No offense but you should probably replay these games or at least revisit the old reviews. At the time Fable was announced and demoed no game had any of these features. Fable also had several other emergent elements removed, such as being able to procreate and have your children as part of the story. The good and evil element as you mentioned is a signature of Molyneux's god games.
Also, I think we may have an issue with term open ended sandbox. The term refers to the fact there is no proper way to play the game. In the case of a game with a narrative, this results in the story taking the form of whatever the player chooses. This type of gameplay is categorized as emergent. The term emergent can be confusing outside of tech circles and art communities so I didn't bring it up earlier.
Although LARPers, D&D, and other table toppers should be given credit outside of a digital entertainment. One of the first is Simcity for the adaptation of the game to conditions created by the player. However, this doesn't refute my point as its not a RPG nor does it contain an emergent narrative. I don't claim that Fable is a good game and it doesn't delivery in terms of content length. It was more an exercise in technology than actual player experience.
In summary, although games have many of the elements I write about today... the only true single player construct that parallel's Molyneux's announced vision is The Sims, released four years earlier but without the use of a narrative.
