Trader

I've been playing this game that Pant's bought called Fable. It's this RPG like game where they've replaced the turn-based "choose attack from the menu" (e.g. Dragon Warrior, 1988, Final Fantasty XLIV, 2005) with what I'd say is a pretty decent fighting interface. You buy armor and swords like in RPGs but then you actually see the armor and swing the swords. There are some interesting quirks to the game: your morally approbatable actions gain you "good points", while your morally disapprobatable actions get you "evil points". There's of course a sliding scale morality meter: killing a peasant is equivalent to kicking a chicken 18 times. It's fun, and adds an interesting dimension to the game. There's a rich trading system where you can buy cheap at one shop and sell high at some other shop. You can play dress up, mixing and matching your armor, just like the dress up I play in SSX 3.

Except, the time that MS put into all the quirks came directly out of the plot development. The game is almost over for me. I've only had it for a little longer than a week.

In undergrad, I put in like 90 hours into Final Fantasy 9 and I don't think I even beat the game.

What little plot there actually is to the game is so thin it's barely worth worrying about. You're this hero who's battered around from one task to the next with little reason, except that there seems to be this grand scheme against you for utterly no reason. There's a bad guy who's had it in for you since your birth. There's some sword he's trying to get and you must stop him because clearly there's no urgency that needs less explanation than an evil super villian getting their hands on 20 pounds of steel. Because, in a world where every town (and there are 4) contains a sword store, there's nothing more menacing than one guy with one sword. He'll probably take over the world if he gets it.

So I've been avoiding the conclusion of the game and instead just wandering around trading diamonds from one shop to a guy at another shop. It's way more fun to set your own goals in this game than to follow the story.