Fable II
Fable 2 is the anticipated sequel to the popular original that sold more than 3 million copies. Created by famed game designer Peter Molyneux, Fable 2 for Xbox 360 features an epic story that picks up 500 years after the first game. It offers an open world environment giving players a massive amount of freedom to explore and play as they please, with every decision made contributing to the game itself.
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Fable 2
Players:
Offline: 1-2
Online: 2
Gameplay Modes:
Single player, offline cooperative multiplayer, online cooperative multiplayer. |
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The new combat system lets you master different fighting styles. View larger. |
You are free to roam the world of Albion any way you like. View larger. |
Every Choice Has Its Consequences
Fable 2 provides players with a truly immersive experience where a virtually limitless number of choices can be made, all of which have their own consequences, making each game unique. When you start the game, you choose either to play the role of a boy or girl, and depending on your choices, the hero will grow up to be tall or short, good or evil. Players can get married and have children; female player characters will become pregnant, which will then be reflected by their physical appearance.
Early in the game, players are presented with a stray dog for a best friend, who will need to be fed and loved, and will accompany the player throughout his or her life. Depending on the player, the dog will change appearance and assist him or her in various ways, such as alerting of impending dangers and attacking enemies.
Players inhabit the world of Albion and are free to roam the land to as they please. Players can use different expressions to communicate with others, such as taunting and laughing, and even belching or farting.
As the players grow, so does Albion, reflecting the choices that were made earlier in the game. Every house, hut, castle, and dungeon can be purchased if the player wishes. Players can buy up all the land in a town and can become mayor, king, and even emperor of the entire land.
Fable 2 presents a dynamic and free-roaming world that doesn’t demand a player to take any one set path. At the same time, players seeking a plot line will find an epic story and quest that they can follow if they wish, along with many side adventures.
Fight Using Different Weapons and Magic
Fable 2 introduces a new combat system that allows for mastery of hand weapons, such as swords, long range weapons such as cross-bows and guns, and, of course, magic. Players improve at each discipline with time, and can combine different combat styles when they fight. Other advanced design features include tactical positional advantages that can bring new strategic elements into combat.
Bring Other Players into Your World
Fable 2 has a multiplayer mode that allows you to bring other players into your own world. Consistent with the rest of the game, the actions of these other players can be permanent and affect your world. You can explore and fight together with these other players, share treasures, and even fight each other.
Note: Fable 2 will not ship with Online Co-op mode. An update with this functionality is rumored to be released shortly after the launch of the game.
Xbox LIVE Arcade Mini-Games
Gamers can play minigames through Xbox LIVE Arcade and earn currency that can be used in Fable 2 to purchase weapons, armor, and other items for the hero.
Fable 2 is rated M for having mature content that may be suitable for persons ages 17 and older.
Depending on your choices, the protagonist can turn out wildly different — male, female, good, evil, and more.
User Ratings and Reviews
4 Stars fable 2
a fun game that gets a bit repetitive. Making money is very simple and the dog seems to provide little enhancement to the game. The spell system is less user-friendly than in the original game.
4 Stars Good but why was it named game of the year?
Overall it’s a solid game with a decent story to tell. Sadly I am either missing something as i’m trying to figure out how this game won game of the year. I opted to receive the limited edition code late last year since it was being offered so I had that content as well.
If you don’t have it you really aren’t missing anything, other then having a cool look and a free name from the town criers.
I just started my second play through, but overall i feel like there are limitations for what this game can offer me.
4 Stars A Roleplaying Game That Gives You a Lot More To Do Than Just Killing Things
Hey guys,
Again, as I mentioned in some of my other reviews, I’m a heavy RPG advocate in my preferences because roleplaying offers a much more in-depth, immersive experience than any other type of game. They do require a lot of time and patience, but, for me, the rewards upon successful completion are greater. Plus, I AM biased toward RPGs because I met my wife, Lara, while playing ‘Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar’.
I was interested in Fable II after playing ‘Fable: The Lost Chapters’ for the original xbox. The Lost Chapters attracted me because of the reviews comparing it to the ‘Grand Theft Auto’ series and their so-called Do Your Own Thing motif. To my surprise, I soon discovered that it WAS in fact a roleplaying game, not an action/adventure game. And, yeah, I liked it. So, to be honest, I was more favorably disposed to trying this game out than passing it by. I’m glad I did.
GAMEPLAY-4 Stars
The gameplay for Fable II is highly reminiscent of its predecessor in that it is a free-roaming sandbox-type environment. Depending on how far you progress in the story, more areas become available as you go along. The cover makes the claim that the explorable area is ten times the size of the original game, and, yes, there IS quite a bit more surface to cover. The first game’s environments were small enough to almost cause claustrophobia. That’s not the case here.
The controls are a little more cumbersome than Fable I. The first game’s movement had a lot more ‘pep’ than this one. Here, you feel as if you’re lumbering along. You still aren’t able to jump, but you can vault over fences, ledges and curbs, providing the drop off isn’t steep enough to cause injury, so you can explore more of your observable surroundings as well as swim along the surface of the local waterways.
The main heading I gave this review was ‘A roleplaying game that gives you a lot more to do than just killing’ and that’s the case. Aside from the storyline’s main quest, depending on the gender you choose you can get pregnant or sire a child, and, if you’re a male, you might want to wear a condom during your encounter(s), because, yes, you CAN contract an sexually-transmitted disease, especially from some of the prostitutes walking the streets. You can find a job as a bartender, metalsmith, woodcutter or bounty hunter, among others. You can buy a house (or houses) and either move in or rent it out. If you switch out the furniture in your place with more valuable luxury items, it improves your mate’s attitudes toward you and your quality of rest. Purchasing businesses gives you a steady income that accrues every 5 minutes even while you play other games on the console (nothing like making investments, eh?). You can gamble in one of the local pubs. You can change your hairstyle, apply makeup (yes, to both genders), and get tattoos etched on your face and body. You can purchase different sets of clothing, which in turn can affect your morality, aggressiveness or attractivenss. You can beat the puzzles the various Demon Doors set for you and win bonus items. And, if you’re into that kind of thing, you can get married, to either the same or opposite gender.
The main storyline is rather abbreviated, in that it took me a single weekend of playing to beat it, so the others’ gripes in their reviews about it being too short are valid, but you can extend the gameplay by taking side quests or just exploring an area, seeing the sights and letting your pet dog sniff out buried treasure. Plus, is it really fair to call a game too short when -technically- there is no true ending? After you beat the main quest, you can continue to collect experience to improve your renown and abilities, plus accrue money to purchase other properties (if you purchase enough, you’re declared emperor; it’s GOOD to be da king!), and there are many quests you can undertake only after you beat the main one. Some of them are repetitive, but so is real life at times. You don’t have to start the game over from scratch.
The game’s mechanics are skill-based, meaning that you have the freedom to parse out the experience you collect from your travels among your abilities as you see fit. The abilities are broken down into three main areas: Strength (raw physical might), Skill (your character’s finesse) and Will (his or her magical potential). These are each further broken down into three categories. Strength becomes Brutal Styles, Physique and Toughness. Skill governs Dextrous Styles, Accuracy and Speed. Will breaks down to the individual spells you can cast: Chaos, Force Push, Inferno, Raise Dead, Shock, Blades, Time Control and Vortex. You can increase most sub-abilities a total of 5 times before you max them out (some max out at 4). The higher the skill level, the more experience it takes to increase it further, but as you become more powerful, the game compensates by increasing the challenge level of the opponents you face, so it balances out. As your abilities increase, you see a change in your character’s appearance. Higher Strength makes you more muscular. Greater Skill makes you taller. Higher Will causes glowing blue lines of power to crisscross your body. There are two other categories that affect your appearance and those are Purity and Morality. The higher both of these are, the more wholesome your character appears (these also affect your dog’s appearance). Becoming evil shows on you, just like it does in ‘Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic’.
The spell format is set up a little differently from the first game. You press and hold the right trigger which pulls up the selected spell menu (the first game only allowed you to select one spell at a time), and there is a charging-up period before you can cast the chosen spell (unlike the first game where the spells’ effects were immediate). I attribute that to the game’s atmosphere, meaning magic is almost unknown in the current day and age, causing more of a drawing-up period for the power to manifest. You also want to be careful about where and when you hit the B button. That casts the spell. I was in Bowerstone first starting out in the game, messing around and getting used to the controls and I hit that button. I IMMEDIATELY cleared out a large area worth of screaming, panicked citizens. My wife Lara was watching me play. I looked at her, said “Uh,… whoops…”. She rolled her eyes, got up and brought me some kind of pill out of the medicine cabinet, handed it to me and told me to take my Ritalin.
Your faithful canine companion is a handy ally and a good companion. He’s a useful metal/radar detector, sniffing out enemies and treasure and will attack anybody that you fight and manage to knock off their feet, freeing you to concentrate on more immediate threats. His treasure hunting and fighting capabilities are increasable a total of 5 times, just like your character’s abilities.
The one main complaint I have about this game over Fable I, aside from those DAMNED gargoyles with the Scottish accents (and I make it a point to shoot down every one I can find, yelling “HAE’S YER DADDY, NAE?” back at them in my own Scottish brogue), is that you can’t die. The worst that happens is that, if your character’s health gets taken down to zero, you’re knocked unconscious for a few seconds and lose any immediate experience orbs floating around from your kills. There’s no real risk factor because of this (you’re pretty much guaranteed success given enough time), and that’s the main reason why I give Fable II an overall rating of 4 stars. Also, this game took away the different types of armor you could obtain from the first Fable. I’m assuming that, from the storyline, the time period rendered armor obsolete, but it WOULD be handy to have when you’re running around a haunted place like the Wraithmarsh. And if there’s anybody out there that’s managed to figure out how to apply the various augments to your character’s weapons, PLEASE let me know. I’ve won some trophy weapons, but they were already amped and I couldn’t alter them further. I have some nifty weapon augmentations sitting in my inventory looking for something to do.
All things considered, this game still IS quite fun to play…
STORY-5 Stars
The backdrop for the game is set five centuries after the first Fable. The heroes of old have become villified and faded into legend, as has society’s belief in magic. The cultural norm has advanced to Rennaissance levels, introducing firearms as ranged weapons. All that’s really left to look forward to is the daily survival of two particular street urchins…
Depending on your choice at the onset of play, you play the younger brother or sister of the older female vagabond child. Both of you happen upon a travelling saleman’s show, who is busy presenting the crowd with a ‘wondrous magical box’ that has the power to grant a person’s fondest wish.
What do you wish for when you’re cold, hungry and living on the street?
As it stands, you DO get your wish, just not in the way you expect it, and begin your laborious trek to greatness, all from having to pay for one man’s sense of loss.
The theme for this game is a little darker than the first one, but it still contains the franchise’s distinctive quirkiness (the opening scene closes with a bird flying overhead and leaving you a little, shall we say, …contribution… on the top of your skull).
SOUND-5 Stars
The ambient sounds and music in the game are vintage Fable fare, all in digital surround sound. What more need be said?
GRAPHICS-5 Stars
The visuals and artwork retain the previous game’s cartoonish nature, but the animations are smoother, the draw distance is MUCH farther out (there is a little fade-in with smaller objects to keep the framerate up, but it’s nothing that detracts from the gameplay) and there are bloom and anti-aliasing effects to soften any jagged edges you come across. All of it appears live and up front in high-definition color. This is also one of about three games I’ve come across where you see your hero react to his or her environment; when you travel up or down a slope in the terrain, you look as if you’re climbing or checking your downward momentum, and if you run by walls or ledges, you react as if you’re trying to avoid scraping against them.
REPLAY-5 Stars
The open-ended nature of Fable II’s gameplay allows you to take a different path each time you start a new game, and with three different choices to make upon ending the main quest, whether you choose to be good or evil, overweight or skinny, close-combat fighter or sharpshooter, or just your basic landlord raking in the money from rental properties, the possibilities for replay with a different outcome each time are greater than most other games I’ve seen. I won’t comment about any online play; I don’t know if there’s any available for Fable II because I’m not usually on XBOX Live except to download add-ons, so I’ll leave that up to you all to discover.
OVERALL-4 Stars
This game offers one of the most complete, immersive roleplaying experiences yet out on a console, and I heartily recommend it as a fun time-out from one’s daily grind.
Two Thumbs Up.
5 Stars No longer forced to be straight and fun besides
I had been playing Oblivion and Fallout 3 when this arrived. I have been completely absorbed for two weeks exploring every possible angle, nook, and cranny.
The graphics are gorgeous. The sound is good. The animation is superb. The humor is what I enjoyed second best…. best of all is the ability to choose who you want for your mate(s). I always hated being forced into rescuing the poor damsel in most games. The women misproportioned and the guys without any defining anatomy at all. That was a big frustration for me working on games. The other artists were terrified of putting nipples on our male characters way back when….
I have to say, being able to have a partner in the game that reflected my real life experiences was so refreshing I cried. It was moving and monumental for me to finally be able to have a game that felt like I belonged instead of always the outsider. HOOORAH Lionhead for bravery and taking a chance on something a lot of people would rather pretend didn’t exsist.
My partner of 14 years died while I played this game. Having this in game relationship with a character that closely resembled my late real life partner was a salve and helped me heal through the grieving process. It isn’t important to the game but for me, having games like this does have a real world impact on people and I wanted to reinforce how these things really do touch us in our real lives.
There are a few glitches such as later quests not completing or repeating, a graphic or sound anomaly here or there, and a few issues with disappearing spouses and pets but they are well documented and workarounds provided. They weren’t deal breakers.
The only other real complaint I have is after playing Oblivion and its fantastically interactive world, I found some limitations on interaction with the environment a bit annoying. I wanted to just crawl or jump over a wall without having to wait for the prompt to do it. They handled this very well in Oblivion. I found the menu system distracting and slow as well. Again, limiting but not a deal breaker.
This is going to be a game I play for a long time to come. I still have to be completely Evil and raise the rent ya know. I want to marry a woman in the game and see what thats like. The dialog is always sure to surprise me and make me laugh.. particularly at a tme that laughter was badly needed.
There are so many avenues to explore in terms of geography, personality, and emotion that the replay-ability of this game is very high. I would have paid full price for it… its that good.
5 Stars Great game!
I wasn’y much of a fan of Fable 1 but I figured I would give Fable 2 a try. I’m happy I did because Fable 2 is a great game for everyone!
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