Sable is a good, if flawed game. Buy it on sale - they come regularly - and enjoy it for what it is: an exploration of another world's history and geography, both physical and cultural, in the format of a challenged-yet-visually-alluring video game.

Many of the technical issues covered in earlier reviews have been smoothed over, yet others remain and it will require some experimentation with settings to achieve a reasonable frame rate, especially on low-end GPUs or - at some points - CPUs. Moreover, your bike's controls are finnicky at times (especially at low FPS), which can likewise lead to a break in immersion.

When Sable is flowing, though, it's easy to get drawn into the world presented to you - one both like and unalike ours, where people's faces are hidden behind masks for reasons long forgotten, forcing you to focus on what they say.

There's a story here, or several - of men forced to adapt to a new reality; of a civilization known through its ruins; of species lost in time, space and sand; and on a more mundane level, age-old tales of broken legs, hearts, minds and power generators.

There is a lot of climbing, and while there's a way to make this easier, I'd suggest not looking too hard for it; much of the challenge is figuring out what slope or wall to climb or glide to. Too easy, and the sense of reward upon reaching your goal is lost. Like most things in Sable, you're likely to stumble across it eventually if you keep your eyes peeled.

I wish the developers had been able to add more, as despite having seen more than most Gliders, I have the feeling that I only scratched the surface of the world, particularly in the towns and villages. Even when you can talk to people, some don't have all that much to say - and usually a maximum of one thread of things to do, if anything.

The same could be said outside the relatively few populated areas, where you're often left with little to accompany you but your bike and the lackadaisical or haunting melodies of the background music - some tracks of which bear listening to for longer than others.

And yet... without the wide-open, barren lands and fierce desolation of the far reaches of the world, Sable wouldn't be the game - the experience - that it was ultimately sold as. At least in that respect, it's hard to find much fault.