.

Being as Spore has led on PC and Fable on Xbox one, it does lead to Spore being more buggy (imo), but also more 'fixable'... in theory.

The creative element also makes me think of Neverwinter Nights - and this similarity may well increase with the expansion and its 'mission editor'...

I liked fable, though its plagued with bugs and annoyances, it was still a fun game to play, right to the end.. I would do it again in a nanosecond. Spore, however, is a whole different story.

Fable 2 will be better....