GameSpy Review of Fable 2

For a fantasy role-playing game, Fable II's world isn't too far removed from our own. People in the fictional setting of Albion are motivated by sex and money, by love of family and by the desire to find a sense of purpose. Fable II is a beautiful, interactive morality play wherein you'll make difficult choices, like whether to exact vengeance on a murderous criminal, or to turn the other cheek. You'll potentially learn more about your personal beliefs system through your actions. Fable II is an ambitious second effort that far exceeds what was accomplished in the original Fable, delivering breathtaking graphics, an engrossing story and refined gameplay.





Welcome to Albion





One of the recurring themes of Fable II is that your choices affect everything around you, from the way people perceive you, to your personal appearance, and even to the world itself. The world of Fable II is as much a character as the protagonist, as the impact made by your adventures over the course of the game will reshape it in your image. From the very first hour to the last, you'll find opportunities to make choices that will drastically change Albion and yourself forever.










Albion offers sights and sounds that aren't to be missed. Its lush outdoor environments are a technical feat, overloading your senses with color and natural movement, from the gently swaying fields of flowers you'll trample through in search of treasure to the serenity found in going for a swim in a moonlit lake.





The environments are decently large, though there aren't very many of them. Still, every chunk of space you get a chance to explore is filled with minute detail, from ruined chunks of stone from a past civilization to small freshwater ponds that you can playfully splash through on your way to bigger and better things. You'll see a lot of the same visual theme throughout the game, though, and this is even joked at by one of the characters you encounter, who opines that this particular bandit camp has the best sharpened pointy logs of them all.





The fauna of this world range from bunny rabbits happily bounding along to balverines, furry humanoid nasties that assault travelers with their vicious claws. Hobbes are your typical goblins, though in Albion they're smart enough to make use of firearms, magic, and even mechanical stilt devices that are surely their way of overcompensating for a height disadvantage. The more dangerous enemies include earth creatures called Trolls, whose massive, craggy forms are invulnerable to your attacks, requiring you to carefully remove their life-giving tendril growths when they're exposed. They reminded us of the trolls from Terry Pratchett's Discworld, enormously strong chunks of earth with a predilection for lobbing boulders at anyone that looks at them funny.



To provide just a sampling of the sorts of things you can do in Fable II, let's run through a sample day in the life of Albion's greatest hero. At the crack of dawn, you may head to a nearby bandit camp to collect a bounty on their heads. Through the strength of your swordarm, your uncanny aim, or powerful magic, you'll take them down, and head back to town to collect your reward.





It's a Buyer's Market





You can then stop at the local shops and look for sales that change from week to week, buying low in the hopes of selling high at another shop to make some extra cash. You can then work a job, bartending for instance, or toiling away at a blacksmith, playing a timing-based mini-game that rewards you with ever increasing cash bonuses for chains of successes. You can buy up some books to learn new expressions, and potions that add to your experience totals. You can interact with a few NPCs in town with the expression system, gaining their favor by dancing and posing, or making them fear you by growling or otherwise behaving rudely.










If you've amassed a small fortune, you can invest in property, starting small with market stalls, and eventually buying up taverns and larger shops, setting yourself up with a tidy regular income. Money is a valuable asset in Fable II, as you'll need cash to purchase new weapons and expensive gifts for your love interest, or you'll just want spending money for a night on the town of booze and gambling. Inventory management is an issue, though, as the game hiccups and briefly stalls when sorting through long lists of items, and there's often a delay between when you interact with an object and when the detailed menu comes up. Since you're very often working with your inventory as you play, it's a constant, though relatively minor nuisance.





Continuing your day, you can take that love interest on a date if you like, bringing them to a favorite spot and wooing them with your most seductive advances. Every character in the game has a specific set of likes and dislikes and personality traits, and your interactions with characters are dependant on taking advantage of these. It doesn't hurt to just be attractive, though, and a haircut and a shave or a splash of color on your cheeks from the local stylist can help here, as can a new outfit purchased from a tailor. If things go well, you can then invite your companion back to your place for a sleepover.





The main storyline quests can be played through at your leisure, allowing you plenty of time to take in all the sights and sounds of Albion. Running through the core missions from start to finish would only take a handful of hours, but depending on how diligent you are at trying to find everything the game has to offer, you can spend dozens of hours exploring. There's not an incredibly large amount of content to go through, and it feels like Fable II pads the play experience by requiring you to venture multiple times through the same areas at different times throughout your journey to collect everything there is to find.





You may even get bored of having to use the expression system countless times in order to curry favor with the denizens of Albion, which gets quite repetitive. On the plus side, the voice work on the whole is very well done, with plenty of Monty Pythonesque british humor that fits the game's setting perfectly. The touching moments, though few and far between, are also well conveyed.



Fable II offers cooperative play, as a second player can hop in at any time to contribute in combat and in NPC interactions. Online cooperative play is being patched into the game on day one of release through an Xbox Live update. The second player is a guest in the main player's world, who can't move the story forward or make any purchases from shops, but the system makes for a good way for two players to experience the story and adventure together.





The Dog Whisperer





But even if you don't have a real life friend to play Fable II with, you'll have a furry four-legged best friend to keep you company on your journey. The dog companion is a remarkably fun, versatile, and endearing feature that manages to not only entertain through its adorable antics, but also serves a variety of functionally useful purposes. The dog is primarily your assistant treasure hunter, sniffing out chests and finding spots where you can dig up buried goods. If you hear your trusty pal bark, there's treasure nearby, and he'll lead you right to it. As you grow in power, your dog will also become better at sniffing out loot, encouraging you to go back to previously explored regions so that you can find new goodies.












The dog is also your stalwart ally in combat, pouncing on foes as they fall to the ground and delivering vicious bites to their nether regions. He also serves as an early warning system, growling to alert his master when enemies are near. Like everything else in Fable II, your dog will change with you, so if you're a force for goodness and purity your hound will be a tail-wagging pooch with a light brown coat, while darker characters will have meaner looking animal companions.





The problem with Fable II's role-playing experiences lies in the disconnect inherent in the expression system. You can't take part in any meaningful conversations, as your character can only express him or herself with these expressions. You can dance, whistle, fart, and growl, but sometimes you'll want to learn more about those around you, or to relay some meaning that can't be conveyed in a flex or gesticulation.





The storyline is entertaining even without the ability to properly express yourself, and to the game's credit, your actions speak more loudly than words ever could. Even without a proper voice, your character will find ways to get its point across.



Fable II's most interesting game mechanics are the combat system. The combat system conceals a great amount of depth behind its accessible exterior. Melee combat, ranged attacks and magic are all controlled independently by a single button, but it doesn't lack in depth. You're judged on how skillfully you've defeated any particular encounter, rewarding you with bonus experience, so every battle becomes a test to improve yourself. This ratings system serves to make every combat important and worth your attention, since you'll always strive for that extra experience and the kudos for a job well done.





Sword vs. Gun vs. Magic





Swordplay is a surprisingly fulfilling combination of timing and strategy, as you'll have to balance your defenses and offensive strikes while also taking advantage of context-sensitive strikes that depend on your opponent's situation. Once you've maxed out the melee combat options, for instance, you can counter a blow and spin the enemy around, opening them up for a strike from behind. If your opponent is fighting with their back to a ledge, you can kick them over the edge, finishing the battle quickly and efficiently.










There are timing-based chain combos, as well as a variety of flashy Flourish attacks that cinematically slow down the action on screen, allowing you to strategically plan your attacks in succession. It's incredibly simple to attack enemies as they come at you from all directions, yet still challenging enough to require you to strategically approach the more skillful opponents.





Ranged-focused Fable II characters can be absolutely deadly, particularly when they get the drop on unsuspecting enemies. Once you've mastered the zoom in technique, you can aim at different parts of an enemy. You can disarm an opponent by shooting the weapons from their hands, shoot them in the groin to stop them in their tracks, or aim for the head and the decapitating kill blow. Once you get the timing down for reloading quickly in combat, taking down a swarm of enemies with nothing but your fast-firing pistol or powerful turret rifle is a breeze.





Fable II's magic system is deep in the sense that there are a variety of different spells to choose from, but there's little difference between a low level magic and a high level one, besides the increase in efficiency and/or damage. You have a couple options with each magic type, though, so you can, for instance, use inferno to lob balls of fire at enemies, or instead vie for a circular area effect attack with a little less power for taking out crowds. Time control can be used to instantly appear behind an enemy, opening them up for an attack, or if you activate it without a target, you can slow down time in your vicinity, fighting enemies that move in slow motion while you're still attacking at full speed.





Experience points in Fable II are earned in four categories, Strength, Skill, Will, and general experience, and amassed by collecting the multi-colored orbs that spawn from defeated enemies. Experience is awarded based on your style of play, so that if you focus on killing enemies with swordplay, you'll get a combination of blue strength orbs and green experience orbs. You can focus your character development in any of the three combat styles, though you'll have the opportunity over the course of your adventure to max out your abilities in melee, range, and a spell or two. If you aspire to mastering all of the game's spells, you'll need to dedicate yourself to using Will exclusively.



Fable II is a mature rated title, thanks largely to its approach to sexual content. The very first items you'll find listed in the Bowerstone general store are condoms, described as fetching sheaths made from the finest animal intestines. By maintaining an attractive outwardly appearance (not eating too many pies and wearing nice clothes) you can draw interest from the opposite sex, who you can in turn decide to have unprotected or protected sex with.





It's Sexy Time!





Unprotected sex leads to STD's and babies, while protected sex serves little purpose other than to appease your sense of personal satisfaction, notching another hash mark on the virtual bed post. Whether you're playing your character gay or straight, looking for a lifelong soul mate or a swinger indulging in group sex and bigamy, Fable II takes a refreshing approach by refusing to discriminate, while also being responsible about promoting the advantages of protected sex.










While the mature rating also applies to blood, language, use of alcohol, and violence, the use of these themes is fairly tame when compared to what you'd see on any given night on HBO. The story's subject matter is mature, however, not in the sense that it's offensive, but that it's thought provoking in nature. Fable II's characters thoughtfully and intelligently explore topics like causality and determinism, encouraging the player to think without heavy-handedly pushing any particular agenda.





Fable II presents you with difficult, meaningful decisions that shape the development of the world around you. You'll experience life from a young age and see your character grow up to become a powerful force in Albion. Whether or not you become a force for good or for evil is completely up to you. We thoroughly enjoyed Fable II, and heartily recommend it to anyone who enjoys a good role-playing game.



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