Xbox Living

I’ve been spending the last little while playing Fable II, and not keeping up with my blogging.  This is a very immersive game, so I thought it’s about time I put together my review of it.  I’m not quite done with the game yet, but I’ve spent enough time in it to write a complete review, I think.  Once I finish the story I’ll add any comments if I think the review needs revision.  So, here’s Fable II — an action-RPG that’s loads of fun, but not without its flaws.

First, the most enjoyable part about Fable II: interacting with the AI.  The characters in Fable are actually pretty impressive.  Although they may become predictable after hours of play, the game is very dynamic in the way you interact with people in town.  To communicate with them, you have a wide range of expressions at your disposal. These actions give you some control over how people feel about you.  Everyone has different views about you, whether they love or hate you, whether they find you scary or funny, and whether they find you attractive or ugly.  The impact of each of these three scales is different, and they’re independant from each other.  This makes the game more dynamic as you interact with the townsfolk.

You can get married, have children and/or hook up with anonymous strangers.  You can have a seperate spouse and family in each town, if you so desire.  You can purchase shops and houses, charge rent and collect profits.  You can become a corrupt landlord by raising rent fees, or give everyone a break by cutting them down.  The choices here effect how everyone feels about you.

You can customize your character in terms of appearance: hari styles, clothing, beards and makeup can all be chosen.  Unlike the first Fable, you can choose to be male or female.  Of course, your character changes as time goes on and you make choices.  Purity will maintain your youthful look, while evil acts will lend you a much more sinister appearance.  But even the pure may find themselves changing in appearance as they become more infused with will (magic).  Eating and drinking will also cause you to fatten up.

The game promises freedom, without an obvious line to follow.  This is misleading.  While you’re not forced to do exactly what they want at all times, the storyline is very linear.  (You can tell, because the game draws a line on the ground showing you where to go.)  Fable II is often compared to The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, but Oblivion has far more freedom.  Unlike Oblivion, Fable II’s world map is divided into distinct zones, more like an MMO than Oblivion’s large open environment.   Many places are blocked off early in the game, so you don’t have the ability to explore all of the towns and fields until much later in the game.

Fable II doesn’t present much difficulty.  It’s very easy to level up and learn new abilities.  You can even level up without fighting at all, by purchasing potions that give experience points, although that’s a little inefficient.  Defeat has little consequence either, as being knocked out only causes you to lose any experience orbs that are lying on the ground (think Kingdom Hearts style), and you’re revived instantly.

The load times are a little annoying, especially if you’re in a hurry, but the game has such rich environments that I’m willing to forgive it.  It’s worth the wait, we’ll say.

The magic system is a bit awkward.  You have tiers of spells, and as you charge your magic (or will, as they say) you release it at a stage of your choosing.  You can assign spells to each stage so that different spells are used depending on how long you charge for, but you can’t have more than one spell on each stage at a time.  There’s no MP/mana level to watch for, but the spell casting isn’t always quick.  In cases where your weapon is drawn, there can be a delay to put your weapon away and cast a spell.  Attacks won’t interrupt a spell, but you can take quite a bit of damage while you try and charge up a higher-level one.

Finally, co-op is nice but leaves something to be desired.  The co-op is a little like the LEGO Star Wars games — you can join your Xbox Live friends’ game and help out, but you’re very restricted in it.  It’s not the type of game you want to play entirely in co-op mode, because one guy’s going to have all the fun.

I’m a big RPG fan but the average gamer should have a good time with Fable II.  Although there’s certainly some room for improvement, the immersive and addictive gameplay will give you hours of entertainment.  If you can get over, or ignore, the game’s few bugs and difficulties, there’s plenty of fun in exploring its more charming facets.

Hopefully I can wrap this up and move on to Fallout 3, lest the Call of Duty: World at War beta distract me!  So much to play, so little time.

Score: 86%