Fable 2 Review

Introduction:

Fable 2, the long awaited sequel for the massively popular RPG 'Fable,' on the original Xbox. Massively denounced for its promised features and ridiculed developers, Peter has publicly stated that he has learned his mistakes and will offer a fully dynamic world this time around. Unfortunately, the only aspects of this game that are dynamic is the economy. There are a few things that might change the world depending on your alignment and reputation, but these subtle changes do not make a huge impact on the game environment. For example, you have a choice later in the game to destroy 'Oakvale,' if you decide to slaughter the town, you will eliminate the 'Temple of Light,' which almost ruins your chances to become good later in the game if you are fully evil. However, if you go with the good decisions, the 'Temple of Shadows' will be destroyed. This is predictable later in the game and there are very few moments where events like this occur. Unlike the first fable, this game offers two different schemes for alignment, corrupt or pure, and evil or good. Fortunately for these schemes, they do factor in neutrality and change your looks throughout the game in 9 unique appearances. Some of these look amazingly cool and you will either feel like a hero in the game, or an evil warrior that slaughters innocent children like no tomorrow.

Story:

You start out in the streets as a poor boy with your sister, looking to make money for this special device that grants a wish. Once you have received this item, your one wish is to live in a castle, due to the oncoming winter that you may not survive being homeless. You are awoken from your sleep as Lucien "the evil dictator" orders you to stand in a magic circle in his castle. Lucien shoots your sister and you because you are one of the four heroes of Albion. Your whole mission is to stop Lucien from resurrecting the spire and exacting revenge for killing your sister.

Gameplay:

Boy with a sword

The Game-Play aspect is much improved over its predecessor. It's fluent and simple to switch styles of combat, between ranged, magic, and combat. The targeting in the game is amazingly simple to use, and very accessible later in the game. Once you upgrade your characters styles, it is possible to auto-aim and sub target specific points on your enemy. The melee combat is deep and hard to master, but simple to use and efficient. The game allows you to button mash if necessary. Will combat was somewhat annoying to me; you must charge your spell up which takes around 5 seconds minimum. This process only allows you to use one spell at maximum capacity during a battle. Spells in this game do not offer enough variety, only taking back a few from the first game, some of the fan favorites are lost and offer no buffs whatsoever. After a battle is over you are rated on how well you dispatched your enemies and receive bonus experience, if you did well and used advanced techniques. You are able to create a combat style unique to your own character, by either ranged (skill), magic (will), or melee (strength). These three attributes encompass your characters abilities and create your hero in Albion. However these abilities can be maxed-out within a few days and do not offer variance or limits when playing, so your character cannot become specialized when playing with a buddy or various people over Xbox Live. This was the same with Fable 1, but it wasn't a co-op experience back then. The multi-player portion of the game is a huge let down. You are unable to use your unique character you've built in other people's games. This will promote players to stay in their world and play alone. Furthermore the camera of the online portion is ridiculous, you are unable to move it and both of the players must stay on one screen. I have played multiple games with friends and this camera has ruined the entire experience for me. Sometimes you are unable to move due to the camera, so they have integrated a teleport button just incase this happens. Fortunately the online experience has a few good things going for it. You are able to change the settings of how the experience and gold are distributed between the two players and the innovative way to the games lobby. The whole lobby is the world; you are able to chat to players in almost an MMORPG like experience. This is refreshing and a letdown due to how the games online component could possibly be great.

Fortunately you are able to do practically everything in the game with your buddy, If you are able to get someone to join your world. Unlockables in this game are difficult and unrewarding. I had spent over 4 hours looking for 50 silver keys around the game and received 50,000 gold for it. All of which is useless because the games economy is extremely easy to take advantage of. If you buy out every house in the game you will make 20,000 gold every 5 minutes. You are also able to cheat the game by changing your Xbox system clock and receiving billions. This ruins the whole experience of the game and is aggravating due to the crappy reward for all of the hard work. Most of the rewards earned can either be bought from the shop, or are inferior to equipment that you have already earned by doing a simple quest. Silver keys are easily found throughout the game and more than 75% of the chests only require 20 keys at most, and all of these chests have junk in them. Unfortunately the game is also cheated in other areas, such as experience. You do not have to fight one bit in the game to max out all of your abilities. All you have to do is become rich and buy your way to the top, due to the unbelievable experience potions that offer nearly 70,000 exp for only 4,000 gold. Once you have bought up the stock, you are able to sleep a week and re-purchase the potions again. This ruins the whole game because players who cheat the game with the system-clock can also just glitch their characters to the top. The dog in this game is fairly smart but sometimes has trouble navigating over obstacles and you will find yourself running in circles trying to find its dig spot. This will become painfully obvious when you follow it and all of a sudden the icon stating, "dig spot" disappears and you are 100 yards off the beaten path. There is no mini-map in the game, instead a breadcrumb trail was added that leads you to your current quest. This is accommodating, but the trail sometimes doesn't know where its going and you will find yourself running the wrong way multiple times and asking yourself "WTF Q+A?" The environment has its ups and downs; you are able to explore 90% of what you see in the world. I sometimes get lost in it and I've spent around 30 hours in the game.

However, you are able to fast-travel, and not that it's a bad thing, but players who do so are missing out on the great game world. All of the buildings and shops are purchasable, even little cottages you find throughout the game-world can be bought out. The civilians of Albion are at the mercy of your doing, you are able to set rent, and evict npcs if you will. It's great watching bewildered citizens roam the streets, asking themselves why and where they will get their next paycheck. Surprisingly one thing that I thought would be in bulk in this game was the amount of clothing and appearance options. Unfortunately this isn't the case, it actually has less options than the original Fable. This is horrible due to it being an online experience this time around. I for 1 would love to have a unique looking character with rare loot received from a dungeon. However fable isn't that type of game, and appearance options are secondary to the actual game, it would be nice to actually have something others would have a hard time getting though. Not be a pessimist, but the only accomplishment this game offers game play wise is the innovative world lobby that is almost like an "MMORPG," and the lush free-roaming landscape. This game is far better than the current RPGS on the 360, but the game is just riddled with bugs and could be so much better than it is in its current form.

Graphics:

Graphically the game is great, very smooth, and the environment only extends to that fantasy immersion. It's no Elder Scrolls IV, but it is up there in the graphics department. The textures through the world look amazing and the art direction is top notch. Every square foot of the world feels like a piece of art. I couldn't have asked for a better world than what was given in this installment of the fable franchise.

Sound Design:

Sound design in the game is horrible; there will be delayed sounds and expressions. This will make the game feel like it's skipping on your 360. It's because it is, the game skips like no other, sometimes actually freezing the game for a few moments when trying to navigate to your start menu. Personally this game made my Xbox sound like a generator with a fan and a few rocks inside. Although the voice actors are done quite well, every person in the game sounds like they're from Great Britain for some reason. Sound effects in the game are perfect, it's almost hard to tell like sounds and it doesn't sound repetitive.

Man with dog

Final Thoughts:

This game has many flaws that would scare away most gamers if they knew them, but it also provides great entertainment. It is fun, but not necessarily worth a buy unless you enjoy replaying games. The replayability for this game is great due to the astounding amount of ways you can play it. This is not a game that you play by yourself for hundreds of hours, it is a game that you get on once in a while, do a side mission, and hopefully it doesn't get boring. The game doesn't reward you enough to keep playing once you have unlocked everything the game. I regret buying it just because of these reasons. I have completed the game 100% and I don't see myself playing it anytime in the near future. Once and if 'Lion Head' fixes the online play, it is definitely a buy.