![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I finally played through Fable Anniversary for the first time, finishing it just a few minutes ago, even though I initially bought it back in 2015, a few months after it was (re-)released. Now, granted, I'd already played through the original Fable and The Lost Chapters multiple times over the years, so it wasn't like I'd never played it before.
So, as I was playing through it, I thought it was just as cool as it ever was, and I've always liked the game, even if it didn't have even a remote chance of ever living up to the ridiculous hype and the even more ridiculous promises made about it by Peter Molyneux before it was released. It's still a good game, despite all of that.
And yet, the whole time I was playing it, I couldn't help but frequently think, "Man, as awesome as this is, I'd so much rather be playing Fable 2 right now." As good as Fable (Anniversary or otherwise) was and still is, Fable 2 blows it out of the water in just about every way, at least as far as I'm concerned. (That said, even Fable 2 never came close to being what the original Fable was crazily promised to be, let alone what Fable 2 itself was promised to be, but wasn't. Still...) The issue, though, is that I no longer have Fable 2 or a console on which to play it, and the likelihood of having such any time soon is pretty low. And Fable 2 is not and never has been available on PC, for whatever asinine reasons, even though the first game is (and the third game is/was, at least for a while, see below).
"Well," I thought to myself, "maybe I'll just get Fable 3 instead, even though it's not quite as good as Fable 2. It's still pretty good, even so." But, no, as it turns out, Fable 3 is no longer on Steam, for inane, dumbshit, "modern video game industry" reasons. And, also, it is apparently rather difficult to play on PC even if you can get your hands on a non-Steam PC copy, due to Games For Windows Live no longer existing, so I'm not at all keen to waste money on that gamble, either.
My only hope now (outside of getting another Xbox 360 and rebuying Fable II and Fable III for that, which is very unlikely to happen [and I still intend to never buy a X-bone, so that's out, too]) is that this ostensibly upcoming Fable 4 will prompt Microsoft to finally get off of their asses and port Fable 2 to PC and also fix Fable 3 so that it will properly resume working on PC/Steam. Because I will say this: I see very little reason for me to buy this new Fable 4 on PC if I cannot also play the rest of the series there as well (and, as I said, I sure as shit won't be buying it on X-bone, regardless). Also, unless this Fable 4 is truly orgasmic (and I think the odds of that being the case are slim to none), I still don't think it'll ever top Fable 2.
In any case, requiescat in pace Lionhead Studios. Yet another of many "little guy" video game developers who ended up being ultimately destroyed by the big publisher they were bought by, and their IPs, on the whole, have essentially been shat straight down the toilet, for no good reason at all.
So, as I was playing through it, I thought it was just as cool as it ever was, and I've always liked the game, even if it didn't have even a remote chance of ever living up to the ridiculous hype and the even more ridiculous promises made about it by Peter Molyneux before it was released. It's still a good game, despite all of that.
And yet, the whole time I was playing it, I couldn't help but frequently think, "Man, as awesome as this is, I'd so much rather be playing Fable 2 right now." As good as Fable (Anniversary or otherwise) was and still is, Fable 2 blows it out of the water in just about every way, at least as far as I'm concerned. (That said, even Fable 2 never came close to being what the original Fable was crazily promised to be, let alone what Fable 2 itself was promised to be, but wasn't. Still...) The issue, though, is that I no longer have Fable 2 or a console on which to play it, and the likelihood of having such any time soon is pretty low. And Fable 2 is not and never has been available on PC, for whatever asinine reasons, even though the first game is (and the third game is/was, at least for a while, see below).
"Well," I thought to myself, "maybe I'll just get Fable 3 instead, even though it's not quite as good as Fable 2. It's still pretty good, even so." But, no, as it turns out, Fable 3 is no longer on Steam, for inane, dumbshit, "modern video game industry" reasons. And, also, it is apparently rather difficult to play on PC even if you can get your hands on a non-Steam PC copy, due to Games For Windows Live no longer existing, so I'm not at all keen to waste money on that gamble, either.
My only hope now (outside of getting another Xbox 360 and rebuying Fable II and Fable III for that, which is very unlikely to happen [and I still intend to never buy a X-bone, so that's out, too]) is that this ostensibly upcoming Fable 4 will prompt Microsoft to finally get off of their asses and port Fable 2 to PC and also fix Fable 3 so that it will properly resume working on PC/Steam. Because I will say this: I see very little reason for me to buy this new Fable 4 on PC if I cannot also play the rest of the series there as well (and, as I said, I sure as shit won't be buying it on X-bone, regardless). Also, unless this Fable 4 is truly orgasmic (and I think the odds of that being the case are slim to none), I still don't think it'll ever top Fable 2.
In any case, requiescat in pace Lionhead Studios. Yet another of many "little guy" video game developers who ended up being ultimately destroyed by the big publisher they were bought by, and their IPs, on the whole, have essentially been shat straight down the toilet, for no good reason at all.
