Fable Anniversary

Many, many years ago, I encountered a video game. Now, let me state from the get-go that I am not a huge gamer. Well, at 6'6" and 300 lbs, maybe huge is the correct adjective, but gamer, not so much. But I had gotten myself an Xbox 360 and was out looking for a way to waste a few hours while avoiding homework. And lo, there appeared Fable. A sword and sorcery tale of a young boy growing to manhood, making fateful decisions that would revolutionize how the game developed. If it didn't freeze every time I played it. I scoured the forums, and heard a great cry "it would be a great game, if it didn't keep freezing." In was a patient man, back in the day, and I would reboot the game until I managed to make it to the final chapter. And then I gave it to a friend and made him promise never to let me near it again.

Well, time makes fools of us all.  I'm now two states removed from the pain, and don't even remember the friend I gave the game to, and I've been feeling this odd longing to replay Fable. Like the alcoholic that craves that one last beer, I know it will lead to no good, but I have to have it. And so imagine my surprise to find Fable Anniversary on the shelf at Target! It was fate. I was destined to replay it. I remember some vague dissatisfaction the last time, but surely the kinks would be worked out. If they went to the trouble of updating and republishing, surely they fixed the issue that cause screams of anguish from fans.

I loaded it. I watched with a certain glee as the splash screens came and went. And there I was, standing silently in Oakvale, my father lecturing me about my sister's birthday. The controls still felt awkward, like my first love making, and just as oddly dissatisfying. But I played. I watched the cut-scenes that made me feel like I was watching a cartoon, rather than playing a game. I enjoyed the visuals, nicely done. After playing Oblivion for so long, I have forgotten that there was a time when games didn't let you roam anywhere.

And then it froze. Just like that, an hour, two hours in. I could hear the birds singing, but I couldn't even pass gas humorously. I waited patiently, as skill that is sadly in decline, I admit. I walked away. I tried to be reasonable with it, talk it through it's moment of crisis, but nothing. Just birds chirping. I tried to go to the Xbox menu, but it insisted on staying, mocking my pain. Finally, I went to restart the system.

I went online. Maybe mine was the sole copy. Better, maybe they had a patch ready, though I was prepared to be stumped that it hadn't updated when I installed it. Sure enough, there were the cries. It's frozen, it's frozen. Minnesota doesn't freeze like this. And the reply, " We are working on the problem." YOU NIMRODS HAD 10 YEARS TO FIX THIS!

**Ahem** Sorry. Kind of got away from me for a second there. See, it's every time I play. It's almost as it the developers were like, gee, we need to encourage people to see the real forests, so lets make the game come to a complete and TOTAL FREAKING STOP AND LOCK UP THE SYSTEM SO THEY HAVE TO GO OUT! 10 YEARS!!

And I'm grateful, really I am. I'll take the time to go out on my patio, listen to the kids playing baseball across the street and smoke my cigar. I'll be happy, being out and away and knowing that some things never change.