Prior to this years E3, some industry commentators had been of the opinion that Fable might turn out to be little more than what its name decreed. It is true that Big Blue Box’s debut title has had a chequered past. Announced years back as “under development”, then called Project Ego, it braved the Xbox’s variously stormy reception to wow onlookers at E3 2000, and appeared again in successive years. Indeed, it’s become something of an industry truism that, come E3 time, Fable (in whatever guise it chooses to take) will turn up to flash its assembled goods. Until this year, however, the assembly has been slightly less than brilliant. Whilst the shows that BBB and Peter Molyneux put on were top-class, there were always certain issues left uncovered and certain areas of the game left open to criticism. No one bar the testers had explored the guts of the game, and even those that had didn’t come away with wholly glowing reports; the graphics were “great”, the story…well, what story?