Fable 2 Review

Introduction:

Fable 2, the long-awaited sequel to the popular role-playing game ‘Fable’, on the original Xbox. Massively denounced for its promised features and ridiculed by developers, Peter has publicly stated that he has learned his mistakes and will deliver a fully dynamic world this time. Unfortunately, the only dynamic aspect of this game is the economy. There are a few things that can change the world depending on your lineup and reputation, but these subtle changes don’t have a huge impact on the game environment. For example, you have the option later in the game to destroy ‘Oakvale’, if you decide to massacre the city, you will remove the ‘Temple of Light’, which almost ruins your chances of being good later in the game if you do. completely evil. However, if you follow the good decisions, the ‘Temple of Shadows’ will be destroyed. This is predictable later in the game and there are very few times when events like this occur. Unlike the first fable, this game offers two different alignment schemes, corrupt or pure, and evil or good. Fortunately for these schemes, they take neutrality into account and change your appearance throughout the game into 9 unique appearances. Some of these look incredibly cool and you will feel like a hero in the game or an evil warrior who kills innocent children like no tomorrow.

Story:

You start out on the street as a poor kid with your sister, looking to earn money for this special wish-granting device. Once you have received this item, your only wish is to live in a castle, due to the upcoming winter in which you may not survive without a home. He is awakened from his dream when Lucien “the evil dictator” orders him to stand in a magic circle in his castle. Lucien shoots you and your sister because you are one of the four heroes of Albion. Your entire mission is to prevent Lucien from resurrecting the needle and taking revenge for killing your sister.

How to Play:

Boy with a sword

The Game-Play aspect has been greatly improved over its predecessor. It’s smooth and easy to change your combat style, between ranged combat, magic, and combat. In-game guidance is incredibly easy to use and very accessible later in the game. Once you update your character styles, it is possible to automatically target and segment specific points on your enemy. Melee combat is deep and difficult to master, yet easy to use and efficient. The game allows you to puree buttons if necessary. Will combat was somewhat annoying to me; you need to charge your spell, which takes around 5 seconds minimum. This process only allows you to use a spell to its full capacity during a battle. The spells in this game don’t offer enough variety, they only bring back some from the first game, some of the fan favorites are lost, and they don’t offer any benefits. After a battle ends, you are scored based on how well you dispatched your enemies and you receive additional experience, if you did well and used advanced techniques. You can create a unique combat style for your own character, be it ranged (skill), magic (will), or melee (strength). These three attributes encompass your character’s abilities and create your hero in Albion. However, these abilities can be maxed out in a few days and offer no variations or limits when playing, so your character cannot specialize when playing with a friend or multiple people via Xbox Live. The same happened with Fable 1, but at the time it was not a cooperative experience. The multiplayer part of the game is a huge disappointment. You cannot use your unique character that you have created in other people’s games. This will encourage players to stay in their world and play alone. Also, the camera for the online part is ridiculous, you can’t move it and both players have to stay on one screen. I have played various games with friends and this camera has ruined the whole experience for me. Sometimes you can’t move due to the camera, so they have integrated a teleport button in case this happens. Fortunately, the online experience has some good things going for it. You can change the settings for how experience and gold are distributed between the two players and the innovative shape of the game lobby. The whole lobby is the world; you can chat with players in almost an MMORPG-like experience. This is refreshing and a disappointment as the online gaming component could be great.

Fortunately, you can do pretty much everything in the game with your friend, if you can get someone to join your world. The unlockables in this game are difficult and unrewarding. I spent over 4 hours searching for 50 silver keys around the game and received 50,000 gold for it. All of which is useless because the gaming economy is extremely easy to take advantage of. If you buy all the houses in the game, you will earn 20,000 gold every 5 minutes. You can also cheat in the game by changing the clock on your Xbox system and receiving billions. This ruins the entire game experience and is made worse by poor reward for all the hard work. Most of the rewards obtained can be purchased from the store or are less than the equipment you have already earned by doing a simple mission. Silver keys are easily found throughout the game and over 75% of chests only require 20 keys at most, and all of these chests have junk in them. Unfortunately, the game misleads itself in other areas as well, such as experience. You don’t have to fight a bit in the game to maximize all your abilities. All you have to do is get rich and buy your way to the top, due to the incredible experience potions that offer almost 70,000 exp for just 4,000 gold. Once you have purchased the stocks, you can sleep for a week and buy the potions again. This ruins the whole game because players who cheat in-game with the system clock can also make their characters rise to the top. The dog in this game is quite intelligent, but sometimes he has trouble getting around obstacles and you will find yourself running in circles trying to find his digging spot. This will become painfully obvious when you follow it and all of a sudden the icon that says “dig site” disappears and you’re 100 yards off the beaten path. There is no minimap in the game, instead a breadcrumb trail has been added leading you to your current quest. This is accommodating, but the road sometimes doesn’t know where it is going and you will find yourself running the wrong way several times and wondering “WTF Q + A?” The environment has its ups and downs; you can explore 90% of what you see in the world. Sometimes I get lost in it and have spent around 30 hours in the game.

You can fast travel though, and it’s not a bad thing, but the players who do are missing out on the great world of the game. All buildings and shops can be purchased, even the small cabins that you find throughout the game world can be purchased. The civilians of Albion are at the mercy of your actions, you can fix the rent and evict the npcs if you want. It’s great to see bewildered citizens wandering the streets, wondering 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 is not the case, it actually has fewer options than the original Fable. This is horrible because this time it is an online experience. For my part, I would love to have a unique looking character with rare loot received from a dungeon. However, the fable is not that type of game, and the appearance options are secondary to the actual game, however, it would be nice to have something that others would have a hard time getting. Don’t be pessimistic, but the only achievement this game offers is the innovative world lobby that is almost like an “MMORPG” and the lush free landscape. This game is much better than current RPGs on the 360, but the game is riddled with bugs and could be a lot better than it is in its current form.

Graphics:

Graphically, the game is great, very fluid and the environment only extends to that immersive fantasy. It’s not Elder Scrolls IV, but it’s in the graphics department. The textures all over the world look amazing and the art direction is top-notch. Every square meter of the world feels like a work of art. I couldn’t have asked for a better world than the one in this installment of the fable franchise.

Sound design:

The sound design of the game is horrible; There will be delayed sounds and expressions. This will make the game feel like it is hopping on your 360. It’s because it is, the game jumps like no other, sometimes freezing the game for a few moments when you try to navigate to your start menu. Personally, this game made my Xbox sound like a generator with a fan and some rocks inside. Although the voice actors are pretty well done, all the people in the game seem to be from Great Britain for some reason. The sound effects in the game are perfect, it is almost difficult to distinguish the similar sounds and it does not sound repetitive.

Man with dog

Final thoughts:

This game has many flaws that would scare most players if they knew about them, but it also offers great entertainment. It’s fun, but it’s not necessarily worth buying unless you enjoy playing games. The replayability of this game is excellent due to the staggering number of ways you can play it. This is not a game that you play alone for hundreds of hours, it is a game that you jump on every now and then, do a side quest, and hopefully it doesn’t get boring. The game does not reward you enough to continue playing once you have unlocked the entire game. I’m sorry I bought it just for these reasons. I have completed the game 100% and do not see myself playing at any point in the near future. Once and if ‘Lion Head’ fixes the online game, it is definitely a purchase.