Fable 2 Thread

a R600 game bru .......... nah, for that I want some loooooong ass shyte ;)
 
I must not read reviews, I must not read reviews ....

http://www.8bitjoystick.com/archives/jake_review_fable_2_for_xbox_360.php

This game should be as big a killer application game for the Xbox 360 as Metal Gear Solid 4 was for the PS3. It is better than the last two Legend of Zelda games and that is coming from an admitted life-long Nintendo fanboy. This is one of the best western developed games and I can't wait to see what Lionhead studios can do with the future of the Xbox platform. This is a much better game than Grand Theft Auto IV. I have only had this game for a couple of days but I have already surpassed my Xbox Live achievements on this game than GTA IV. If you own a Xbox 360 or are planning on getting one than you really need to consider getting this game. This is not only one of the best games of the year but it is a defining reason to own and Xbox 360.
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doobiwan said:
Most reviews are saying the story mode run through is about 15 hours, that's if you pretty much ignore the side quests. Apparently once the main quest is finished the game goes Sandbox and there's basically no limit, except maybe once you own everything in the game.
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A bit like Assassins creed then? :)
 
Sounds promising. I must admit i'm a bit with M_H on this one. Even for a main quest, 10-15 hours is damn short. IGN's review raised some issues with regards to texture pop-in and characters/your dog walking through doors, but by no means is that a deal breaker.
And if like the reviewer above states that it's miles better than GTAIV, it should be awesome - GTAIV was the biggest overhyped pile of turds.

I just hope it's not too sandboxy. What i hate about sandbox games is, fine, you can go anywhere, do anything, but there's rarely a purpose to it. Bring back the likes of Baldur's Gate where the world(maps) are finite, but the story and gameplay makes it one of the most memorable RPG's ever.

I will judge it come the 24th. My weekend will be spent juggling between Fable 2 and Far Cry 2.:D
 
Well I read the IGN one last night on my phone while watching movies and it got and 8.8 and the reviewer was really nit-picking though...
There was nothing wrong with the game itself except for the fact that the reviewer felt that the expressions were "too goofy" for the game...the dog's textures and the walking through doors.
This game seems to be more GTAIV RPG. :D

So I am still getting this game no matter what!

I listened to IGN reviews with Dragons Quest 8 and hated the game, felt it was tedious with sub par graphics and story but it got an 9/10 from IGN.
I did not listen to IGN when Lost Odyssey got an 8/10 and thoroughly enjoyed the game!
 
Fable 2 Review...I think that this one kind of sums the game up...and it is quite extensive, so it will require multiple posts...
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/games/fable-2-review.ars

POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Part 1!

The journey is the reward
Fable II
Developer: Lionhead Studios
Publisher: Microsoft
Platform: Xbox 360
Price: $59.99 (Shop.Ars)
Rating: Mature


The original Xbox quickly became known as a box full of shooters and sports games after its launch in 2001. This lack of diversity is one of the chief reasons why Sony's PlayStation 2 carved out a lead during the early stages of last generation's console war. Because of this image, Microsoft was hopeful that one exclusive RPG worthy of the Xbox platform could make a difference. That game was Fable.

Peter Molyneux of Lionhead Studios, industry veteran and acclaimed mind behind Populous and Black and White, was charged with the task of realizing that RPG. With a blend of firearms, swords, and spells, a visual engine based on moral choices, and the claim that every action the player made would forever influence the world around him, Fable slowly gained an incredible amount of hype.

Unfortunately, the game failed to deliver all that fans had hoped it would be. Molyneux's vast, sweeping promises didn't match one to one with what the game actually contained, and fans were left bitter by the lack of features, the limited morality engine, and a relatively short campaign. For all the incredible ideas, the game was limited at launch. An expansion that followed the original release a year later did wonders for improving the original, but most had all but forgotten what was to be the Xbox's great RPG.

Fast forward a few years and the times feel remarkably similar. Microsoft has thrown a ton of money into Fable II, even going so far as to scoop up the development studio behind it. Molyneux has spouted countless head-in-the-clouds dreams, high-level philosophies, and all kinds of rhetoric to hype up the sequel to the Xbox's premiere, exclusive, Western RPG in Fable II. The man nearly cried when discussing the game's canine companion, conducted a symphony when discussing the game's combat, and produced flow-charts and conjured complex diagrams to explain the game's simulation system. And in the end, his grand ideas are now pressed and printed en masse: a simple DVD for your enjoyment.


A bigger world with more to see and do makes Fable II a vastly-improved successor to the original.
But where the original game failed, its successor triumphs. Believe it or not, much of what Molyneux has spent the last two years pitching to journalists and fans has come to fruition in what can only be described as one of the most engaging RPG experiences of the year. Fable II may not be the best RPG ever made, and it lacks depth in a few key areas, but it succeeds in creating an experience that is undeniably fun, fresh, and rich in content. In many ways, it feels as though the original Fable was only a demo for Fable II and not a proper predecessor. It even succeeds in a way that many games don't in that, like the prototypical socially-perpetuated title The Sims, it creates stories unique to the player that beg to be retold to friends outside of the game.

However, this praise comes with one strong caveat, one reality that every one who sinks time into the game will have to face. Fable II can be summed up with the following Chinese proverb:

The journey is the reward.

Though there is plenty to see and do in the game, it's all the asides, the flower-smelling rather than the flower-picking, that prove to be compelling and not so much the main quest and the end goal. As though it were a fantasy-based Grand Theft Auto title or even something like Oblivion, much of the fun in Fable II is made by the player, and completing the story isn't where the real rewards from the game are reaped. The game plays how you want it to play, more so than most as a result of the numerous complex systems at work in the game world, and your decision to plow through the story and to skip getting married or playing the business game or augmenting weapons will vastly change your play experience.

To opt out of any of these other endeavors is to miss the very essence of Fable II. So little of the game is forced on the player, and it's incredibly easy to miss out on the content that's right there waiting to be discovered. As a result of the game's morality and character development systems, there will surely be content that's glossed over or inaccessible. This is a game that warrants multiple play-throughs and heading off the beaten path at every possible moment. With that in mind, let us dissect all that is Fable II.
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Part 2!

On Narrative
Because of the nature of Fable II's design, the game is best discussed (to put years of otherwise-useless literary theory to use) through the school of structuralism: taking the product apart piece by piece as a composite system composed of many different sub-systems that work together to make the game function. Together, the combat system, the character development system, the questing system, the social system, and all of the game's many different aspects combine with an overall narrative to create an impressive and multi-faceted organism the breadth of which is staggering. To make it digestible, though, the game is best divided into three main super-systems: narrative, combat, and simulation.

At the top of the hierarchy is the questing system, which is largely intertwined with the overall narrative and the focal point of the adventure. The game begins with your hero as a child, and you move through what amounts to a tutorial level learning the basic mechanics of questing. You'll take on your first few quests, make some moral decisions along the way—which we'll return to later—and generally learn the flow of narrative and questing in Fable II. Once this opening section has been bested, though, the game opens up to reveal that the questing system is really the crux upon which the game as a whole turns.

It's hard to critique the actual narrative of Fable II. I can't tell you about the story, and whether it's good or bad, because there isn't one. There is only your story. That may sound like PR rhetoric, but it's the truth. How I played through the game, whom I interacted with, the decisions I made, the deaths I suffered, the victories I cherished: all of these amounted to an experience that was mine and mine alone. How yours will be is impossible to predict. But what can be discussed is the way that questing works, and the way that narrative factors in to the overall play experience of the game.


The rhetoric is true: everyone's story will be different in some ways.
Questing in the game works very much like the standard open-ended Western RPG. At any one time, you can take on a number of primary and secondary missions. You can set a specific quest to be your primary quest, and the game will guide you toward completing that quest. The main story arc functions as the single longest and most fleshed out quest line, as was true of Oblivion, but all quests in the game obey a certain set of rules: you'll have a starting objective which leads into a chain of other objectives through to the end and a reward.

The main "narrative" quest has a few trimmings that the other quests don't have, in that certain sections of the quest will send you to locked places in the world where you'll learn more about the main story arc, watch some animated FMV sequences, and generally experience what some would consider the main "story" of Fable II. But, much like Oblivion, the main story arc really is best viewed as just another quest: the game continues when it's over, and the rest of the content is decidedly more interesting. The main quest in Fable II serves its purpose, but it's easy to be disappointed with the game overall if you're only interested in that one narrative and in the end reward of that one quest.

Thankfully, all the quests share much of what makes the main quest so special: the trademark British humor, complete with excellent voice-acting work, supplemented by some strong writing. There are moments to laugh out loud about, moments to cry about, and moments to get angry and seek revenge. The story elicits a whole gamut of emotions, and in that regard it's laudable. This is largely because Fable II features one of the most well-constructed and fleshed-out worlds ever in a console game.

Though the landscape itself is a gorgeous place to explore, it's the game's inhabitants and the feeling of culture that exists throughout the lands that really proves impressive. The game offers a rare treat in that the NPCs don't feel like NPCs: they go about their days like people and react realistically to so many different kinds of stimuli.

You got your sociology in my RPG

There's a distinct culture in the game that's unlike anything else. In the world of Fable II, there are famous musicians, dashing playwrights, highly-respected doctors, sequestered writers producing rare and in some cases banned books, renowned artists and sculptors, frightful bounty hunters, notorious thieves, dashing pirates, and rich, corrupt lords pulling the strings behind the scenes of it all. This is a world of people, and the fact that the game could convince you to hunt down a banned book for no other reason than just to read it and see why the people of Albion decided it was to be banned is fascinating.

The world itself has many natural artifacts, too, that are fascinating. As though it were a famous character unto itself, the world of Albion is home to various landmarks and hidden secrets that bear seeking out, and many of them have a story unto themselves waiting to be told. One such example of this is the collection of Demon Doors. Scattered throughout the world are these live doors which hide vast treasures behind them. The living doors spring to life when you near them and begin talking to your character, offering some kind of hint on how to open them. One door "senses your greed" and offers to open itself only if you fully commit to the "sins of the flesh." These kinds of little worldly touches combine with the culture of the game to create an impressive living entity awaiting exploration and interaction.

In addition to the culture is a real-time day and night cycle, with time acting as a guiding hand for the inhabitants of Albion. Shops will open and close, people will socialize or keep to themselves based on the time of the day, different kinds of folk appear at certain hours, weeks pass, jobs come and go: the entire world changes by the tick of its internal clock, which passes as you play in real-time, by leaps if you travel from one area to another via a coach or on "instant-travel" automated foot, and by bounds at certain parts of the main story. This does wonders for maintaining the illusion that the world is alive.


Some of the secondary quests are hilarious, such as the Temple of Shadows torture wheel task.
Beyond the main story arc, the secondary quests do manage to be entertaining as well. Though the game has its fair share of melodramatic moments, much of the side content involves extremely humorous and enjoyable fodder. As an isolated example, one quest requires you to meet a ghost at midnight who tells you that the love of his life decided she didn't love him and turned down his proposal. To get back at her, he commissions you to seduce her and then, at the last moment, hand her a hilarious rejection note written by the ghost.

There are also a number of other side quests that can be undertaken, some of which seem endless as they seemingly just plop an objective randomly in the world and have you hunt it out. You can perform various jobs in town, such as hammering away on swords as a blacksmith or searching for artifacts hidden in the world for an archeologist. All the games from Fable II Pub Games are included as well. All of this plays into the game's simulation system, but we'll get back to that later. The take-away here is that there are a ton of story missions and a ton of side-quests to find and perform, some of which only become available after completing the main story line.

Nevertheless, you'll be free to move about the game's open world play. With a few exceptions during the progression of the main story arc, Fable II is an open game: you can go wherever you want and do whatever you want at any time, provided that the area has been made accessible during the course of the main story quest. Whether you're moving around the main quest or going off on your own, at some point your adventuring boils down to the second major system: combat.
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Part 3!



On Combat
Combat in Fable II is arguably the most contentious issue in the game. It's very easy to become enamored of the simple but flexible three-button combat, and it's also easy to find it painfully shallow and lacking in much variety. But, like most of the other aspects of the game, combat in Fable is really what you make of it.

Combat and combat experience are broken down into three main branches: melee, which uses the X button and rewards blue "strength" experience; ranged, which uses the Y button and rewards yellow "skill" experience; and magic, which uses the B button and rewards red "skill" experience. By tapping one of these buttons during combat, you'll use the given attack: press X and you'll swing your sword, press Y and you'll shoot your bow or gun, and press B and you'll cast a spell. Together, these three different aspects of combat round out your character and determine how he or she evolves.

Attacking enemies with a given attack rewards experience orbs relative to the type of attack used, and when an enemy dies it rewards green "neutral" experience orbs. These different experience orbs are used like currency to purchase new skills. By earning the appropriate type of experience orbs, players can purchase different abilities in a given faculty: earning strength experience allows a player to purchase strength skills, and so on. In addition, the extra pool of "neutral" experience can be used to supplement other experience points in order to buy skills.


Swordplay is fun, but combat may be a bit too simple for some.
Spending experience orbs in a given pursuit also acts as a way of subtly improving your characters stats and capacity at that skill. Spending lots of magic orbs over time makes you a better magician, for example, giving you faster recharge on your spells and increasing the base damage that you do. And, should you be unhappy with the way your character turns out, you can refund orbs dipped into any area to redistribute them at a cost of 50 percent.

Gameplay-wise, each of the three avenues has its own play-style. As you level up in swords, you'll slowly learn how to block, how to parry, and how to execute more devastating maneuvers like charged attacks. All of this is done by pressing the X button in various ways; holding it while standing still blocks, holding it while pointing in a direction charges an attack, and tapping it rhythmically executes combos. The rhythmic attacking, which we actually took a looked at in video form back at E3 last year, feels great, especially when combined with the cinematic angles that highlight "flourishes," which are well-timed combos.


Ranged attacks are much different. Initially you can only tap the button to fire, but eventually you'll learn how to aim in third-person and be able to pin-point specific parts of an enemy's body. Because skill is dexterity-based, you'll also learn other valuable skills such as rolling to evade attacks. Surprisingly, this aspect of the game feels the most fleshed out: it's not hard to look at a master ranged attacker and see a bonafide third-person shooter in Fable II except without the nuisance of having to find ammo.

Magic, the last of the three, is also wildly different. Rather than unlocking progressive abilities, players sink magic orbs into various spells and subsequent spell levels. The higher the level of a spell, the more damage it does. All of the spells have two different modes: targeted and area. By holding the B button without pressing in a direction, you can execute the area version of a spell while aiming it toward an enemy, while the left analog stick makes it a targeted one. As there is no ammo for the ranged attacks, there are no magic points for the spells: you can cast indefinitely.

When steel and spell fail
Of the three systems, only the magic system feels cumbersome. The problem with the magic system is that, unlike swords and ranged, there are multiple spell types which can be used. Because there are no magic points to worry about consuming, the game uses a charging system to activate higher-level spells. Essentially, you have a ladder of spells that is climbed the longer you hold the B button down. The problem is that only one spell type can be set to each rung of the ladder, and changing what spell is at what level on the fly is extremely cumbersome and dangerous in combat as it disables you, leaving the enemy free to attack you. This means that you can only have one spell type at a given spell level at a time. Given that there is a wide range of different spells, all capable of being leveled up five times, this creates some issues for magicians hoping to use a wide range of skills at any one time.

But the biggest complaint that can be levied against the combat system is that devoting oneself to a specific pursuit comes with a severe handicap that can, at times, make the game incredibly difficult. In a sense, this is a neat trick to make the game more difficult for advanced players, but it's hard not to feel frustrated when the game seems purposefully designed to push you toward using all of the weapons at your disposal rather than just the one you favor—especially because certain enemies virtually require one type of attack over the others. This is reinforced by the fact that stringing together multiple attack styles successfully rewards vast amounts of bonus experience.

In addition to these player-controlled combat options, the other uncontrollable aspect of combat involves your dog. For the majority of the game, the hero is joined by his faithful companion. The dog serves as a pet that is capable of doing a few unique tricks, but mainly it supplements combat. By training your dog with books, it becomes more useful, attacking downed enemies and even being able to finish off weak ones as you progress. Of course, this comes at a cost: your dog can be injured and requires attention afterward in order to be healed and effective in combat again.


Magic suffers somewhat from a clumsy interface that makes switching spells cumbersome.
You'll also have to take care of yourself when injured. Because there are no healing spells, using food and potions is paramount to survival. The game queues these items up automatically on the d-pad, which is welcome in the heat of battle. You'll also have to spend some time and money equipping yourself with gear.

Sadly, the equipment portion of the game is decidedly underwhelming. There are only a few different archetypes of weapons for melee and ranged, and there aren't very many different weapons. Generally speaking, there are four types of each archetype to be found: worn, iron, steel, and master. That means that there are really only four cutlasses, or four katanas, or four long-swords to be found.

Thankfully, a weapon customization system is in place to allow some customization. Certain weapons will have slots which can be fitted with "Augments." These augments are basically gems which contain various effects that are attributed to weapons when socketed into them. Some augments can increase attack abilities, while others have social effects which we'll discuss later. You can also suit your character up with various types of clothing. There is no true armor in the game: clothing is largely aesthetic and serves to fill vanity purposes only. However, there is a respectable variety of clothing, as well as dyes that can be used to customize your gear.

In terms of gameplay, the combat in Fable II is varied and fun for the most part, though it's admittedly simple and can get boring after extended spurts. If you're expecting the kind of depth akin to a normal action game, with various combos and flash moves, you may be disappointed. The strength of the combat lies in the way the player mixes and matches the different abilities to create unique chains. But what's most interesting about the combat, the ability specialization, and the equipment in Fable II is actually the way it interacts with the last, and the biggest, aspect in the game's expansive simulation system.
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@Kage:Hey, an 8 is still damn good. I think i will thouroughly enjoy Fable 2, even though i wanted it to have a more "epic" feel to it.
Come next Monday, everyone should post their own subjective impressions/mini-review of the game, pros, cons etc. That should be more decisive than the reviews coming from the big-guns on the net.
 
Part 4!



On Simulation
Easily the most complex and arguably the most impressive of the game's super-systems is the simulation game. Beyond the questing and combat akin to any normal action RPG, this is where Fable II really comes into its own, and this is the one aspect of the game that realizes much of Molyneux's hype.

As was the case with the first game, a large portion of the draw for Fable is that the character evolves visually and in other, more important ways based on how the player acts in the game world. Like many Western RPGs, there are meters and statistics which determine whether you are good or evil based on your actions. The more evil you are, the more evil you look: you'll sprout horns, you'll grow fat if you eat too much food and sleep too much, and you'll sport a menacing grimace if you become corrupt; or, you'll grow radiant, tall, and handsome if you become pure and good. These aspects fluctuate over time as your character changes his behavior, and they affect both you and your dog, whose appearance mimics yours.

However, the simulation system in Fable II is much more advanced and intricate than that of its predecessor. In addition to the quests, which have moral choices that result in large blooms of either good or evil experience, the subtleties of social interaction play a large part in the way your character evolves. Every interaction you have with other residents of Albion now affects the way you change through a series of actions and reactions.


The variety of the game's emotes and their subsequent animations are wonderful.
The most obvious of these interactions are emotes, which are preset actions that impact characters in different though obvious ways. Laugh and sing with people and your "good" points go up, while yelling or smacking people makes it go down. There are a ton of emotes to be found, some of which are only available to you if you're very good or very evil. Some even have interactive elements which require you to hit a timed button press or risk failing the emote and instilling the opposite effect on NPCs (read: a funny fart gone wrong will disgust). However, emotes get less effective over time when used repeatedly on the same person, so learning new ones and mixing them up is important. You can also use a specific emote to give NPCs gifts, which affects their opinion of you in various ways.

Every individual NPC now has three meters that convey their opinion of you and are influenced by your actions: hate-love, ugly-attractive, and mean-funny. They also have certain likes and dislikes (gifts, regions, or certain expressions) which you can meet for various effects. Manipulating these on a person-by-person basis can have numerous rewards. By increasing the meters of certain people, you can gain certain rewards. Increase a character's love gauge and you will be able to marry him or her (the game makes no distinction about sexual orientation) or receive gifts from them or, if they happen to be a shopkeeper, receive discounts. The more people that like or dislike you in a region, the more famous or infamous you are in that region.

Death also influences you visually. When you die in Fable II, you are instantly re-spawned on the spot with no break in combat. If you're carrying a resurrection potion, all is well. However, if you're not carrying said potions, you'll suffer a permanent scar. As far as I've seen, there are no ways to reverse scarring. Scarring affects people's opinion of you; if you're good-aligned and scarred, people will think you're a battle-worn hero, whereas if you're evil-aligned and scarred, people will think you're an ugly wretch.

All of these various social interactions, moral decisions, and quest completions factor in to the player's visual appearance changes. Even combat affects your character's appearance: you'll build strong muscles over time if you prefer melee weapons, you'll get lanky and wry if you prefer ranged, and you'll slowly begin to glow with magic runes all over your body if you favor magic. But that's not the entirety of the simulation game. There are a few other key areas where the simulation game gets a little deeper.

Mawage, mawage is wot bwings us togetha today...
As was mentioned, you can get married. The game has no qualms with you marrying man or woman, nor does it have qualms with you marrying multiple times. Marrying someone is as easy as getting them to love you enough and then providing them with a ring and a marital house. Once you're married, you'll have access to a "family" tab in your menu that allows you to track the various socially-influenced ratings of your family. Keeping your family happy requires giving them an allowance and visiting frequently. At times, the game can feel a bit like a fantasy version of Grand Theft Auto IV in this regard, which can be annoying, as your family tends to be quite needy, and you'll have to frequently return to them to maintain the relationship lest the relationship end in divorce.

You can also have sex in Fable II, both protected and unprotected. Unprotected can lead to STDs for your character, which influence the way that people feel about you, and you can birth children, either with those that you are married to or in random encounters. The child eventually grows up and becomes an NPC in the world, and your children visually evolve independently based on how you treat them.


Your dog may need attention now and then, but he is always useful. As for your spouse...
As with your children, your dog also needs attention from time to time. When the dog isn't fighting with you, finding treasure, or supplementing your emotes with actions of its own which can be improved by finding special training books in the world, your dog can be interacted with in a few ways that vastly affect your relationship with it. You can reward your dog with treats for a job well done, praise it or punish it, and play fetch with it. Depending on how you treat your dog, its abilities evolve. Scold it frequently and neglect it and it will find treasure less but be more effective in combat. Pamper it, and it will play with you until the day's over but will generally run off distracted during combat. The dog's evolution is surprising flexible.

The work and income aspect of Fable II is also incredibly unique. You can take up boring, button-press jobs to make money such as blacksmithing or woodcutting; you can take up public service like freeing slaves or clearing out bounties, or you can even steal (with the appropriate lawful repercussions). You can also own businesses and houses in Fable II, which can generate vast amounts of income—even when the game is off. You can manually adjust sales prices and rent, which ultimately influences whether you are pure or corrupt. No matter what you charge, people will pay it, so it's entirely a moral decision. Both can be furnished to increase their value, as well.

The simulation aspect of Fable II is far-and-away the most matured and well-rounded part of the game. I've done my best to break down how the system works, but the proof can only be seen when playing the game yourself. This is where the lasting power of Fable II is born and where, as I mentioned in the opening of this review, the lasting and unique stories are generated.
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Part 5!

Flowers for Albion
Taken together, the game's three super-systems—narrative, combat, and simulation—come together to make Fable II what it is. All the subsequent systems play into one of these three aspects and, from the view of the structuralist, it's hard not to admire what Molyneux has put together here. Fable II is an incredibly complex and varied experience with a breadth seen in few games. And the true joy of the game is not in reaching the end of it but in the journey on the way there. The game has no true ending.

Yet, the lack of depth and some of the accessibility design choices may leave some scratching their heads. Though I haven't spent much time talking about this, there are a few areas of the game that have been specifically designed to make the experience more accessible... to a fault. The golden breadcrumb trail will likely be the biggest talking point in this regard, so it's worth mentioning.

Throughout the game, a golden trail leads you to your primary objective. This trail is literally a golden line on the ground which, if followed, leads from anywhere in the world to where you need to go. The world of Fable II is sizable enough that such a device is warranted, but it's hard not to see the problems with this kind of hand-holding. Not only does it prove distracting—it's extremely easy to pass by objectives or treasure because of this hypnotizing line to success—but the inadvertent effect of this is laziness on the part of the player. By thirty hours into my adventure, I wasn't even really paying attention to where I was going on a quest: I was just following the line and veering off of it when I saw treasure.

There are other areas in which this "accessibility over complexity" design agenda can be harmful. In the business aspect of the game, you can advance to the point where you can become a King in a city that you control the majority of. But you can't do anything with that Kingship, so it's really just a title. These little dead-ends can be found in virtually every aspect of the game.

But, ultimately, these deficiencies don't diminish the fact that Fable II is stuffed to the brim with content. The original game was largely criticized because there wasn't enough content to justify the hype. That problem has been rectified. Fable II is, like Oblivion before it, the kind of game that people will sink not days or weeks into but months or even years, because there's always a story to be found: it's just up to you, as the player, to make it.


The game's ability to create stories is key to its appeal.
The Hero's Fate
Though I've written more for this review than I was supposed to, I wish that I could write fifty pages on Fable II. It's hard to boil my thoughts on the game down to just four pages: there's so much to see and do in Molyneux's latest rendition of Albion that it's hard to get to the meat of the game and let the rest speak for itself. Whether you love or hate the man and his sometimes-pretentious claims, his latest game is worthy of praise.

There are a few aspects of the game that I didn't touch upon that don't need many words. The graphics are technically disappointing but artistically excellent; the game's style is impressive but the bouts of slow-down during latter encounters and the sometimes washed-out look of the game can be a let-down. The audio, however, is near-flawless: excellent voice-acting and fitting music the whole way through make the game a treat for the ears.

The inclusion of co-op is something that's a big selling point for the game, but it's not worth spending much time on in the review. The game includes both drop-in, drop-out offline co-op, as well as online co-op, both of which are excellent and offer something unique beyond just buddying up for combat, in that players can perform tag-team moves and expressions, and the visiting player has a lasting impact on the home player's world. In that regard, the co-op is excellent. Disappointing, though, is that, in both flavors, visiting players do not use their actual avatars: they use henchmen which take the place of their avatars and transfer gold and experience orbs back to their own player. Whether or not that will change with the launch day patch will be followed-up on in Opposable Thumbs.

There are other specifics and small nuances to the game that I've left out to let you discover. Because, ultimately, Fable II is a game that everyone will experience differently. I've done my best to make this review less about my own experience, less about the specifics of the game, and more about how the mechanics could shape yours, because that's what makes Fable II so impressive. It may not be entirely "sandbox" in nature, but its uncanny ability to shape itself around you rather than forcing you to cope with it is rare, and it's because of the way the game's various systems work to support this design intention that Fable II stands as one of the best RPGs of the year and easily one of the finest titles in the Xbox 360 library.

The good
Beautiful art style
Excellent writing, voice acting
Extremely well-developed world
Tons of quests

Incredible tapestry and breadth of great gameplay systems
Great achievements

Local and online co-op
The bad
Some visual bugs and slowdown issues
Co-op visiting player can't use actual character
Combat can be hit or miss
Breadcrumb trail is hard to live without but makes you lazy
Lacking depth in some areas

Generally not very challenging
The ugly
Deciding to put off questing for that rare treasure you've been seeking for weeks on your one day off from real-life work because the townspeople want your blood for overcharging, your wife is pregnant with your third child and she wants more money and nice furniture for the family, your ex-wife is sleeping with the blacksmith at the store you own, and your first-born son is attacking the neighbor's chickens with the toy sword you gave him.
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I see they complain about the combat system where as IGN say its brilliant,I guess its what you make of it.
 
Ok, of everyone getting the game this weekend, who will specifically go for creating a "good" character and how many will try "bad" on their 1st playthrough? Corrupt or pure?
 
Kerrrang! said:
Ok, of everyone getting the game this weekend, who will specifically go for creating a "good" character and how many will try "bad" on their 1st playthrough? Corrupt or pure?
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Hmmm...I have been thinking about it and normally I play good/pure but this might be the exception where I play a whoring/evil bitch. :p

I'll see how it plays, I normally play with a character, play a few hours and then start again... :p
 
Online Co-op for Fable 2 fixed...
Fable II multiplayer: online play is still a go!
By Michael Thompson | Published: October 09, 2008 - 02:00PM CT

The closer Fable II gets to its launch date, the more things seem to be flip-flopping around. First, it was announced that the game's multiplayer modes wouldn't initially include online play, then it was revealed the Limited Collector's Edition was getting whittled down to include almost nothing extra. Now, it turns out that the game will include online playability at launch. It's been revealed, via the Fable II developer's blog, that the game's online play will be available for anyone who happens to be connected via Live.

"Remember a couple of days ago (or was it a week) where on a blog it was mentioned that Fable II would be shipping 'without' Online Co-op?" the developers noted in their blog. "And remember we said we were busting our balls to get it ready in time for a 'Day One' release? Well, GOOD news, folks! It looks like we've done it... for all of you who are connected to Xbox Live, when starting up your copy of Fable II."

Since Lionhead's announcement about online play left a lot of gamers unhappy, it sounds like the team was working overtime to appease their fans. Good news? You betcha.
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