Amazon.comFable 2 is the anticipated sequel to the popular original that sold more than 3 million copies. Created by famed game designer Peter Molyneux, Fable 2 for Xbox 360 features an epic story that picks up 500 years after the first game. It offers an open world environment giving players a massive amount of freedom to explore and play as they please, with every decision made contributing to the game itself.
 | Fable 2
Players:
Offline: 1-2
Online: 2
Gameplay Modes:
Single player, offline cooperative multiplayer, online cooperative multiplayer. |  | |
The new combat system lets you master different fighting styles. View larger. |
You are free to roam the world of Albion any way you like. View larger. |
Every Choice Has Its Consequences Fable 2 provides players with a truly immersive experience where a virtually limitless number of choices can be made, all of which have their own consequences, making each game unique. When you start the game, you choose either to play the role of a boy or girl, and depending on your choices, the hero will grow up to be tall or short, good or evil. Players can get married and have children; female player characters will become pregnant, which will then be reflected by their physical appearance.
Early in the game, players are presented with a stray dog for a best friend, who will need to be fed and loved, and will accompany the player throughout his or her life. Depending on the player, the dog will change appearance and assist him or her in various ways, such as alerting of impending dangers and attacking enemies.
Players inhabit the world of Albion and are free to roam the land to as they please. Players can use different expressions to communicate with others, such as taunting and laughing, and even belching or farting.
As the players grow, so does Albion, reflecting the choices that were made earlier in the game. Every house, hut, castle, and dungeon can be purchased if the player wishes. Players can buy up all the land in a town and can become mayor, king, and even emperor of the entire land.
Fable 2 presents a dynamic and free-roaming world that doesn't demand a player to take any one set path. At the same time, players seeking a plot line will find an epic story and quest that they can follow if they wish, along with many side adventures.
Fight Using Different Weapons and Magic
Fable 2 introduces a new combat system that allows for mastery of hand weapons, such as swords, long range weapons such as cross-bows and guns, and, of course, magic. Players improve at each discipline with time, and can combine different combat styles when they fight. Other advanced design features include tactical positional advantages that can bring new strategic elements into combat.
Bring Other Players into Your World
Fable 2 has a multiplayer mode that allows you to bring other players into your own world. Consistent with the rest of the game, the actions of these other players can be permanent and affect your world. You can explore and fight together with these other players, share treasures, and even fight each other.
Note: Fable 2 will not ship with Online Co-op mode. An update with this functionality is rumored to be released shortly after the launch of the game.
Xbox LIVE Arcade Mini-Games
Gamers can play minigames through Xbox LIVE Arcade and earn currency that can be used in Fable 2 to purchase weapons, armor, and other items for the hero.
Fable 2 is rated M for having mature content that may be suitable for persons ages 17 and older.
Depending on your choices, the protagonist can turn out wildly different -- male, female, good, evil, and more. Customer Reviews
Your Health Is Low (2008-10-26)
I didn't have a problem with the game freezing up my XBOX, and I'm sorry to hear it happened to (seemingly so many) others. The story isn't the best, and the inventory system is clunkier than the original. But a lot of improvement has been made. And you have to play it for a while to notice the better differences.
The good
There is no Mana bar anymore. If you are a primary Will user, this will be a godsend. No more having to worry about how much juice you have left. If you have the spell, you can use it as much and often as you want. I loved that. To extend on this, Magic is better balanced against melee weapons, so you don't feel like I did in the first one, that the spells were a nice addition, but not typically too practical in a difficult fight.
The game has a fairly complex economy system. Much more complex than I've seen in any other game. You can buy nearly every building in every city. There are exceptions...but not many. And when I say that, I mean it. You could probably count the buildings/structures you cannot buy on one hand. Which leads to the next thing I liked: When you rent out houses or buy vendor stalls and shops, you accumulate wealth without having to work for it. And, as is normal, you can regulate how much you charge. More than the town average will corrupt you, less with make you more pure.
After the main quest, there are still jobs and quests available that take a while to complete. I've probably put a good 30 hours into the game, and I still have a lot that can be done.
You four-legged friend. I think it's the coolest addition to the game. He will help you somewhat in fights, he will sniff out treasure for you to dig up, and he will growl when you approach an enemy, before you see them. As well, he/she has a number of expressions to compliment your own...which are adorable.
The graphics are really great. They are similar to the first game in terms of coloration and...well, Fableness. It's colorful and there are lots of ambient noises out in the open.
The leveling system is improved by default. Since in this world 500 years after the first, the Heroes Guild is utterly destroyed. The Chamber of Fate is the most intact piece that us left. But this means that there are no experience portals for Skill, Will, and Strength. So as soon as you build up enough experience, you can immediately go to the Abilities section in your options and upgrade you skills.
The music is pretty, and similar to the first. It's a perfect compliment to the environment. No long explanation needed. It's just well used.
The Okay
To be honest, I was disappointed in the guns. The rifles/pistols/crossbows. I didn't find them as evenly balanced against all of the others. They are nice from long range, but I didn't find them as useful as I found the bows in the original game. Not bad by any means, but I think if they caused more damage in relation to the other types of skills you possess, I would have used them more.
The "free roaming." On the back of the box it's said that "Roads are for suckers" accompanied by a picture of someone hopping a fence. Well yes, this is possible. However, what is not possible is multiple paths to the same destination. There is more substance -around- the roads, and there are more caves, but you cannot, for instance, leave the road and go up and over the mountain to get somewhere faster.
The new mapping system. I remember about a year ago, Peter Molyneux told us all that the original Fable was too easy. You could play the game by looking only at the displayed Mini Map. And he was right. But their solution? Now instead of a Mini Map, you have a glowing golden trail to follow. You -can- turn it off, but to be honest, I didn't really see this as a solution. It's just a different version of the same thing.
The bad
The story, I have to say. It's not that great, and it's not actually that long. But, I suppose I couldn't expect something on the scale of Oblivion or Lost Odyssey after the first one was so short as well. There were really no twists. The beginning really had me intrigued, with the box and such. But then it kind of went exactly how I expected it to go. There was no...substance, to any of the characters. Except between you and your dog. At the end of the game one of the characters calls your characters the best friend she ever had...and it's meaningless. You don't spend that much time together, and are absent for a long time. You don't know that much about them.
The Inventory system. Like the last game it is nicely divided into subsections. Weapons, Clothing, Food, Potions, Trophies, Books/Documents, etc. However, when you choose, for instance, to consume a potion that will give you more Strength Experience, it closes the menu and you go back to the game. So if I want to lose weight by eating celery, I have to press Stars>Items>Food>Celery. And then repeat it. It just gets to be a hassle. I wish you could do what you need to do, and then unpause the game yourself.
Weight. If it's your first playthrough, you will probably, like me, end up overweight. I didn't even realize it was happening, because when you first play through you probably don't have that much money, so you buy whatever will heal you. This seems necessary because, 1. If you get knocked out (killed), you get a new scar, and 2. Potions and Food are a lot less plentiful than in the last game. So when you get badly injured, you eat whatever comes up on the D-Pad. There are lots and lots of things that can make you fat. Cheese, meat, pie, some beers. The only normal item that makes you lose weight is celery. The ONLY. It took me about 5 hours of interactive game play to finally get back to even with my weight. Sleeping for weeks at a time to give the produce vendors time to restock on celery, buying and eating it, sleeping again. It got tiring, very fast. So my recommendation to you if you haven't bought the game yet and are reading this...stick with potions, apples, and carrots.
(Too long didn't read? The game is worth your $60.)
Critically flawed. (2008-10-26)
The opening story arc promised an incredibly beautiful and challenging game. Trying to load the game after it autosaved resulted in the game freezing moments after.
Very disappointing. I may revise my review if they release a patch that fixes this. But the negative taste this experience has left in my mouth will not be forgotten if/when that time comes.
Good, but falls a bit short (2008-10-26)
Well, like many others, I waited a long time for Fable II. I had played Fable I, not liked it at first,
but then gone back to it, and when "The Final Chapters" version was released, got much more into it. I
was not much for RPG type games, and still don't play them much, but this one was interesting to me
because of the way it was presented, and that it was simple enough for a "casual" or "beginning" RPG
player to pick it up, without a lot of the depth or complexity of MMORPG's or "Oblivion."
Anyway, having enjoyed Fable, I waited a long time for this game. Finally, it was released, and I got it home, started it up, and was quite impressed with the opening cutscene, very nice. (I had a feeling that bird would do what it did; I don't know how). Without giving too many spoilers, you start as a young boy (or girl) poor and fighting to survive;something terrible happens (as it always does to start off RPG's), and you beging your journey with rudimentary weapons and some gold. As in the first game, your first authorized use of your weapon (yes I randomly attacked a few people first, I'm evil) is those stupid giant bettles again. As before when you kill someone or something, squeeze the left trigger to gather their "orbs." The "orbs" are used to purchase your level ups, as in the first game.
The course you follow is up to you; you can follow the main story, or quest, do things on the side, randomly kill, steal and plunder, like in the first game (but as in the first game the guards are levels above you, so it's stupid to try to fight them at first); one thing I enjoy, as I did in the first game, is to simply explore a town, sneak into a house and steal whatever I can when no one is looking (hee hee). Even being a simple theif, though will turn your alighment towards "bad." Which is alright with me, I ususally prefer to be "bad."
Some things I don't like: The interface is still hard to use. I never liked it much before now it seems worse. The map isn't too good. Also on a standard def TV (am I the last one left with one) the menu pages are hard to read, and some of the instructional text in the game is way up on top of the screen and hard to read. And I agree with other players on the save system: there is an autosave, and you can save when not on a quest, but there seems to be only one slot, so if one or the other gets corrupted you could lose hours of work. I also think it's past time for "mute" characters. Yes, it's a lot of programming, but Fable II is not a bargain game; and they can fit a lot of content on one disk; look at how the main characaters are realized in GTA IV, Mass Effect, and other games.
Some things I do like: Cutscenes are amazing. Combat is OK-I am not a melee expert and appreciate a simple interface that does a lot. I still find myself eating something when I want to draw a weapon, or casting a spell when I want to shoot somebody though. Still frustrating.
The most amazing thing: I love the dog! Absolutely amazing AI programming. I have never seen anything like it-the dog will follow you, show you the way to hidden (and buried) chests, etc, and help you in combat-if you knock a stronger foe down, the dog will attack it. Finally, however your character develops, the dog will take on a similar apperance: if you're good, it's a handsome shepard mix-looking thing, if you're evil, it's a fearsome, snarling beast. Very cool!
On the reported freezes: I have not experienced any glitches or major bugs yet; I have seen other users report the game freezes; unfourtunately when a game freezes, it ususaly means your 360 is failing (sorry). This was my experience-I purchased my first 360 in August 2006, and it gave me good service (it ran 24/7 for more than 2 years because it was networked with my computer used as a sometimes media hub)-when games began freezing in it, a short time afterwards it red ringed. From what I understand, it is VERY rare for game software to brick consoles, when this happens it's because of a console update that goes wrong because of an error that happens when the firmware is written to.
Conclusion: Fable II is a good game; if you enjoy RPG's you will like it. If you are new to RPG's you may want to rent it and check it out. Minor problems aside, it's fun and there is lots of replay value, vis. play through as a male, then a female, then evil, then good, and so on. Recommended.
Warning: Can Render XBox Useless (2008-10-26)
Buy this game if you a). have a problem with holding on to $60.00, b). hate your Xbox and want to see it crash and "red ring of death" itself or c). want to see what it's like to participate as a plaintiff in a class action lawsuit (of which there is already talk).
For me, the game froze up shortly after starting. Had to restart the XBox. Froze up shortly thereafter. Had to restart again. And again. And again. No pattern to these freeze-ups. Searched the 'net for help. Found lots and lots of people having this same problem, some to the point where their XBoxes were being rendered useless, broken or scrambled. Many theories, no one answer yet.
It's inexcusable. You won't see anything else like this.
Maybe Lionhead will patch things up very, very soon. Anyone interested in buying this title, though, is *strongly* urged to see what the status is with regard to the critical flaws and bugs prior to purchase. Or, because that's a lot of work, just buy something else.
A disappointing Sequel (2008-10-26)
I'll try to write an inclusive review, but the short of it is that the storyline is very narrow, the game is glitchy, and the last guy (Lucian) can be defeated by pressing one button.
First off, I was waiting for this game for years and was very excited about it. The game itself is vey similar to the first and claims to be 10x larger in terms of the map, but it certainly did not feal that way. The addition of firearms and have a dog as a sidekick was entertaining, but other changes were irritating. Now, you can change the furniture in houses you own to increase the rent and your spouse's opinion of your home by purchasing new furniture in stores. The problem is that when you enter "refurnish mode" it is very glitchy and I had a notice about furniture changing at the top of my screen for about ten hours straight. After beating the game I was instructed to go back to my family (based on one of three choices you make) but unfortunately my wife divorced me while I was away and I had to family to go back to. So, effectively, I can't go any further because my family no longer exists.
The story itself is ok but I felt it was extremely short. There are no twists, no major bosses (you could include the commandant in the spire, but he was a joke). When you finally get to the villain of the story, Lucian, you literally press X once to beat him. Totally anticlimactic. There are a laundry list of side tasks that are really unnecessary because you don't need to complete them to build your character. There's only five levels for everything in the game- spells, swords, skills, etc.- and the range of weapons and other things to buy was really slim. Speaking of slim, if you accidentally hit the right button at time you will eat fatty food you have in your inventory inadvertently and then your character gets fat. The only way to get slim again is to run around to vendors and buy a bunch of celery which is annoying, but so is walking around with a fat character.
Honestly, if you are on the fence for this game I would hold out. In all likelihood they will come out with a Fable II Lost Chapters and fix the craptacular ending and make the main storyline longer.
