Ok, well I've had it since release now and played it about 3/4 or more through the game which is good enough to give my impressions of it so here goes.
First off, the graphics are pretty decent, not particularly amazing, but they have a unique art style, sort of a cross between typical fantasy and parody. It really encaptures typical fantasy very well while parrying it to a degree, like some peasants wearing boots on their heads, or metal kitchen implements. The voice acting was fairly decent and sometimes hilariously Monty Python esque.
Next off The combat system was very smooth and not overly teachy. It took awhile to get use to the style with each button being different abilities as I would hit multiple ones, but it was easy to pull off attacks, the targeting/ sliding up to enemies worked well, and the new moves aren't overly tutorialized allowing you to figure it out for yourself.
And, with each level put into the abilities it definately adds some variety and more complicated combat strategies to implement which you will need. The auto targeting for the ranged weapons works very well and they aren't too over powered. The melee is smooth and easy once you get used to the strange style of blocking. And all the magic spells are usefull in different situations and work well in combination with each other. However I did think some times it took too long even for high leveled speels to charge, as enemies attacks takeo ut good portions of health, and it was easier just to attack or shoot an enemy then cast a spell. The next problem is enemies sometimes block so much that it's easier to just shoot them to death then to break their guard, I don't know if this is part of the game mechanic but it troubled me that t=enemies later on would guard so much.
Story/ Mechanics: Through out the game you really did control what happened, not to an amazing rreality defying degree, but enough to make noticable differences in each stage of the world. For example, before leaving for a certain part of the game that took many years story-wise, I donated a large amount of money to the Temple of Light, after I came back I saw it renovated and without my donations it would have faded into memory. Another example is later on in another town you have the option to either invest 5000 gold in a project or not, if you do when you come back the town has turned from a town of thugs into a bright, cheery town. The story itself is fairly average and not too brethtaking, it's more what you do and how things affect each other that is breathtaking. Now be warned (spoilers) I haven't gotten to the end of the story and I have heard rumors there is a big plot twist that involves characters from the original Fable and could set up for a Fable 3 so take my opinion on the story with a grain of salt.
Now most of my major problems with the game are a compilement of minor to middle problems. Firstly, sometimes the game is very laggy and slows down or stops, and I know this isn't my 360 because A. it's not an original model, B. It has not had any problems with any other games I have played on it, I don't know if this was just me or the disc but soemthing could have been done to smooth it out. Next, often the menus can slow down or stop to a frustrating degree and the inventory searching takes a long time to go through and could have easily been more organized. This game is also very glitchy so save often, sometimes you can run through walls, events won't trigger, you might get stuck, etc, now they could fix this with a patch but nonetheless be warned. Finally the enemies seem to scale with you somewhat, not just that you find harder enemies with harder abilities, but weaker ones scale up as well, having done medium difficulty it seems if sometimes I'm playing hard with creatures I was having trouble with early on being just as difficult towards the end of the game, now while it's good to give a challenge, I like plowing through enemies dammit! . Lastly (I know before I said Finally) the AI is sometimes frustrating, most of the time it's fine with a few faults, other times the npc's will have a hard time walking up stairs and opening doors, like retarded alien babies, it's annoying when to complete a quest I need to go inside an npc's house with them, and the npc won't go inside because he's stuck on a step.
But aside from the faults and glitches (which can be fixed but for those of you like me who don't currently have an xbox live connection are screwed.) it's a fairly rousing, exciting, and (as my roomate would say) epic experience. If I was to rate it out of stars I would say 4 out of 5, just like Vinny, I think the game has some great things inside of it, and for most peopel this game is going to be great, but sometimes the glitches and oversights in the system are excedingly frustrating.
