Fable II has a lot to live up to. With Peter Molyneux raising expectations to an unmatchable level, and the original failing to deliver in quite a few areas, can Fable II deliver on the hype?
Despite its flaws, I loved the original Fable. I don’t know why, but it’s still one of my favorite titles of all time. Consequently, Fable II is automatically a great game to me, providing it sticks fairly close to the formula, which I’m pleased to say it does.
Fable II markets itself as a game about choices, chiefly between good or evil. This is represented by a meter, which swings closer to the relevant attribute depending on your actions. While the quests themselves provide you with a number of moral choices, you can add to your evilness by just killing a bunch of village folk or eating ‘crunchy chicks’. There is also a pure and corrupt meter. If you rent out a property at 100% more than the value, then you’ll become corrupt. The opposite applies as well. These attributes manifest themselves physically on your character. As you grow more evil, red veins will bulge on your skin, and as you get more corrupt, horns will burst out of your skull. If you play as a pure, good person, you’ll just look normal.
As in Fable you start off as a young whippersnapper in the town of Bowerstone, a thriving metropolis of tall stalls and walls. In nearly every quest, you are presented with a moral choice, with an equal reward for each. For example, do you go and destroy a bunch of particularly menacing beetles for a warehouse owner, or destroy his stock for a dubious criminal? Either way you get 1 glowing gold piece, but the choice is there.
Yet after this myriad of moral decisions in childhood, adulthood features very few. The claim that every choice has a consequence is true, yet that’s not particularly meaningful when there aren’t that many choices in the first place.
The quests are still fun and, while you can zip through the main story in a tangy 8-10 hours, there’s an abundance of side quests to keep you busy. This time around you get no monetary reward for completing quests, but instead receive a tightly packed bundle of renown. As your renown increases, more people will know who the hell you are, and this basically serves as a numerical boundary to whether you can do a quest or not. Only twice did a main quest character tell me that I needed more renown to start the quest.
Questing is made a lot easier thanks to the addition of a ‘glowing trail’ which will point you in the right direction at all times.
Occasionally it’s a bit buggy. Several times I found the trail changing direction randomly, not updating to my next objective, or falling behind as I ran through the lush world.
And lush the world is. Fable II reminds me a lot of World of Warcraft in its blocky graphical style and, while it won’t be winning any prizes, it does the job pretty well.
More on the next page!
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only rent? are you serious?
Wow Eoco. You have angered the locals already
yes you could easily just rent the game run through the story and finish but i to have loved this game i dont know why but i do it is so fun to go on side quests by houses and just interact with the public i recommend a purchase if you like to do these things plus hopefully dlc will be in the future to add more gameplay
@Alex-Lives
Fable II is my fasvourite game this year, yet I’ve completed it now and, while I might play through it again, I could have experienced everything there is to see in the game over a 3 night rental.
Borrowed it from a friend and returned it the same day. So boring…
Actually Doc, I agree with Eoco.
I’ve had a gaming epiphany this weekend, as I’ve suddenly realised that there are a lot of games that I don’t want to buy, the main one being Fable 2. I’ve realised that, despite how much I loved Fable 1, Fable 2 just looks like a refurnished, polished copy, with a couple of intriguing DLCs… It’s like when you say you’ve cleaned your room/house, but you’ve merely just swept everything under the carpet, brought out a few new items, and arranged them nicely around the room/house to make it look better. It doesn’t mean it is better, it just means that it looks nicer.
I had an extensive list of games on my Must Buy With My Imaginary Piles of Money list, but that list is deteriorating quicker than the contents of a packet of Worcester Sauce crisps sitting next to me, which will now simply be just a packet within seconds.
I’m not interested in buying Fable 2 anymore, and its the same for Fracture, Bioshock, Infinite Undiscovery, Mirror’s Edge, Hawx, Resident Evil 5, Gran Turismo 5 and Heavy Rain.
That may be shocking to some people, but its true.
Instead, I’m going to open a Lovefilm account, and rent until my heart’s content. Or my wallet’s empty, whichever is quicker.
The games that I listed above won’t be purchases, but most of them will be rents. (Except for Fracture, because that’s just poor.)
FYI, the packet of crisps next to me has now been finished.
Short lived, but tasty.
Game’s alright, more like how Fable 1 was advertised as though. There’s a lot of little things that bug me in it though, like how you have to hit start to see the map (which is slow) instead of a minimap, and every time you use an item it kicks you out of the menu.
Combat is a bit unbalanced. Mage uses get hurt a lot when charging up spells. Melee is unbalanced since you’re invincible while performing a flourish so you just chain them together, block is a bit buggy sometimes, and counters are useless.
Being evil doesn’t make sense in the main story and the other heroes don’t seem to care that you murder civilians. Also people seem to forget that you’re evil and hang around you all the time asking you for presents and emotes.
There’s also several framerate issues, something which I don’t forgive for consoles.
Despite all that, I’m still enjoying it. I think after a few weeks I’ll Playswitch it for another title though. Won’t keep my interest past November.
I was let down by FableII. After the first 4 or so hours I decided that I was just going to plow through it so to be prepared for Fallout. I finished the game with probably 15 hours played.
I had many bugs with the action sounds going out on me, breadcrumb trail not working, the interaction menu with people not vanishing and several others.
I agree that its almost the exact same game as Fable except with better graphics and a dog (the dog is really cool).
Is was very easy to go from good to evil in a matter of hours… same to go from thin to fat and back again. I had the entire city of bowerstone (men and women) wanting to marry me inside of a single hour.
It was just to easy to shift peoples view of you, and then that didn’t really have much of an outcome on how things really went.
Rent for a weekend, don’t waste your money on it
I agree that for many people its probably best as a rental. You can finish the story and some of the side quests without much effort.
However, to truly experience the world of the game and everything it has to offer, it was a must buy for me. I’m loving every bit of it and keep being surprised at the dialogue and quests that I am working on.
It’s an excellent game, but it’s not without its flaws. I definitely feel like the townspeople are too forgiving and it’s too easy to influence people.
I was debating between this and fallout 3. now i no!
I’ve gotta agree with your final verdict, Eoco. I clocked in about 5 hours at a friend’s house, and though I was on the fence before that, having some actual playtime with Fable II convinced me of just how much I didn’t want to pay $60 for it.
Though I agree with most of your points, I must say that I just didn’t find the combat as compelling as you evidently did.
I really wanted my hero to deal exclusively in one form of combat (Magic FTW!), but in my opinion there’s not really much depth to any style except melee, and even that style is a bit too simple for my tastes. Sorta soured the Fable experience for me…
I have a handful of other little gripes, but the combat was the only real lethal thorn in my side.
However, if I ever find a Used copy with a $30 price tag on it, you better believe I’ll be all over it.
Good Not-a-Review, Eoco.
Seriously? Did you even do any side quests? While the main storyline may be short I’ve spent the majority of my time in the game doing side quests and amazing villagers with my handy dandy lute.
@ccwhite: how did you go from fat to skinny so fast? The only thing that makes you thin in the game is celery and that barely any.
@FlintSteelton: What the @#!& are you talking about people forgetting your evil? I’m 100% evil and corrupt and all the villagers run away from me, even into other areas.
@The Cod – For the love of god do NOT rent Fracture. Seriously dude, you’ll regret it. I mailed it back 4 hours in.
Back to the subject at hand, I honestly never had it in my mind to buy this game, it was always a rental choice for me. But after listening to Paris’ review on Uncle Gamer and watching a few gameplay walkthroughs I’ve taken it off my rental list. I might rent it a lot later down the line, but frankly there are way too many other games for me to concentrate on right now that HAVEN’T been rushed to retail.
Guys, seriously, you have to put time and effort into this game to equal its price tag. Like oblivion, the story is like 5% of the game, probably even less for oblivion. There is lots of replayability and a LOT to do. I have 3 characters and love the game, but it isn’t for everyone. SOme people do not have nor want to put in the time to enjoy this game, and thus they don’t like it. End of story.
I’m fairly certain the shortness of the main quest is a design choice. This game is meant to be replayed. Many times.
I really don’t see how anyone can claim to have seen everything Fable II has to offer in just one play through.
can someone tell me how to lose wieght in fable 2,
Good review Eoco… I totally agree with you.
@ Phantom: Eat celery, LOTS of celery.