Fable II Review:

So – does Fable 2 live up to its hype?

by Shadow Wave:

©2008 Ben Cadwallader:

Lionhead Studio’s second attempt at the Fable franchise has finally been released.  Fable 2 takes place 500 years after the events of Fable 1, and throws you into the shoes of a new character who also must save the world, this time with your trusty side-kick “dog”  by your side.

So, the big question is, does Fable 2 live up to its hype?

Fable 2′s story begins when your character is just a child who is homeless and being looked after by his/her older sister (you have a choice of male or female character). The childhood sequences serve as your tutorial into the game, teaching you how to go about the world and interact with the environments and NPC’s within it. As with the original game, you need to earn some money by performing different tasks along the way. In this case, so that you can buy a magic box from a local merchant, which could be their ticket out of the slums.

Some nasty events happen at the end of the childhood sequence however, which gives your character a motive for revenge and justice during his/her later teen years. Which is where the real game begins. The general story is pretty simple really. You must save the world from the villain by finding key people whom teamed together, can bring the villain down.  I found that the pace and story is very familiar with the original Fable game.

Fable’s gameplay promised to be much more ‘influential’. One comment was, that your actions would have a greater impact on the world around you throughout the game. This has been done to a degree. There are certain areas of the game where you will jump ahead in time. As you continue playing, you will get to see the influences of your actions, such as if you help out the Temple of The Light (Good Alignment). The end result is that their temple would be much larger, with the surrounding towns farming fields looking much different than before.

However, nothing in the game will change hugely as you watch it, which is unfortunate.  As with the original game, your choices do affect the townspeople and how they react and interact with you as you perform your deeds. If you pull your sword out in front of someone, they will run away and your respect from the townspeople drops as you have put a sense of fear into them.  The townspeople will respond to little events like that, or even larger story driving moments that they will mention as they run up to congratulate you. It is a great feeling to see them coming over to applaud you actions, which brings me to the next item, expressions.

Your character still has no dialogue in Fable 2, but does have access to a greater range of expressions than previously. These can be used to scare, anger, entertain, flirt and even get people to love you.  You can do such things as putting on a sock-puppet show, all the way through to playing dead if the need was there to do so. Your dog will also have his own expressions that are played at the same time you perform yours.

Selecting expressions is much easier this time around. Tap the right bumper to bring up a wheel of easy to select options with your joystick. Some expressions can continue on if you hold down the “A” button. This increases your influence on others and yourself, but you do have to release the button at the right time, unless you want to make a fool of yourself, like soiling yourself which will not impress your lady friends!

Unfortunately there is a flaw in the game. As your character becomes more famous, more and more people will run up to you to either congratulate or be with you. As you use an expression on one person,  it will also affect everyone else around you as well. So do prepare yourself for the fact that by the end of the game, you may well have many people who are in love with you. And yes, they will follow you and basically get in your way, or simply be a nuisance at some point, but it’s really a minor issue.

People will react differently to you if you are a good or evil, pure or corrupt. (I chose to be good). If you try to be a good person, you will be blessed with a Halo appearing above your head, plus your dog will turn a lovely golden colour, much like a Labrador. However, if you are a bad, you will grow horns and your dog will also look much more evil and menacing. Although, it is a great deal harder to become a truly good person over a longer period, than it is to turn evil.

But the biggest innovation in Fable 2 is your dog. And to be honest, I believe the dog lived up to its expectations.  You find your dog right at the beginning of the game as a child, and it sticks with you through thick and thin. Your dog will fight for you, find treasure, do tricks, get injured and get scared.  You really do become attached to your dog in this game.

When I found it in pain as it limped towards me, I actually felt for the dog and wanted him to get better. As your character runs forward your dog will often sprint off ahead off of you a little in the distance and it certainly looks real. All the dog’s actions seem very realistic and helps it does seem much more authentic. He is also very obedient and will wait for you when you enter houses, plus he will help you when you are caught in a sticky situation. Overall this feature is great!

Combat – I have nothing bad to say about it really. It’s great and the simple use of only the X button somehow is enjoyable. You don’t just mash X as fast as possible either. You time it, or hold it down for extended periods to achieve different effects and attacks. Fighting sounds much more real this time around and it really does draw you in when you hear the ringing noise of sword as steel clashes against steel.

Ranged combat is much more fluent and firing weapons is as fun as melee. Magic was great, although I think I prefer how it was done in the first game.  Fable 2 has this ‘charge up’ system where the more you charge up, the stronger the attack is, and each level of charge can be a different magic attack if you choose as well. But I found I did not enjoy it as much as the simple press once moves of the original title. However, I’m sure magic is a matter of each player’s personal opinion.

Jobs are a new feature in Fable 2. These give you an opportunity to earn money quickly. There are various jobs to do around the world of Albion, such as being a blacksmith, or even cutting wood. Whatever job you choose, the way you perform it is basically the same. They are small mini games that use the simple ‘press A at the right time’ formula. I found that they become very boring after awhile.

I recommend players invest a good hour or so into a job early on in the game so as to build up some money which you can then invest into a property. If you choose not to live in your property, you can rent it out and earn money, much like in real life. If it’s a business, it will generate an income for you as well – which is credited to you every 5 minutes. This happens even if the game is turned off. I found myself investing in properties when I was about to turn the game off, so that my fortune could build up while I was away.

While the main story takes about 8 – 12 hours, you can make your Fable 2 experience last much longer by exploring the world and performing jobs and side quests. I completed the game with about 25 hours on the clock, and I still had plenty more side quests to complete.  Most of the side quests in the game are basically simple ones. Such as rescue some people, kill some kind of enemy, find an item. But they are all slightly different and do not get stale too quickly.

The presentation of Fable 2 has its highs and lows however. The highs are its amazing art. The design of the world looks fantastic, as each environment looks completely different to the other and sets the mood of the theme and area you are in flawlessly. The game uses ‘God Rays’ from sunlight, which really did impressed me a great deal. The graphics in general are not as good as some other games on the 360, but are by no means “bad”. It seems as if the game uses the same engine as the original Fable (of course it’s much improved) but I did notice a few issues from the original game that have been carried over to Fable 2.

Water effects looks good when you’re not swimming or running through it. However, when you do, there is barely a ripple from your body as it moves against the water, not slowing you down as you move through it.  I also found the actual splash effects randomly appeared, and often replayed a lot as I tried to get up on land. Once again, it is just a small problem.

Voice work in the game is fairly solid. There are no bad voices and even the banter from townsfolk sounds good.  My only negative is that the same voice often replays over and over again when you successfully perform tasks when you are working, which increases the frustration of doing jobs.

By far the biggest let down is Fable 2′s menu. It’s awkward, clumsy, slow and extremely annoying.  The general operation of the menu is a tiresome task, which is made even worse by the fact that each time you use an item, book or potion it leaves the menu and returns you back to the game world.

That means, that if you wanted to say read 5 books, and drink 7 Experience giving potions, you would need to reopen the pause menu and cycle through the place you want 12 times, it’s a highly annoying feature. Even if Lionhead Studios had put in a ‘use but stay in menu’ button, it would have been much more tolerable. Purchasing decorative items such as haircuts is also annoying because there is no preview of what they will look like. You will find you might spend 500 gold just looking at what the different styles are like.

Actual Co-Operative Play in Fable 2 is not the best fun either, as whoever joins the game cannot be a ‘Hero’ and must be a generic Henchman. That makes it nowhere near as much fun as playing as the host.  But if you stick to the single player mode, you will see orbs floating around.

These Orbs represent people on your friends list as they are playing the game and showing you exactly where they are in their own game. It’s great to know where they are, as I often found myself racing against a friend several times. But the best part of this is, that you can trade items and money between each other without joining each others world.

Overall Fable 2 is a brilliant game that becomes extremely addictive until you see those credits roll on screen, if you like a good RPG and have played the original you will be right at home with the next installment of the Fable franchise. Let’s hope that Peter Molyneux can get Fable 3 out to us as soon as possible.

Slip over here or many more Fable II Videos.

“9.0/10

©2008 Ben Cadwallader:

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