Fable II

"Improves on what made Fable I great but also doesn't fix the first one's problems."

Fable II is a sandbox Action adventure that features a game full of choices, the whole point in the game is basically living in a sandbox environment with an entire fantasy world at your fingertips. What you do is up to you and you will always live with the consequences. Ultimately Fable II successfully brings you into the world of Albion but also has problems that seem to take you right back out.

Story: 8/10
The story is definitely an improvement over Fable I. It takes place 500 or so years after Fable and starts with you as a street urchin orphan child with your sister. After a strange turn of events you team up with an old gypsy (whose purpose for helping you isn't really revealed) and a dog to take down this insane lord named Lucien who wants to take over the world. You need to assemble three heroes (Strength, Skill and Will) to take Lucien down. One problem with the story is that most of the characters are pretty one sided and lack depth. There isn't too much to the story, it seems second to the sandbox. That's not necessarily a bad thing, because the story is interesting but there isn't much development and falls a little flat. The story is also more of a background to put you in morality situations, cool locations and trying to get famous. The quests are a major highlight of Fable II. All the quests are interesting and take you to some awesome locations. There is no quest hub, so you just receive the quests as you go along with the game. This was a great addition and makes the game flow better.

Graphics: 8/10
The graphics in Fable are overall pretty good but the parts that are bad really stick out. Technically, Fable II falls a tad flat. This seems a little strange to me, because this is where the first Fable excelled. There are constant clipping issues; the textures really don't come together that well and there aren't that many different skins. All the women have the same dress and hair, and all the guards have the same hunch. On the other side, Fable II has extremely well done artistic style. Everything has 14th century flair to it and it flows really well. Even though Fable I had a medieval setting, it seems like nothing was lost artistically when Fable II was made. Fable I told the story through stained glass and murals, Fable used more of a storybook drawing approach. This seemed very cool the way they played out but there weren't that many of them, so it seemed a little more of an add-on.

Sound: 8/10
The sound is pretty well done overall. There aren't that many tracks but they all fit. None of the tracks are as memorable as the opening theme of the first fable. The sound effects are all well done just like the first fable. The British voices were a good idea and the vocal performances are pretty good. Fable II suffers from the lack of voices (it seems like there's five voice actors), just like Fable I.

Game play: 9/10
Combat
Fable II shines in terms of game play, in all aspects, but I had to divide it up. Combat changed from being a Zelda-clone to something that seems closer to a hack and slash or Assassin's Creed. You have one button for your melee weapon, one for ranged and one for Will (magic). You switch between the two fairly quickly, so mixing the three will be fairly common in battle. You don't level up, but you gain experience orbs to spend on upgrading your hero. One problem with the orbs is the only way you can collect them is to hold R (which makes you stand still). In combat if you want to get any experience for what you've done, you need to jump out of combat and collect all the orbs, or just get attacked. The orbs also disappear and you can't run over them to collect them. This problem sounds small but it makes the combat a little frustrating. There are three categories to upgrade, Strength (melee), Skill (ranged) and Will (magic). You can upgrade at any time, whereas in Fable I you had to go to a certain spot to do it. Like Fable I, you mixed the three and ended up becoming a hybrid, you really had to go out of your way to specialize in one. You also gain abilities (in Strength and Skill), but after the second one they seem a little useless and hard to pull off. Overall the combat highs outweigh the low and it stays fresh from start to finish.

Non-combat
The noncombat is also pretty good, but not as good as the combat. A lot of the game is based on making choices on being good or evil. This works very well and you really have to make some really hard decisions at times. The renown is also handled better, but its not much different than Fable I. One thing is getting renown from showing people trophies, which is small but a very nice touch. You also get a wide variety of expressions, which can be very funny at times, and its just fun to see how people react to them. There is no armor in the game, which makes sense because the game has a 14th century atmosphere. Instead clothing is mainly used to make you more or less attractive or good. As I said before, you get a dog, which is probably the best thing about the game (not saying the other features are bad though). The dog useful and will find a lot of great treasure for you. Over the course of the game, you really start to feel the companionship. Instead of getting money for quests, you only get renown. You get money from jobs and gambling. This may sound like you won't get much money at all but it's quite the opposite. Money never seemed like an issue to me, because it's very easy to make money in the various jobs. Some jobs may require you to be a blacksmith while another is human trafficking. Overall the jobs are a great feature and they are fun to do (though I can't say I've tried human trafficking). There is also an economy in the game, which determines prices and the amount of a certain product they have.

Multiplayer: 6/10
Fable II's multiplayer co-op aspect really feels like a cheap last minute add on. I don't mind that you don't get to play as your character (it makes sense), but the experience was dull. You and your friend have to share the same screen, which is very awkward. If you're following your friend, the only thing you can do is to follow him and help him on his quests. That just means helping him/her kill stuff. You're follower can get money or experience, but there's no real reason to keep it since you're playing a follower who gets deleted after you leave. You and your friend can knock out achievements though (you get it and hew/she gets it). This was a nice addition and makes multiplayer fun and not just a nuisance.

Environment: 7/10
The environment in Fable II suffers from the same problems as Fable, long and frequent loading times. Fable I had top notch graphics and a very detailed environment, so it was a little more acceptable. Fable II doesn't push the 360 like Fable I pushed the Xbox, and seeing games like Oblivion(which came out in 2006) have larger environments there's almost no reason to have frequent load times. These load times make the world seem like small little places rather than one open world. The places aren't as cramped as Fable I but some of the places still seem a little cramped. It's also hard to tell what you can and can't interact with. Also sometimes you try to activate something and it takes a while to see what you can do with the given item or sometimes you have to press A over and over. On the plus side the world is very detailed. It also feels very real with the economy, the many homes and shops and the amount of stuff to do within a given area.

Overall Fable II is a great Xbox game but it is not without flaws. Although it improves over Fable I it still doesn't fix some of Fable I's problems (frequent loads, shallow characters). I would recommend Fable II to anyone who's looking for more of a sandbox Adventure type game that is light on story or fans of the original Fable. Although Fable II was a bit short, the 10 or so hours I took to beat definitely weren't wasted.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 02/12/09

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