Despite the notorious reputation of British Rail, it didn't take long to get from London to Guilford, the sleepy Surrey town that is home to Lionhead Studios. However, finding the studios themselves would've been next to impossible without the help of a local cabbie who was equal parts streetwise and surly.

Ten minutes, six pounds ($12), and several dozen hairpin turns after arriving at the train station, this reporter found himself in a verdant office park that resembled a cross between Silicon Valley and Hobbiton. Tucked away at the back of a building in a remote corner of the park was the front door to Lionhead Studios, the innovative developer run by game-design guru Peter Molyneux.

For the past several years, Lionhead (which is reportedly named after a dead hamster) has been the home of several projects, including the Hollywood sim The Movies and the god-game sequel Black & White 2. Higher profile still was Fable, an Xbox-exclusive title that Molyneux promised would be "the greatest role-playing game of all time" when he announced it in 2001.

Nearly four years later, a developer at Lionhead let the world know Fable was done by holding the gold master up to one of the numerous webcams that dot the office. While such cheekiness would infuriate many studio heads, Molyneux was typically unfazed when he sat down with GameSpot to talk about Fable and hold forth on a variety of other game topics.