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I find it difficult to go out and spend $50 or $60 on a brand new game unless I'm really, really desperate for it. So ... I like to take a look in the $10 to $20 section, where older games lie waiting for the, uh, money-conscious to pick them up. I had heard a lot about Fable when it first came out, so it was definitely a title for me to get as soon as I saw it on the cheap.

Fable is an action role-playing game that originally made waves because of its great graphics, playability, story and level of detail never seen before in an RPG. The Lost Chapters is an extension to Fable, but really it is just a completion of the game's story, including some new areas and equipment.

Fable: The Lost Chapters starts in the hero's childhood, giving you a quick glimpse into events that have shaped your life and led you to where you grow up. On your sister's birthday, as a young child you have forgotten to get your sister a present, but your father promises to give you enough to buy her one if you complete some chores for him.

Even from this early age, you start to form your fate, choosing to join a path of evil, good or somewhere in between; and with that, having each person with whom you interact remember your deeds and affecting your later dealings with them. After you get the present, your village is raided by bandits, and you see many of the townspeople are slaughtered. As you courageously make your way home, you soon find your father dead and your sister gone. Before long, you are found and attacked by a bandit, and during your futile attempt to kill out of shear anger, another mysterious man comes and rescues you. This man is a member of The Guild, an ancient society of heroes, and he asks you to join him.

Shortly after you reach the guild hall, where you learn about The Guild, its workings and its members. You are paired with a young girl who you will train and grow up with. The Guild acts as somewhat of a tutorial, showing you the areas of melee, archery and magic combat and allowing you to play and practice. As you train (and progress in general), you age, and before long, you are attempting to pass your final graduating tests so you can go out to the real world, be a hero and become famous and rich and complete many quests along the way.

After you graduate, you will find that Fable is a somewhat of a open-format game, you can go where you want (though your skills will be a bit low for many areas) and explore, socialize, and gain money, equipment or fame. The main source of the quests and game advancement, however, is centered around The Guild and accepting the main storyline guild quests for fame and money rewards.

There are many features in Fable: The Lost Chapters that make it very unique and fun to play; many of these features you won't have seen anywhere before. For example, there is a statistic called renown/fame. Your level of fame dictates the response you gain from NPCs around the world, from common people, to more noble characters. Fame is gained through successfully completing quests and, to a lesser extent, on your combat experience; though, you can take an impressive trophy and parade it around town for all to see to help boost it even more. Anyway, fame will force people to respect you. Being a hero without fame makes them laugh at you! Fame or renown is a great addition to the game, and it looks great as people gather around you to praise you.

Alignment is another feature of Fable; performing good, evil or a mixture of those will affect how people interact with you. As you lean to the side of good, your appearance changes to start resembling an angel; on the side of evil, you start growing horns and resemble a devil. There definitely is a major change in gameplay between the two, but someone angelic like me can break into a house every so often and not suffer much. So, help the poor or slaughter store keepers and steal their store; you can play however you like. I always play as a sweetheart anyways!

Some (not me, though) are not graced with the most dexterous fingers and reflexes. The ability to move quickly, block in combat, evade, dive or whatever will help you avoid taking damage, which makes you eat more to recover. Not having those quick moves will pretty much mean you're gonna be fat. It's OK, tubby, your character will lose weight over time — so long as you don't keep eating ... hard to put down that pie, isn't it? The weight changes in Fable are another nice detail, and it takes a lot of eating to get heavy, but I do find the notion that eating live chickens makes you evil, while eating tofu brings you closer to sainthood. Absolutely hilarious.

Fable's combat system, while seemingly simple being an action/RPG, is anything but. A melee weapon allows you to dish out good damage at close range, as well as block and parry your attackers. Combat is fully 3D animated (although only 2D movement), and letting yourself become surrounded is a lesson in pain; parrying and blocking might work one-on-one, but you need to learn how to roll and dive past your enemies to come up behind them. Landing blows without a return hit also will allow your character to enable a powerful flourish melee hit.

Every time you defeat an enemy in melee combat, you will gain some generic experience and experience specific to that area of combat. You then can spend points in such areas as strength, health or more to increase the primarily melee statistics. Skill is the combat area that relates to ranged combat, using crossbows or long bows to damage enemies before they spot you. Holding the drawstring back longer will allow you to fire a more powerful shot, but it's is less accurate. Moving around also is very difficult while charging your weapons. I always found the ranged aspect very simple in Fable, used mostly for pulling or special situations.

The experience you can gain (although a little more difficult since the experience bubbles are farther away) can be used in such areas as combat speed, accuracy and more. The final area of combat is magic, and it is by far the most diverse. Magic can range from a variety of augmentation types to assist your melee or ranged damage, protection magics, and an even large variety of damaging spells, including area attacks or single target hits.

In Fable, you only need to worry about your health and mana bars, making all the combat choices a little easier. The sheer number of spells can get a bit overwhelming at times. However, you easily can hotkey a set of potions to refill your mana or health without complication. At the same time, you can concentrate on avoiding getting hit (by skill or magic) to increase your combat multiplier. The combat multiplier increases your experience gained and continues to increase as you defeat enemies without taking damage.

But to spell it out, the action-based combat in Fable is just FUN. Diving through enemies, parrying and dueling with weapons, corkscrewing through three bandits, slowing time, and popping up behind people just so you can hack them — just too fun! Luckily, there is a lot of combat in Fable, and there are so many ways to customize which attack styles you mix and match and which spells to invest in; you could play numerous times without getting bored.

That leads me to another fun area of Fable, and that is gambling. From gambling for money or prizes in bars around the world with a good variety of mini-games to making huge boasts on the platform outside The Guild, you can add spice to the game. Boasting on the platform lets you test just how good you are in combat, from fighting nude, to taking no damage or protecting every guard in the area during a raid. You can claim it and make a bunch of fame and money if you succeed. I only made the occasional one myself; I like to play it safe and be prepared. Unfortunately, the money you earn isn't all that valuable. The numerous flaws in the economic system make gaining money very easy, earning weapons, armor and items beyond your experience levels. This could be the biggest problem with the whole game.

Equipment in Fable: The Lost Chapters is relatively easy to get. Some of the best equipment you'll use through the majority of the game is obtainable not too far from the start, if you try to get it. While weapons you buy or trade for are very generic, you can customize them with special socket enhancements, from differing damage types, to health and mana regeneration building you into a runaway train of power. Armor pieces are all built into sets, and wearing a full set — or a least the majority of a set — often will invoke strong reactions from NPCs towards you, some being good, some bad. The very best equipment is found behind locked chests and special demon doors — doors you need to solve riddles to get past. I think this might be one of the most enjoyable parts of Fable for me: solving the riddles and searching all over the world for the special silver keys to open all the chests around.

Lets talk about sex, baby! Fable is rated mature. There is no nudity, but you can be a stud and just hump everything that moves ... yes, everything, including homosexual actions. Well, I think everything ... I mean the book says so and all. *cough* As you gain more fame, you'll find more people ready to fall in love with you more easily, but what fun is that?

Eventually, everyone will be trying to get into your pants. Oddly, it is exactly the opposite of my real life. When you start off, however, you can attempt to woo some sweetie by giving them gifts or chatting them up, flirting, showing off or anything else your sexy heroness can attempt to offer her. It may take a few tries, but she'll fall for you. Then you can buy her a diamond ring (they can tell if you cheap out and buy a fake one — pft!) and ask her to marry you. She'll say no, of course. Why? Well, you don't own a house yet!

In Fable, you can purchase land, stores or whatever else is available in the towns. For a good character, there isn't a whole lot, but evil people can steal other's land after, you know, shoving a sword up their ... OK, after you are a new homeowner, you can marry your sweetie (or just lease out the house and make a profit) and then romance her a bit in the house and get busy! A black screen and a bit of, very obviously faked moaning, and you're done. Not satisfied with your wife? Get a divorce, have an affair, go visit the brothel and get a few cheap minutes on the clock. Is it just me, or is this the best thought-out part of the entire game?

There is a little more to getting your groove on! Character customization is different in Fable than in most games. While you can't do anything during the start of the game, everything you do during the game changes how you progress. This follows for the other physical parts of you in the game, from hair, beard, mustaches, tattoos and more. All these items will affect how pretty you look and how scary you appear to your enemies. Having the right haircut can make some women want you even more. As odd as it seems, there is just a lot of little detail, and some women just love certain things.

The world in Fable is fantastic. There is just so much you can do, places to go and activities you can have fun with along the way. Stop by, take a break and do some hardcore fishing, talk to NPCs, help them with unlisted quests to gain special prizes, get drunk in the bar then go and start a fight with the guards; the game is just very detailed, complete and fun! You can play as you want, wait till night and break into homes and shops, turn the tides of your quests and betray others for money if you wish.

Fable is a very complete game; that is a rare thing. Bug-free gameplay with great graphics and style (for its time) helps the immersion of the world, but I do have one big complaint ... it ended. I wanted Fable to keep going. The story was mysterious, and dialog was great. Despite the bugged-up economy, it was just a load of fun, especially for the bargain-bin price. It is too rare that an RPG comes out of this caliber; Fable definitely wasn't a very long game, but it also wasn't very short. Don't pass up the opportunity to try this game!