Review: Fable II (XBox 360)
Wednesday, January 21st, 2009
Male or Female? Good or Evil? Pure or Corrupt? Axe or Sword? Meat or Vegetable? Blonde or Brunette? These are just a few of the questions you must answer while playing Fable II.
Welcome to the fantastical world of Albion, where guns and swords live together in harmony and magic still exists, even if the town yokels believe otherwise. Albion can be a tough place to eke out a living, but there is plenty of gold to be gained, if one knows where to look. It is here, in a town called Bowerstone, that young Sparrow sets out with his (or her) elder sister, Rose, to purchase an allegedly magical music box from a traveling salesman.
Soon after acquiring said trinket, the pair are whisked away in the middle of the night to Fairfax Castle, home of Lord Lucien. He is very interested to learn that the children were able to activate the music box, a sign that the two are part of a heroic bloodline. Upon learning this, the Lord pulls out a pistol and fires it at Rose, killing her instantly. He then shoots the younger child, the force of which knocks little Sparrow backwards through a stained-glass window to the ground several stories below.
Luckily for you, the child survives the fall (thanks to that heroic ancestry) and is hidden away by a mysterious woman named Theresa. Many years pass until an older Sparrow begins the quest to avenge his (or her) sister and save Albion itself from the plans of Lord Lucien.
I hear he's got some good deals on used video games.
“And so our story begins…”
Fable II is all about choices, and allowing you to play the game how you want to. You are first faced with the choice of playing as a male or a female. This doesn’t really affect how the game plays out, but it is a welcome character customization option. You begin the game in childhood, accompanied by your sister. In order to get the music box, you must earn five gold pieces by completing a few small requests from some of the people around the “Old Town” section of Bowerstone.
How you complete these tasks has a lasting impact on how you will find the town later on in the game. Clear some beetles out of a local warehouse and find a few lost warrants for the town guard, and you will return to find that Old Town has prospered during your years away. However, if you smash all the stock in the warehouse and give the lost warrants to the local thug instead, you will later find that your childhood home has turned into a retched hive full of scum and villainy. This is just one early example of how your actions can influence the world of Albion.
Fable II is not a difficult game. You will very rarely find yourself on the brink of death, and even then death only means being knocked out for a few seconds. You’ll quickly be back on your feet to continue the fight with only a few scars to remind you that you were momentarily defeated in battle. Most of the enemies in the game are easily overcome, and even when you run across a more difficult battle, you will most likely possess several potions and food items to keep your health up. The main storyline can be plowed through in a fairly short amount of time, but then you would be missing the point of the game (not to mention a large amount of content). You will find the world of Albion much more alive and compelling by letting yourself get sucked in to the various things outside the main quest.
9.8 out of 10 for Style - 7.6 out of 10 for Execution
Fable II allows you to really embrace the “role-playing” part of an RPG and make yourself a part of Albion, if you choose to do so. It is possible to get married, have a family, find a job, and buy a house. You can do this in whatever order you choose, although everything becomes much easier when you have a ton of cash lying around. The streets of Albion are full of greedy individuals, so throwing expensive gifts around is the easiest way to get people to like you. You can also perform several different “Expressions” to influence how everyone reacts to you. Dancing a jig or farting has a much different effect on the populace than performing pelvic thrusts, growling, or flipping the bird. Some of these expressions can be done for an extended amount of time, but there can be unintended, and sometimes hilarious, consequences if you mess them up. Depending on what kind of a character you are playing as (and how famous you are), the townsfolk will react to you differently. They will definitely let you know what they think about your outfit or your recent murder spree.
There are several ways to make money in Albion. First of all, you can earn gold from completing certain quests, but usually not very much and not every quest will net you income. There is also a lot of treasure scattered about the world. Finding it is made slightly easier by your trusty Treasure Detector 3000, also known as man’s best friend. Your faithful canine companion follows you around wherever you go. It will bark whenever treasure is nearby, whether buried in the ground or in a rusty chest that you are already in the process of opening. Most likely, you will also need to take on a few odd jobs to earn yourself some gold. I found bartending to be the easiest job to earn gold quickly while working at the blacksmith was fairly time-consuming for a relatively small reward. Extorting money from local shopkeepers and stealing from the homes of law-abiding citizens is also a money-making option.
Fun awaits beneath Albion's crypts...
This is all well and good, however jobs, thieving, quests, and treasure hunting will only get you so far. The real way to make money in Albion is real estate. Almost every shop, stall, house, and inn that you come across is up for sale. Once you have purchased a building, you earn gold from your store’s profits or rent payments from tenants. You can leave prices as they are, or you can choose to raise or lower them to affect your bottom line. Raise prices too high, and the citizens of Albion will start to complain. Slash prices at the local pub, and they will love you for it. However you decide to set your prices, the game will award you with your profits every five minutes, and your character will even amass gold while the console is powered off.
Now that I’ve spent all this time describing a lot of the ancillary things in Fable II, let’s move on to the actual questing and character development in the game. Fighting in battles and completing quests will earn you experience points, similar to most other RPGs. Aside from general experience, your character will gain knowledge in three combat-related areas: Strength, Skill, and Will. Strength is earned by fighting with melee weapons such as a sword. Skill is amassed by using a crossbow or a gun, and Will is learned through the use of various magic spells. There are many aspects of your character to upgrade from increasing your total amount of health to the amount of damage done with melee weapons to learning new combat skills. You are also able to learn many different spells such as Raise Dead, Shock, and the insanely useful Time Control.
Combat can initially be fairly simple, although the magic system allows for a fair amount of strategy and depth. Mashing the X button will swing your melee weapon around while the Y button is used for ranged attacks. Holding a button down will use a more powerful, charged attack. Magic is handled a bit differently from the other types of combat. Each spell that you learn can be upgraded up to five times. Once unlocked, spells can be assigned to one of five increasingly powerful casting slots. All of the spells you have learned can be switched around at any time to suit whatever situation you find yourself in.
The Creepy Graveyard Shooting Range would like to remind its patrons that rifle safety is of the utmost importance.
Holding the B button will begin powering up your spells, eventually charging up to the highest level. Releasing the button will cast whatever spell you have assigned to the slot that you charged up to. The ability to cast spells on an area (more powerful spells cover more space) or to target a specific enemy adds another level of depth to the use of Will. Except in very rare instances, you cannot be interrupted while charging a spell. This creates a tradeoff between trying to cast a high-level spell before taking too much damage from enemy attacks while doing so. Personally, I found that using a second level Time Control spell to slow down time before trying to cast a higher-level spell could be a very useful strategy.
Completing different quests in the game will net you renown, making you more and more famous throughout Albion. Certain missions will unlock as you become more well-known or as you complete undertakings related to the main story. Once you complete the main narrative, you can still run around Albion completing tasks, searching for treasure, or taking on jobs. In fact, there are a few missions that only open up after you have finished the central tale.
Fable II is comprised of many different ingredients. It doesn’t do everything perfectly, but it does so many things well, making the whole experience become more than the sum of its parts. Albion is a living, breathing place (with a cheeky sense of humor) that is shaped by the decisions you make, and that world kept compelling me to come back for more.
Final Grade: A-
Knothole Island DLC (800 MS Points):
The downloadable Knothole Island add-on puts a few more entries on the list of things to do in Albion. It seems that the people on Knothole Island are having a little trouble with their weather, and they require a hero to fix things for them. The island has a few new stores, including a “mystery box” store in which you have to trade specific items from the mainland for each box. The shops include a ton of new items only found on Knothole Island such as height-changing potions, unique weapon augments and several goofy new outfits.
Knothole Island is good if you want just a little bit more to enjoy in Fable II. The quests unlock as you finish the major story missions, meshing seamlessly into the game for new characters. However, the island experience doesn’t last very long if you go there after completing the main game as the quests are very easily completed using a fully-upgraded character.
Final Grade (Knothole Island): B-
Gallery of Images
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- The Creepy Graveyard Shooting Range would like to remind its patrons that rifle safety is of the utmost importance.
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- 9.8 out of 10 for Style – 7.6 out of 10 for Execution
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- Fun awaits beneath Albion’s crypts…
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- I hear he’s got some good deals on used video games.
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Nice review Nathan! However i seemed to die multiple times…. I must suck…
I really enjoyed Fable 2. I was extremely excited about the original, but was ultimately left disappointed. this time when I came in, I was highly skeptical, but still eagerly anticipating the game. I don’t often beat games I play, even the ones I love (Sorry Fallout 3, I swear I will return to you someday soon!). However, in this case, I flew through the game, and still managed a good 30 hours of play time.
Ultimately for me, I loved the story, but was a bit disappointed by a few things. The outfits weren’t varied enough, the weapons weren’t varied enough, the one-button combat was quite cool, but when everything else lacks varience, this felt a bit flat too. Also, a lot of the issues with people following you around, getting you stuck in your house because they crowd your doors, etc were quite annoying.
Possibly my biggest disappointment was that the co-op really sucks in this game. I’m a huge fan of the idea that co-op makes any game better. Now I always feel like I have to preface that with “if it’s done right”. Overall, it was a sloppy implementation in this case, and it really killed it quickly for me.
I don’t think I died more than once or twice the whole game. So I didn’t find it difficult at all, but it still managed to keep me interested. Ultimately, it was one of my favorite games of the year. But I definitely think there were some better choices out there.
Fable 2 certainly has some issues, but for me, they never got in the way of having fun.
I kind of see your point about the variety in the clothing, but then again I had well over a hundred different pieces of clothing by the end of the game. Add in several dozen different dyes for new color choices and you get a fair amount of variety. I also found out late in my second playthrough that some of the coats and shirts could be toggled between an “open” and “closed” state. Running around with the Ranger coat’s hood over my head was pretty cool.
If Lionhead was able to make this many improvements between the first and second game, I hope they can continue to improve it for the inevitable Fable 3.
You may have had over a hundred pieces, but the core game had only 21 different outfits (Less, if you don’t count the pre-order Halo suit). The biggest problems was that for such a low number, I thought the variance was a little disappointing.
17 Coats,
21 hats,
13 tops,
8 gloves,
19 pants,
16 shoes,
4 masks
May seem like a lot, until you realize that there are two sexes in the game, and clothing for each of them.
The other annoyance came from the fact that you very rarely ever really needed to change weapons, so ~70% of them were completely useless. I don’t think I changed weapons amongst a specific type more than once or twice in the game.
But yeah, I definitely think the game has a huge number of improvements that could put it in a whole new world.
I definitely agree. When you look at total outfits, it does come up a bit short. However, the Knothole Island DLC helps out a bit with that. There are some new outfits that come with it that are much different than the stuff from the main game. You get a biker gang outfit, two different suits of armor, a barbarian outfit, and some warrior queen outfit thing that is pretty cool. Plus, you get a pair of sunglasses.
The new weapons are also fun. Hal’s Rifle is a Fable-ized version of an assault rifle from Halo, and there’s a cool mage’s sceptre as well. There isn’t a staggering amount of new stuff, but I think they went for quality over quantity for the DLC.
I really don’t know what happened.
I think Mass Effect spoiled me.
Don’t get me wrong, I loved getting back into Albion especially since it brought back fond memories of Fable 1. My issues probably stem from how I got into RPGs. In middle school I got into that magical game D&D, that gave me the best of both worlds, the quasi illusion that I could try to do everything (as proved by my DM’s headaches and swearing) while always having a compelling, interesting, dynamic main quest point that we were forced down even if we had to be tricked there. It’s the same reason I could never get into Oblivion, too much development focus on the open endedness without a great story compelling you forward. Bioware, with games like KOTOR, Jade Empire, and Mass Effect gave a great story that in the open endedness in how you could approach it gave that great feeling of freedom within the main plot without taking away from the side-quests.
Enough of my rambling and back to the game at hand. I enjoyed it for what it was but it still had too many annoying flaws and not enough pro’s to overlook them. The three paths were so limited that there wasn’t really specialization by the end, just what you choose to use. The story was good but not great, and most aspects of the game became repetitively annoying very fast. I liked the game but I don’t think it felt like a full game to me with the shortness of the main story but I’m probably just overcritical of RPG’s. Now I’m going to get back to my 6th time through Mass Effect, I feel like being wow’d.
I thought the story for Fable 2 started out great, but once you got past the midpoint it fizzled out. I kind of like how it ended in a sort of…..philosophical way, for lack of a better word at the moment, but I think the lack of a huge final confrontation definitely hurt the game a bit.
Mass Effect is my favorite 360 game, and I’ll probably get around to reviewing it at some point. I’ve played completely through it twice, and I have another playthrough that I left in progress a while back. I’ve had so many other games to play lately that I haven’t gotten back to it. Mass Effect definitely doesn’t lack in the “epic ending” category.
Definitely loved the story the whole way through. And it was definitely better than Mass Effect, IMO. Bioshock is still my favorite, though. Story, atmosphere, gameplay…it has it all.
I generally liked Fable 2’s story, but Mass Effect’s story was much better. I connected with all the characters in Mass Effect much more than the ones in Fable 2, and I genuinely cared about what happened to them.
Mass Effect shares a similarity with the recent Prince of Persia game here in that the story becomes much deeper through optional conversations. There is a TON of stuff in Mass Effect that you will miss if you don’t talk to the crew in between missions. I also felt that the “big decision” moments in Mass Effect were pulled off much better than what Fable 2 did. I actually had to sit and think about the impact they would have on my game.
Mass Effect gets the edge for me over Fable 2, but I really loved both games (as the time I spent playing them will attest). I’m not sure what my hour count for Fable 2 is (probably somewhere close to 30 hours), but if I remember correctly, I have put well over 70 hours into Mass Effect.
Here’s hoping both games get stellar sequels.
We’ll agree to disagree there. I thought Mass Effect was a decent game, but an extreme shadow of what it should/could be. I’m a huge fan of Bioware, but that was definitely not their best work. I played through once, and the story was solid, but the rest of the game was a huge turn off. Inventory management, bland as bland can be sidequests (Cookie cutter is another desciption I would use), texture popping (Not a huge graphics snob, but this was enough to even bother me), long ass load times (Elevators of doom!), etc.
I really hope the sequel makes huge strides. But I would compare the level of Mass Effect to something more like Fable (With much better graphics) than Fable II.
Great ending to Mass Effect, overall a blah game for me. Great overall story for Fable II (Especially the beginning, but also at the end), with a solid but flawed game. Neither will finish in my Top 5 360 games. Bioshock, Call of Duty 4, Halo 3 is the top 3, and there are several more right there near the top. I’d say that Orange Box would probably be there at #4 with Portal and Team Fortress 2 (Not a big Half Life fan, actually). Beyond that, it may be Gears or Gears 2 (Haven’t even started into the Gears 2 story, as I didn’t want to do it until I could do it with co-op.
Isn’t it great that we can even have a problem squeezing in games into our top 5?
Yes, it’s nice to have trouble making a top 5…..but back to that in a moment.
It sounds like we are flip-flopped in our opinions of Fable 2 and Mass Effect. I have to call you out on the load times thing though. Fable 2’s load times aren’t much better than Mass Effect’s load times, and they seem to happen a bit more frequently to me (although it has been a while since I’ve played ME, so I’d have to do a side by side comparison to be sure). I actually liked the elevators as it kept you in the game environment, and some of the conversations were fun. The Citadel was the only place that got a little overboard with elevators. It seemed like other locations only had a couple elevators, if any at all.
I also thought that, even though a large portion of the side quests in Mass Effect were cookie-cutter, there were still several unique missions in there as well. There are even several side quests that only show up based on your character’s background (ie. being from Earth gets you a few different quests than being from space or the colonies). Though I think the difference between us is that I still enjoyed all the cookie-cutter side missions as well.
Anyway, I just had a really great time with the game, and I loved the universe they set up there (seriously, go through all the codex entries sometime). I also had a great time with Fable 2, just not quite as much by a slim margin.
Talking about these two games makes me want to pick up another RPG to play. If Fallout 3 goes on sale for $40 at Target again, I might just have to pick it up. Oblivion has been tempting me with its $25 price tag on the used game shelf at GameStop, but there’s something that’s holding me back from picking it up.
And now back to my top five 360 games (that I’ve played)….maybe I should write an article on them sometime….
1. Mass Effect
2. Burnout Paradise
3. Assassin’s Creed
4. The Orange Box (it’s hard to beat the Half-Life/Portal/Team Fortress 2 combo)
5. Fable 2
Honorable Mention: Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, Civilization Revolution
I do have Bioshock now, but I haven’t played very much of it yet. I’m sure it’ll land high on my list.
The difference is that the areas you load in Fable 2 seem much larger to me. You load up an entire zone, as opposed to the next floor of rooms. The only reason it really seems like you load more often is because you usually bounce around a lot in the game.
It never bothered me in Fable (Possibly also because I can just sit and listen to the Fable music, where I didn’t like the Mass Effect music as much). But I do think some of the bugs in Fable were worse. For me though, the whole picture of the game was better with F2, since I couldn’t even maintain my interest in Mass Effect until nearly the end of the game.
I will say, I couldn’t stand Oblivion, at all. Too open, and too boring for me. The main quest line was completely dull, and I really felt far too restricted by the rules of the game. It annoys me when they include an omnipotent law system. You even look at a person wrong in the game (while in a secluded forest on a private island), and here come the guards.
I like Fallout 3 a lot more in comparison. The setting is definitely grim and dark, which sets some people off. But I think it’s a lot of fun. The story seems cool. The skill system is definitely much improved from Oblivion. Perks were a great addition.
I also agree with you that Burnout Paradise is a fantastic game. I especially loved the online play capabilities, even though I rarely got to do more than a couple 2 player games. Still, it was fun trying to top random speed records and such while going through the city.
I’ve gotten so many hundreds of hours out of Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4. Probably more than any other game this generation, actually. So that’s mostly why they sit at top. Their online multiplayer is virtually flawless. So the stories and single player experiences are really added bonuses.
Whoa. That reply got to be a bit long.
It’s the small column width when you get to tier 3
Okay, let’s bounce this back out to normal column width….
Speaking of Burnout Paradise, they just announced that the Party Pack DLC (the first pack you’ll have to pay for) will be released in a couple weeks. I don’t really care about the stuff in that one, but it will be accompanied by yet another free update to the game. This free update will include a bunch of different tweaks, including the ability to restart events. When it comes to supporting your game and listening to your fans, nobody does it better than Criterion right now. I think that Burnout Paradise is the best racing game this generation simply for the amount of support it has gotten after it hit retail.