Fable II

"RPG or Mideval Sims?"

Like all my reviews (total of 6 now I think), I start off telling the reader a little about myself. This is done solely to inform the reader I am not a child who just wants to flame or troll. I'm old enough to have witnessed the culture of video games take shape. It was Christmas time in 1987 when I found an NES under the tree, and life changed dramatically ever since. I found that the RPG genre of games best suited my personal taste, as I like to read and become immersed in a fantasy world. That said, and many years later, I was intrigued to pick up Fable 2 even though I never played the first. There will be no comparisons to Fable1 obviously, this is strictly an unbiased opinion. I also won't include any online options as I prefer to play single-player games.

Pro's
--Nice sized maps in a decent sized world
--Colorful graphics
--Simple but mildly fun battle system
--Choices
--Slightly amusing dialouge

Con's
--Quite a few glitches
--Weak story, very weak
--Exploration limited
--Weak end-game content
--Poor AI
--Only 2 moderate sized towns
--8 total magic spells
--Less than entertaining quests

As you can see, the con's outweigh the pro's for me in Fable 2. People are different and as such will find different aspects of games they enjoy more than others. I'm more of a story-driven rpg'r, which obviously will effect the total score I rank the game. I will now go a little more in depth on the pro's and con's, and rank the 5 key components of an rpg game in order of importance to my taste.

1. Story 3/10

Not sure you can even say this game has a story...? You learn most everything you'll need to know about the story in the first 3 minutes of the game's opening cut-scene. You take the role of a kid who witnesses a murder in the family, which didn't really matter because you never had a chance to get to know the character anyway. The culprit of this murder is cliche' and pretty weak. The semi-cool thing about the story is it plays out however YOU choose to play it out. You can add your end of the story by choosing between the light and dark, the hero and villian. Sounds like endless fun, BUT, there are some main distractions. For one, the character models are way overused and abused while the emotion animations become silly and monotinous. Secondly, the enemies are pretty thoughtless and easily forgettable. And C...it takes dancing like a Russian (?) a few times to get everyone in the town to love you, even old dudes who smell like moth balls. The game horribly failed me in this category, but I should have seen it coming. I would've fired somebody at the meeting that took place to introduce this story.

2. Battle System 7/10

I'm more of a turn based rpg'r, but I can easily get into playing action rpg's and platform type of games as well. This game is an action rpg, where you see and fight the enemies in real time. I like the button placement and the fluidity of the controls, but the depth of it is a bit shallow. You get a total of 8 magic spells that can be leveled up with points from killing enemies/items. The animations of the spells are ok, but nothing overly impressive. The button mashing of the skill combo's is fairly nicely done, but like the magic, there's not enough combo's to learn and learned too slowly. You also get ranged weapons, and can go into an aim mode which is useful and refreshing. Overall, the battle system was suitable for an action rpg, but didn't go above and beyond aspects that haven't been done before.

3. Music 6/10

Not bad. Not special. Just there. Once again, not enough variety in my opinion. It was good when it played and really fit the mood of the game great. Still, a lot of it sounded the same and never really grabbed my attention at any point. Nothing really stood out from the rest. Since a lot of the game is spent on a loading screen, they could have at least made a memorable load screen theme.

4. Graphics 9/10

I thought they were great. Great detail. The only gripe I may have in this category would be there was no random weather, which I thought would've added even more boost to the already beautiful scenery. Speaking of weather, the sun glare was nicely done and in the area that it rained, it was also very nicely done. The towns/villages are very detailed, and just about everything in the game is interactive. I would've liked to see more options to modify your character. Armor even. You do get dyes to change the pattern of clothes in your wardrobe, and their are a fair selection of clothes. Since the story was wrote on a napkin in a Waffle House, the developer's could have just let you modify your character from the beginning and scrapped the male/female choice to start the game. Of course, your character modifies himself through your actions, but this was done in a very limited fashion.

5. Fun/Replay Value 4/10

This ultimately is where the game lost me, but that shouldn't discourage any readers. This category is more opinionated than the rest. I flat out didn't have much fun playing this game. I enjoyed it enough to put in about 20-25 hours beating the main story, even though the main story is roughly only 3-5 hours long. Replay value surely would be added with online options, but like mentioned before, that's not for me. I did give it four points because you have a lot of choices in the game, and it's impossible to see them all in a single play through of the main story. (I think). You have jobs to master and plenty of houses to buy and redecorate, but I would really suggest the Sims on PC if that is your "thing". And yes, it was mildly entertaining slaying entire towns but it lost it's luster too quickly for me. Battles weren't tough enough to make fun, I don't think I died in all my hours of game-time.

The score averaged out to be a 5.8, and I rounded it up to a 6. Obviously the only poor ratings were for the story and fun/replay factor, so if a story isn't what makes a game fun for you, you'd probably rate this much higher. I think there should have been at least twice the content to the main storyline as there was. Twice the quests, and some CG cut-scenes would have been nice. I don't like how you travel. It automatically loads a zone sometimes 27 hours away by walking into the barrier. Where's the exploration? I think the emotion element of the game is weak and could have been way more in depth. Also the variety of NPC's and enemies seemed Playstation2 like. And yes, there are some minor technical issue, but that seems to be a part of the majority of next-gen games.

Bottom line: I'd rent it first. You can easily beat the main storyline before returning, and that should give you a good idea whether you can see yourself playing through it for the large quanity of extras. Yet, the large quanity of extras seem to be something only a hardcore perfectionist would WANT to complete.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 12/18/08

Game Release: Fable II (US, 10/21/08)