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Preys-World - Fable 2 Review

Saturday 22nd of November, 2008 - 19:05:33 GMT

If you listen carefully you might just here the merry sounds of our Peter Molyneux, promising all sorts of gifts and toys for the avid gamer. If Peter could give you the kingdom of heaven in a game he would! Sadly experience tells us that his gifts have a short life expectancy, or are not nearly as enjoyable as what was promised.

This was the result that came from Fable, a cake if you will without the icing. Or the toppings. Or the cherry. In fact you could say the cake was basically just a sponge. Tasty and with a moist centre, but still a sponge. It was disappointing considering all that Peter promised us. Now, years after the first, Lionhead presents us with another cake in the form of Fable 2. The question now is do we finally get what was promised?

Fable 2 takes place a good hundred years into the future of 1. Everything has changed, right down to the world. You start in a similar fashion from Fable 1 as a boy in a tutorial based starter, that thankfully is much more fun than the original, and has a better storyline to it. Without spoiling the game too much, you move from boy to man in similar fashion from the original and begin your journey.

What journey you choose is up to you. From almost the very beginning you can choose to completely ignore the main quest and go perform all sorts of other things in the game. Choice once again plays a part in the game, though this time your actions and consequences are more fun and interesting. You need only glance over some forums to see the hilarious and interesting stories some people get themselves into.

To perhaps best explain this I will tell you the story of my first character, called Blade. No, not the vampire slayer. In the game you are able to interact with a town crier who can offer names for you. These are either given with a fee attached, or can be earned by completing the objective. For instance in order to earn the Bounty Hunter name, you must complete the Bounty Hunter quests.

I decided to play the game as a morally good person, but utterly corrupt, resulting in my character being loved by the townsfolk, but also abhorred for my corruption. Similar to Fable 1, your alignment with good and evil, right and wrong, will determine your overall appearance in the game. An overly evil character may find themselves developing horns and looking frankly demonic. A character the equivalent of Jesus in stature will shine in a crowd and be good looking, healthy and neat. My character developed a sort of mix. Quite handsome, but with a stern somewhat mischievous face and slightly tinted yellow eyes. I have no idea why being corrupt makes me have Jaundice. It's not even like I drink that much. Your characters muscular build and indeed fat is determined by what you eat and your skill choices. Gorging on pies will result in you becoming very fat, and vegetables will be required to work some of that chubbiness off. Training in toughness and strength skills results in you becoming strong in appearance. It should also be noted that improving your skills in aiming and speed results in you becoming taller.

As i gradually played the game I made my character as sexy as possible, buying the best clothing to attract the ladies. Clothing can be bought or found easily in the game and can be customised using dyes. The biggest complaint with clothing is that there isn't a wide amount of items to wear, and it is particularly limited for male clothing. Female clothing oddly has a better choice. You can cross dress if you so desire, though you are going to get some odd looks from NPC's in the world, who might not be able to take you seriously when you say you're going to save them.

Similarly running about with a sword in a chicken suit results in hilarity and absolute fear. Even you'd be scared if you saw a mad six foot chicken with a sword.

With character at hand i proceeded to seduce every pretty woman in sight. The results at first weren't too good. Since i had unprotected sex with one woman I ended with a child! So I married her and bought a house to keep them in. Well...when I say a house i mean a caravan. I wasn't exactly earning a comfortable amount after all.

Every action in the game garners a response. Playing a lute in the middle of the street will attract onlookers dancing and having fun. Doing a dance then failing to finish it resulting in you falling onto the floor will make people laugh. Turning the safety off and killing everyone results in fear. You can even if you want sacrifice people in a guild, something i did to my first wife when she started complaining a bit too much.

The quests are all pretty much fun to perform, whether it is the main quest or the sub quests. It would be advisable to do sub quests first, as these can disappear after the completion of the main quest. There is no game over in this world, and death only results in scarring rather than having to load a checkpoint. Quests however do come and go. If you're not interesting in performing a quest you can pick up a job. These are surprisingly fun past times that basically involve simple tasks, but can be hugely addictive. Jobs supply money, as opposed to quests which supply renown rewards. My only complaint so far with jobs is that the bartender job isn't overly interesting compared to the rest.

Your faithful companion in all this is your dog; name your choice. Tiddles, as I called him, is very loyal and quite well developed. He will follow you everywhere, do tricks, fetch the ball and of course find treasure and dig spots. The dog you could argue is a bit daft when he makes you dig up a condom, but its just part of the humour of the world. Tiddles never feels tiring and is a great companion to have in the game, simply for how he interacts with the world.

Combat is thankfully well developed; despite being a case of one button does everything. Swapping between melee, gunnery and magic can be done quite quickly and effectively though, resulting in more complex moves that can be performed with ease. Attack an enemy with your sword, hit him with a lightning shock then gun him down while he is shocked. Training up in skills such as brutal styles allows you to become better at combat methods, and opens up new moves to try out. Though there will always be combat situations in the game, I would imagine there is a limit on the amount of skill orbs (dropped after killing an enemy) there is in the game, so it is advisable to train up in a primary and secondary choice, be that melee and gunnery, melee and magic and so on.

The real fun of Fable 2 though just comes from living in the world. On a random trip through one of the villages I found myself being flirted at by a beautiful young farmer girl. Following her to her home, I find myself inside her house, directly looking at a very angry husband! Not one for giving in, I sneak away and wait until the husband heads out. Once out I sneak back into the house and talk the wife into sleeping with me, in their bed. In front of their child!

In real life this might be somewhat frowned upon. In Fable 2 it's just another fun day, right up to when I buy the husband's house and rent it back to him at a steep fee. Hey, I didn't say I’d play this game like Jesus...

The bugs and errors in the game are small and sometimes quite amusing. The dog follows you everywhere and this can result in him going through you, giving a feeling of not really being part of the world. It's not a huge complaint, but it can be noticeable. Other bugs include situations of being trapped, or unable to perform things. One bug can result in the main quest grinding to a halt and not restarting again. There is also an amusing (and at the moment unique) bug, quoting from another player, where his wife refused to exit the pub, and wouldn't do anything but drink. Constantly, Lionhead has informed us though that a patch will fix these bugs, so it's not all bad.

A big complaint unfortunately comes from the menu system, which is terribly designed and could have been far more streamlined. Menus and sub menus make the whole system feel cluttered, and can halt the players’ actions while he tries to find what he is looking for in the menus.

In the end though, it's very good, and it's safe to say that Fable 2 has met our expectations. It's still not quite what Peter promised, but Fable 2 is a massive improvement on its predecessor. The catch now is that Fable 2 can sometimes feel not all together in its features. We've now been presented with a cake with the trimmings and the icing, but there is this slight gap between the icing and the sponge. In other words it feels like the icing was added, but never really fully attached to the design of the cake.

This may seem harsh to Lionhead, but i can safely say that Fable 2 was a worthy wait and a brilliant game to play. Well worth having a piece; GLADOs would be proud...

- Wmain00