Fable 2 Review

[Fiach]

As was mentioned, we can start threads about games we find interesting, so I would like to pay tribute to this game Fable 2.

It would also be a pretty interesting springboard into the world of RPGs for a number of reasons, It had a strong storyline, its quite an epic tale, with great character customisability.

Its seldom I play a game more than once, I have played I think less than 5 games more than once, I am writing this piece on Fable 2 because I started a second run through as an evil character as a joke, not to complete the game, but just to see how a few evil results panned out in making some quests more interesting, then I just kept on playing AND bought the DLC!

Fable 2 starts off with you and your elder sister as kids in a kind of victorian-ish London, a quite shocking (yes, really surprising event) occurs, which winds up with your character returning to conciousness a few years later.

The game itself is quite extraordinary as everything you do has a consequence, it does not punish you for being evil, for example, people dont like you because you are evil, so they charge a more expensive price in the shops, but you can threaten them with an evil gesture to make them reduce the price .

If you choose an evil result to end a quest, The game will try to justify it to you and make the outcome seem like a reasonable choice :) But you can be assured that the evil end to the quest will have an interesting result and be significantly different from the "good" ending.

Back to the story, you awaken and find yourself propelled into a very well plotted storyline involving your quest to assemble a party of characters to take on the "big bad", there is a hero for each skill (Magic, Melee or Ranged) but you can excel in all of the skills too.

As you seek each hero they too have their own stories to tell, then when they are all assembled, you go kick some evil a$$.

Good or Evil, Corrupt or Pure

As mentioned, everything you do has consequences, pushing you in different directions on a slider scale towards each of the headings above.

Good and evil are self explanatory, you behave as you see fit, you will still get reputation points (sort of like karma XP), but they will affect how people percive you and also ..... your appearance changes, more on that later.

Purity and Corruption, this slider scale is moved by acts of charity and selfishness, also by the types of food you consume, again it affects how people will percieve you and changes your appearence.

Things that govern these things are quest outcomes, food consumption, what price you charge for rent in houses you own, killing innocents etc.

You can buy property and rent it out, which makes a huge impact on your wealth, but the rent you charge can be lowered or increased at your whim. It will affect the economy of each town in which you become financially involved.


Things to do in Albion
As mentioned, you can buy property, you can also get married, have sex, protected or unprotected and have to deal with the fallout from which type you choose, there are condoms in game to help you make your choice. You can have kids, get sexually transmitted diseases, have same sex marriages, even marry a zombie (she's probably the best marriage partner in the game too!), you can even have sex or marry prostitutes, the game is called Fable, but this is no fairytale!

You are what you eat

....and what you do, as you progress through the game, your appearence changes, whether you are good/evil/pure or corrupt, even your skill choices change your appearence :

melee = More physical and muscular

ranged = makes you taller (dunno why, maybe because shooting downhill makes you more accurate :)

magic = you get glowing blue veins coursing through your body, sort of like the characters in the movie TRON.

evil = dark purple veins on your skin surface, evil magic users look quite awesome! Also you grow horns and your eyes turn green!

good - a halo over your head and blue eyes.

death = if you die in combat you get permenant scars, you can buy potions to prevent these.

The game is very immersive, apart from the excellent graphics, you also have the local people commenting on you or talking to each other about trivial things, as mentioned before, you can get married and have a family and you can then sacrifice your family to an evil cult  ??? You can even get a job to make money (bartender, woodcutter etc.) you can play games of chance with Gamemasters that you meet in bars or on your travels. You can give/receive gifts with ingame characters, just so much stuff, you can be as involved in the gameworld as you want basically.

There are a great variety of locations too, cities, picturesque towns, haunted marshes, deserted islands with pirate treasure, graveyards, haunted mansions, frontier towns, forests inhabited with Balverines (like werewolves) a combat arena, shooting range, just so many things vying for your interest.

There are alot of things to do outside of the main storyline, you can look for treasure with your Dog, who can sniff out places to dig or treasure chests to find, he also helps you in combat. There are 50 Gargoyle heads scattered all over albion who basically insult the crap out of you until you find them and shoot them, they are very funny. There are "Demon Doors" in all the areas, that will ask you to do specific things, upon doing their bidding, they will open for you and reveal whats inside, eg. One door wnats to see you propose marriage to someone in front of it, when you do, it opens up and inside is a beautiful idyllic farm where you can both live, it also has a legendry melee weapon in its millhouse.

Anyway, I think this is a great game that will have a very wide appeal, it looks great, is fun to play, it has humour and sadness and a darn good storyline, where your contribution actually makes a difference!

[PZ]

Excellent review Fiach,
I've never played a true RPG - this one sounds like it might be a good one.  I like FC2 because it is not a linear shooter; you can do basically what you want.  It sounds like the RPGs allow you even more flexibility - cool.

[Fiach]

Just ocurred to me, its only on 360, sorry I never thought about that aspect  :(

Not sure if there are any really good RPG's on the PS3, none spring to mind immediately.

[JRD]

Outstanding Fiach... great, great review.  :-X
Excellent reading and very illustrative. I always wonder how those RPG games might be, but I'm better off with a trusty member reviewing them than reading those on Gamespot... excellent w@&k my friend...
Doesn't matter if its just a 360 game, keep them coming.  ;D

One game I'm curious about is Oblivion.. I think Art played that one too.........

[Fiach]

Oblivion is a great game on PC and 360, dont know about PS3 though.

A top class RPG, not a meandering as Morrowind (its prequel), much more focused IMO. It also has some great expansions and DLC, Shivering Isles and Knights of the Nine are just excellent games in their own right.

There are (I think) 3 houses you can aquire in KotN expansion, one is a vampres if memory serves me correctly, it is probably the most creepy place I have seen in a game.

A huge game, lots of scope for different styles of play, vast open world, lots of underground dungeons.

Too huge for a review here, but it is great.

But .... its all swords and sorcery, gotta like those first, if you want shooting, I recommend FO3, itself and Oblivion are by the same company and of similar quality.

[PZ]

I'll echo JRD's comment about reading reviews posted by OWG members - I'd trust the opinions of our membership over others any time!   :-X

[RedRaven]

my kid really liked Fable 1 on normal Xbox, but not got the 360 (microsoft proper greedy imo! PC games AND a console)

Who can remember Elite ? and who has played X2 or X3 ?
not sure if they count as open world or not (being outer space and all) but lost many many weekends to Elite in my teens, X2/X3 are closest have seen to it ,

[Fiach]

Not played Elite, but X2 and 3 were quite awesome, X3 has a 2.0 version with alot of revisions and an expansion recently released, so keep an eye out for it, I think its the Bala gui expansion or something.

Lots of great space operas out there, Homeworld, Freespace, Tachyon the Fringe, Starlancer, Freelancer and a very good MMO called EvE.

[Art Blade]

I played Oblivion (also Shivering Islands expansion) and X2/X3 too. I soon started modding Oblivion and X3, same with FallOut3 (based on Oblivion engine) :)

[KingRat]

I had never played any of the Fable series until I picked up Fable Anniversary on the 360, and liked it well enough I also picked up the steam version. Anyway, when MS made 2&3 backwards compatible for the Xbone I picked them up on sale and just started playing. I must say that when Lucien shot Rose I dropped my controller :o

What a way to start off...

[Art Blade]

Whoa, KR, you certainly take your time replying to some posts here.. the last entry before yours is mine, from 2009! Only months after we started this site. And Fiach posted before me, almost (a couple of hours difference) exactly three years ago was the last time he visited this site.

Good you've always found your way back, pal :-D

Enjoy the game. :)

[PZ]

 :-X

You are quite thorough when searching the site, KingRat  ^-^

[KingRat]

Hi guys  8)

You know I've been late to the party on more than one occasion, and I wasn't sure I'd like these but they've held up well. Now I think it's too bad MS closed down Lionhead. I see a lot of comments on youtube hoping for a 4th game in the series.

[Art Blade]

 :)