For Starters...
I'm taking a different approach to all of this, and by different, I mean minor changes. For starters, you may remember me as "Jason". To act all "professional-like", I'll be using my real name instead.
Right, now: A few spoilers, but I'll try to avoid the main one(s).
Also, not a big thing, but after about... the third paragraph, I'll just say "Fable" unless otherwise specified. Just remember, I'm referring to "Fable II", the new one, obviously.
Alex Reviews...
"And so, our story begins..."
If you recall, back in 2004, a man by the name of Peter Molyneux went absolutely nuts getting everyone excited for the upcoming game, Fable. If you didn't have the great fortune to hear about the story, you can summarize the hype in two words: second coming.
When Fable was released, sadly, it didn't live up to the hype, as it should have. That's not to say it wasn't good - I thoroughly loved it - yet it didn't amount up to the game Molyneux was promising, let alone the second coming of RPGs. It was short, ended abruptly, had no multiplayer, was extremely linear, and had moderate re-playability. It was an RPG in every sense of the word - grab sword / crossbow, accept quest, kill monsters, get paid, wash, repeat, etc.
Four long, chicken-chasing years later, Fable 2 was finally released, and the final outcome is fairly good. Still, I'm waiting on that "second coming".
"If you squint really hard, you can almost see the hype for this game embedded into the dog's ass."
Chicken Chaseh'? Do ya chase chickens?
The game starts on a high note: a bird perches on a roof nearby and proceeds to crap on your head. "Eww, yuck," your sister says as she rubs her arms, grasping for any warmth whatsoever. "I hear that's lucky, though." This time around, you can start the game as either a boy or a girl, with a starting title of "[Little] Sparrow", a name I particularly like. It is winter, and snow coats the land. Your sister and you huddle around a small fire, two orphans looking for food, warmth and shelter. A commotion is heard, and upon checking it out, you find a trader has set up a stand in the middle of the town, Bowerstone. He proclaims that the items he sells are mystic, and full of magic. He displays a "magic music box", able to grant a single wish, to which your sister scoffs. A blind, robed woman nearby turns, noting that, "we live in grim times, indeed, when the young are too world-weary to believe in magic." Your first quest begins as the woman walks away: get that music box for five gold coins.
Five gold coins? In a traditional callback to the original Fable, collecting [up to] five gold coins to buy sweets for your sister, you're off to raise the money to buy that music box, and see if it is all that it is cracked up to be. Consider the first half-hour to hour or so of gameplay a tutorial. Your actions as a young orphan really have little consequence, with the except of one I'll cover later, so this is really just a taste of a little combat, a little morality, and a little navigating.
Fable is known for its morality in quests, and a good/bad system. For example, and this is one of the more major decisions you will need to make, a nearby guard asks you to go collect five warrants for criminals. The papers blew away, and upon retrieving them and heading back, you're stopped by a shady character. He's wiling to give you the gold the guard would've given you if you simply give HIM the warrants. If you're going evil, and give them to him, returning to this part of the city later on reveals that it has become crime infested, and looks horrible, with homelessness and fires everywhere. Someone going good would simply turn them into the guard, and the part of town - affectionately called "Old Town" - would look well-off, and respectable.
The game looks pretty- sometimes TOO pretty. Occasionally, sun-glares and visual effects are a bit overdone.
To make a long story short - and not to ruin the experience - you raise the money, buy the box, and your sister makes a wish. You are, unexpectedly, invited to Castle Fairfax, where the two of you meat Lord Lucien for the first time. His reasons for your invitation are odd: you managed to use the music box you had bought, and amidst his rambling, he speaks of heroes, and how you two shouldn't, essentially, be alive. Quickly, he removes his pistol and fires at your sister, killing her. He aims at you, and through a cutscene, you are blasted out of a stained-glass window, fall over forty stories, slam into a roof or two, and land on the ground. A stray dog - one you help out in a quest earlier on - comes to your aid, as does the strange, robed woman from before.
It is here you "grow up" into early adulthood - through the rest of the game, you technically advance into natural adulthood, though there is no other great leap like the one in the beginning - and the game really begins. You are given a sword and crossbow, as well as a few potions, and are slowly introduced into melee combat, ranged combat, and the use of Will through another very small tutorial.
What did one Hobbe say to the other? "Hey, Hobbe's it hanging?" .... *Ba-Dum-Tssh*
Combat is basically what you'd expect. You simply press "X" to swing your sword, hold down "B" to cast spells, and press "Y" to fire your ranged weapon. Each enemy - including the little Hobbes above - drop experience orbs, and the type of orbs that drop depend on how you killed the enemy: red for Will, yellow for skill (shooting), blue for strength (swords), and green for general, which always drop. You use these orbs to upgrade your abilities, most of which are pretty straight-forward, and can alter your character in the process. Strength can increase your attack power, health, and style, while increasing muscularity; Skill can increase speed, accuracy and gun related tricks, as well as the power of your shots, while increasing your general height; Will, obviously, upgrades individual spells - ranging from inferno, to lightning, to time control, to raising the dead, while adding streak of blue lines all over your body, a nice effect. There is no Mana this time around, so spell-casters need not resort to blades if they are skilled enough to keep enemies at bay with spells alone.
Combat can start out repetitive at first, and it will eventually resort back to repetition, yet you can upgrade special moves for fighting. For example, you can gain the ability to roll out of the way of attacks, block attacks, and flourish an enemy, a special attack that can (usually) not be blocked, and looks as good as it feels pulling it off. In Skill, you can gain the ability to slowly zoom in with a weapon, for increased accuracy, then specifically target enemy body parts, allowing you to decapitate bandits with a well-placed shot. Will-Spells are easy to use: hold down the button for a simple area-of-effect blast, or hold the button down and press in a direction for a focused blast.
Someone over at Lionhead finally had the brilliant idea to add "man's best friend" to the game, as mentioned earlier. You travel through the entire game (or not, at the final story quest you choose a decision which could alter this) with a dog at your side, one you can name when you place a collar on him. At the naming screen, I scanned my room for ideas, and decided on "Locke" when I found my DVD collection of "Lost" lying about. Locke served many purposes for me, actually. When enemies were knocked to the ground, but not dead, Locke would pounce on them and finish them off. He also served to locate buried treasures and hidden chests scattered about the land. With proper reading, I also taught Locke how to shake hands, play dead, and beg, which he performed right by my side whenever I used one of my own expressions. This is a great idea, and should be implemented more often in games. Locke never got in my way, always caught up to me when I ran ahead, and made me a ton of money. Truly, man's best friend.
Bandit Bob would have stood a chance, had his animations allowed him to turn faster.
Nothing comes free this time around, especially saving the land from numerous perils. Quests award only renown this time around, no cash. Anything you get during the quest you keep, of course, yet there is no price for the quest's completion. Instead, you need to work. As if fending off Balverines, freeing slaves and destroying bandit camps didn't warrant some generosity, oh no, you need to work hard for the money. The "Job Mini-games" consist of those annoying timed-activities I hate. Basically, an arch is on screen, with a small ball at either side. As it revolves to the other side, you must press the "A" button as it enters the green, "sweet spot". Do this enough and you get paid, which you can use to buy weapons, clothes, books, houses, etc. You can buy houses and either live in them or rent them out - and get paid - and buy shops to get a portion of the income. Every five minutes, you receive your pay. The great part about this is that the money you earn adds up, even when you aren't playing. Talk about useful.
You can get married again, as well as have same-sex marriages, a great choice - I may add - because it truly gives the feel of "free choice". You can have sex, have a child, and even contract an STD, which is loads of fun. You can give gifts and perform a variety of expressions, similar to the first game. I managed to swoon and marry a girl by a combination of pumping my arm and farting. The family aspect, though not extremely in-depth, adds a refreshing feel to the game, and entering a town just to see your family really immerses you in the experience.
I'd touch on the Multiplayer aspect, but it's lacking. This is a major con of the game. You can enter a friend's game as his HENCHMAN. You contain the same skills your hero has, yet you have a pre-made character. I call shenanigans on this one, Lionhead. How long until you update it so that two Heroes can go together in the same world. Forget logic's sake: this is crucial for multiplayer.
An example of a good character, apparently having a young boy "pelvic thrust" towards him. Seriously.
(Almost done, I swear.) Alas, no game can be entirely great. This isn't Paper Mario; it has flaws.
For starters, the good/evil concept is still in full-effect, however, the consequences are too extreme. I wanted to be a good character, and at the end of the day, I was practically glowing, and had a halo over my head. When I went evil, my character's skin turned a blackish-blue, had red cracks all over her body, and grew horns. Flippin' horns. Lionhead, listen... I understand the approach you are going with, with this good/evil, corrupt/pure system. However... I highly doubt killing the occasional citizen and overcharging rent on my houses warrants horns and red-crevices appearing on my face. Come on, now.
The game isn't the longest game out there, with the main quest-line stretching out to ABOUT 20 hours, if you savor every last drop of it. It does, however, continue after you complete the story quests, thankfully.
Combat can get repetitive, it is a linear game set in an open-ended world, money can sometimes take forever to come by, there aren't a ton of quests, some visual effects are overdone, there are a few minor glitching bugs, and sometimes, the golden-glowing trail leading to your next quest acts up and switches its direction rapidly, yet all of that is merely nit-picking.
FINAL VERDICT: Buy it.
Fable II is just one of those games you need to play to believe. I received it as a gift for Christmas, along with a plethora of other games - Gears 2, Guitar Hero WT, Call of Duty: WaW - and sadly, I'll admit, I just couldn't get into Fable. When I actually sat down, and really PLAYED it, without the other games striving for my attention, I found that it was one of my favorite games of the year. When you look at what is wrong with the game, then see what is right, the pros definitely outweigh the cons.
Go out and play Fable II. You'll be thankful you did. It ties with Fallout 3 and Gears of War 2 for my favorite game of 2008.
After Hours
Been awhile since I wrote a review, so I thought I'd start again here.
Knothole Island Add-on is now on Xbox Live. It adds some new weapons, clothes, books, quests, potions and NPCs to the mix, as well as about 2-4 hours of extra content. It's really a must if you liked the game.
How was your service today? Did you like the review? Did I mess up somewhere? Ramble anywhere? Please, let me know. Constructive criticism helps more than you think.
Most likely, the next review you may see is Saints Row 2 - surprisingly, a very, very fun game - or Gears of War 2.
Also, I found this online, for your viewing pleasure. Don't get me wrong: I really don't like Halo at all, but I thought this was actually pretty cool.
I'm taking a different approach to all of this, and by different, I mean minor changes. For starters, you may remember me as "Jason". To act all "professional-like", I'll be using my real name instead.
Right, now: A few spoilers, but I'll try to avoid the main one(s).
Also, not a big thing, but after about... the third paragraph, I'll just say "Fable" unless otherwise specified. Just remember, I'm referring to "Fable II", the new one, obviously.
Alex Reviews...
"And so, our story begins..."
If you recall, back in 2004, a man by the name of Peter Molyneux went absolutely nuts getting everyone excited for the upcoming game, Fable. If you didn't have the great fortune to hear about the story, you can summarize the hype in two words: second coming.
When Fable was released, sadly, it didn't live up to the hype, as it should have. That's not to say it wasn't good - I thoroughly loved it - yet it didn't amount up to the game Molyneux was promising, let alone the second coming of RPGs. It was short, ended abruptly, had no multiplayer, was extremely linear, and had moderate re-playability. It was an RPG in every sense of the word - grab sword / crossbow, accept quest, kill monsters, get paid, wash, repeat, etc.
Four long, chicken-chasing years later, Fable 2 was finally released, and the final outcome is fairly good. Still, I'm waiting on that "second coming".
"If you squint really hard, you can almost see the hype for this game embedded into the dog's ass."
Chicken Chaseh'? Do ya chase chickens?
The game starts on a high note: a bird perches on a roof nearby and proceeds to crap on your head. "Eww, yuck," your sister says as she rubs her arms, grasping for any warmth whatsoever. "I hear that's lucky, though." This time around, you can start the game as either a boy or a girl, with a starting title of "[Little] Sparrow", a name I particularly like. It is winter, and snow coats the land. Your sister and you huddle around a small fire, two orphans looking for food, warmth and shelter. A commotion is heard, and upon checking it out, you find a trader has set up a stand in the middle of the town, Bowerstone. He proclaims that the items he sells are mystic, and full of magic. He displays a "magic music box", able to grant a single wish, to which your sister scoffs. A blind, robed woman nearby turns, noting that, "we live in grim times, indeed, when the young are too world-weary to believe in magic." Your first quest begins as the woman walks away: get that music box for five gold coins.
Five gold coins? In a traditional callback to the original Fable, collecting [up to] five gold coins to buy sweets for your sister, you're off to raise the money to buy that music box, and see if it is all that it is cracked up to be. Consider the first half-hour to hour or so of gameplay a tutorial. Your actions as a young orphan really have little consequence, with the except of one I'll cover later, so this is really just a taste of a little combat, a little morality, and a little navigating.
Fable is known for its morality in quests, and a good/bad system. For example, and this is one of the more major decisions you will need to make, a nearby guard asks you to go collect five warrants for criminals. The papers blew away, and upon retrieving them and heading back, you're stopped by a shady character. He's wiling to give you the gold the guard would've given you if you simply give HIM the warrants. If you're going evil, and give them to him, returning to this part of the city later on reveals that it has become crime infested, and looks horrible, with homelessness and fires everywhere. Someone going good would simply turn them into the guard, and the part of town - affectionately called "Old Town" - would look well-off, and respectable.
The game looks pretty- sometimes TOO pretty. Occasionally, sun-glares and visual effects are a bit overdone.
To make a long story short - and not to ruin the experience - you raise the money, buy the box, and your sister makes a wish. You are, unexpectedly, invited to Castle Fairfax, where the two of you meat Lord Lucien for the first time. His reasons for your invitation are odd: you managed to use the music box you had bought, and amidst his rambling, he speaks of heroes, and how you two shouldn't, essentially, be alive. Quickly, he removes his pistol and fires at your sister, killing her. He aims at you, and through a cutscene, you are blasted out of a stained-glass window, fall over forty stories, slam into a roof or two, and land on the ground. A stray dog - one you help out in a quest earlier on - comes to your aid, as does the strange, robed woman from before.
It is here you "grow up" into early adulthood - through the rest of the game, you technically advance into natural adulthood, though there is no other great leap like the one in the beginning - and the game really begins. You are given a sword and crossbow, as well as a few potions, and are slowly introduced into melee combat, ranged combat, and the use of Will through another very small tutorial.
What did one Hobbe say to the other? "Hey, Hobbe's it hanging?" .... *Ba-Dum-Tssh*
Combat is basically what you'd expect. You simply press "X" to swing your sword, hold down "B" to cast spells, and press "Y" to fire your ranged weapon. Each enemy - including the little Hobbes above - drop experience orbs, and the type of orbs that drop depend on how you killed the enemy: red for Will, yellow for skill (shooting), blue for strength (swords), and green for general, which always drop. You use these orbs to upgrade your abilities, most of which are pretty straight-forward, and can alter your character in the process. Strength can increase your attack power, health, and style, while increasing muscularity; Skill can increase speed, accuracy and gun related tricks, as well as the power of your shots, while increasing your general height; Will, obviously, upgrades individual spells - ranging from inferno, to lightning, to time control, to raising the dead, while adding streak of blue lines all over your body, a nice effect. There is no Mana this time around, so spell-casters need not resort to blades if they are skilled enough to keep enemies at bay with spells alone.
Combat can start out repetitive at first, and it will eventually resort back to repetition, yet you can upgrade special moves for fighting. For example, you can gain the ability to roll out of the way of attacks, block attacks, and flourish an enemy, a special attack that can (usually) not be blocked, and looks as good as it feels pulling it off. In Skill, you can gain the ability to slowly zoom in with a weapon, for increased accuracy, then specifically target enemy body parts, allowing you to decapitate bandits with a well-placed shot. Will-Spells are easy to use: hold down the button for a simple area-of-effect blast, or hold the button down and press in a direction for a focused blast.
Someone over at Lionhead finally had the brilliant idea to add "man's best friend" to the game, as mentioned earlier. You travel through the entire game (or not, at the final story quest you choose a decision which could alter this) with a dog at your side, one you can name when you place a collar on him. At the naming screen, I scanned my room for ideas, and decided on "Locke" when I found my DVD collection of "Lost" lying about. Locke served many purposes for me, actually. When enemies were knocked to the ground, but not dead, Locke would pounce on them and finish them off. He also served to locate buried treasures and hidden chests scattered about the land. With proper reading, I also taught Locke how to shake hands, play dead, and beg, which he performed right by my side whenever I used one of my own expressions. This is a great idea, and should be implemented more often in games. Locke never got in my way, always caught up to me when I ran ahead, and made me a ton of money. Truly, man's best friend.
Bandit Bob would have stood a chance, had his animations allowed him to turn faster.
Nothing comes free this time around, especially saving the land from numerous perils. Quests award only renown this time around, no cash. Anything you get during the quest you keep, of course, yet there is no price for the quest's completion. Instead, you need to work. As if fending off Balverines, freeing slaves and destroying bandit camps didn't warrant some generosity, oh no, you need to work hard for the money. The "Job Mini-games" consist of those annoying timed-activities I hate. Basically, an arch is on screen, with a small ball at either side. As it revolves to the other side, you must press the "A" button as it enters the green, "sweet spot". Do this enough and you get paid, which you can use to buy weapons, clothes, books, houses, etc. You can buy houses and either live in them or rent them out - and get paid - and buy shops to get a portion of the income. Every five minutes, you receive your pay. The great part about this is that the money you earn adds up, even when you aren't playing. Talk about useful.
You can get married again, as well as have same-sex marriages, a great choice - I may add - because it truly gives the feel of "free choice". You can have sex, have a child, and even contract an STD, which is loads of fun. You can give gifts and perform a variety of expressions, similar to the first game. I managed to swoon and marry a girl by a combination of pumping my arm and farting. The family aspect, though not extremely in-depth, adds a refreshing feel to the game, and entering a town just to see your family really immerses you in the experience.
I'd touch on the Multiplayer aspect, but it's lacking. This is a major con of the game. You can enter a friend's game as his HENCHMAN. You contain the same skills your hero has, yet you have a pre-made character. I call shenanigans on this one, Lionhead. How long until you update it so that two Heroes can go together in the same world. Forget logic's sake: this is crucial for multiplayer.
An example of a good character, apparently having a young boy "pelvic thrust" towards him. Seriously.
(Almost done, I swear.) Alas, no game can be entirely great. This isn't Paper Mario; it has flaws.
For starters, the good/evil concept is still in full-effect, however, the consequences are too extreme. I wanted to be a good character, and at the end of the day, I was practically glowing, and had a halo over my head. When I went evil, my character's skin turned a blackish-blue, had red cracks all over her body, and grew horns. Flippin' horns. Lionhead, listen... I understand the approach you are going with, with this good/evil, corrupt/pure system. However... I highly doubt killing the occasional citizen and overcharging rent on my houses warrants horns and red-crevices appearing on my face. Come on, now.
The game isn't the longest game out there, with the main quest-line stretching out to ABOUT 20 hours, if you savor every last drop of it. It does, however, continue after you complete the story quests, thankfully.
Combat can get repetitive, it is a linear game set in an open-ended world, money can sometimes take forever to come by, there aren't a ton of quests, some visual effects are overdone, there are a few minor glitching bugs, and sometimes, the golden-glowing trail leading to your next quest acts up and switches its direction rapidly, yet all of that is merely nit-picking.
FINAL VERDICT: Buy it.
Fable II is just one of those games you need to play to believe. I received it as a gift for Christmas, along with a plethora of other games - Gears 2, Guitar Hero WT, Call of Duty: WaW - and sadly, I'll admit, I just couldn't get into Fable. When I actually sat down, and really PLAYED it, without the other games striving for my attention, I found that it was one of my favorite games of the year. When you look at what is wrong with the game, then see what is right, the pros definitely outweigh the cons.
Go out and play Fable II. You'll be thankful you did. It ties with Fallout 3 and Gears of War 2 for my favorite game of 2008.
After Hours
Been awhile since I wrote a review, so I thought I'd start again here.
Knothole Island Add-on is now on Xbox Live. It adds some new weapons, clothes, books, quests, potions and NPCs to the mix, as well as about 2-4 hours of extra content. It's really a must if you liked the game.
How was your service today? Did you like the review? Did I mess up somewhere? Ramble anywhere? Please, let me know. Constructive criticism helps more than you think.
Most likely, the next review you may see is Saints Row 2 - surprisingly, a very, very fun game - or Gears of War 2.
Also, I found this online, for your viewing pleasure. Don't get me wrong: I really don't like Halo at all, but I thought this was actually pretty cool.
