Zero Punctuation: Fable 2

[FSK405K]

Yahtzee, I went back and rewatched the Fable 1 review. Again, good job. And again, BRING BACK THE UNIQUE MUSIC INTRODUCTIONS! "Seigfried's Funeral March" from Gotterdammerung was especially great to hear once again. For this Fable 2 review, if you wanted to stick with the Ring of Nibelungen theme, I would have gone with "Switch Wotan" from Das Rheingold.

 

[RussDCA]

Yay great, the ads are back! And as soon as those buggers come back, the videos get broken. Just leave em out guys! We know what games are about & know where to get them.

On a more related note. Quality review. AGAIN!

FuZion.

 

[Cinder Block of Oppression]

I loved the end, but the rest was nothing special. I miss the good ol' days when pointing out every single little flaw was new and entertaining. Now I'm like, oh, look, Yahtzee is making a popular game seem bad. Oh joy.

I think you just need more games that truly are bad, but not so bad that you don't have to do any work to convey a message.

 

[Worm4Life]

Murdering children is the biggest taboo ever, and if someone breaks that, I will tell him "good job".

Fallout 1 anyone? You even got a "perk" that tagged you as a child killer. Made people hate you

God the idea that somehow four pixels equal a fully rendered child's brain exploding in slo-motion is such motherfucking bullshit. No game is ever going to let you kill kids, except for indie stuff, and even then that will probably make the guy who developed it a pariah. If ZP is so fucking concerned why doesn't he blaze this trail?

 

[Dommyboy]

If only Yahtzee would bring back the unique musical introduction at every start like the old reviews, they really added to the wittiness.

 

[deplorable]

much better and much funnier (which to be honest couldn't be that hard, hell a cat farting was... ) than the Dead Space review. Fable 2 was well, what Fable 1 should have been.. to be honest it'd have been better if they just labelled Fable 2 as Fable revisited and did what hollywood do.

remake old movies.

short circuit for example is the latest one in production. thats right..... wall-e with nipples will be returning. Probably more CGI than you can shake a stick at...

Fable 2 dire... Fallout 3 oblivion with guns but at least it's funny and done well....

still waiting on a game for the 360 which will blow me away (i'm not a graphics whore) - otherwise i'd play 360 games going, "well... it'd look better in DX10"


all semi good games, usually have sequels (bioshock 2 incoming) and the sequels like movies are normally either a slight upgrade (1.5) or worse than dog poo on a stick spanking the first game.

once you make an okay game developers, DEVELOP what you learned into another "original" game and maybe we'll actually move forward and not in a Halo 3, MGS4, GTA 4, Alone in the Dark 4, Elder Scrolls [yes i hate that poxy world of oblivion and morrowind, it's dull and crap] etc etc (last one honest) mode.

there is an exception to this rule - Fallout 3 (fallout being fallout and you get what you see on the box, and are pleased with it)

 

[entropy3ko]

Right you are. I remember feeling horrible the first that that happened to me.
Ahhhh *Sighs and lovingly remembers Fallout 1 and 2*

Those were great games. I guess since the graphics were not that advanced at the time the designers had more time to concetrate on story and atmosphere.
I often enjoy playing those old games, sometimes more than new ones, escpecially for the story and the wit they contain.

I do love Fallout 3, it's not just Oblivion with guns: it's a better version of Oblivion with guns, but nothing wrong with that! I like Oblivion's gameplay.
Unfortunately Bethesda seems to always fall too short leaving you with the feeling they could have done so much more and that a lot pof potential went untapped.
I guess my favorite Bethesda game still is Morrowind.

Anyway it's logical you cannot kill kids in FO3: something like that would enrage several associations who would crusade vigorously to ban the game. FO3 had to cut some content just to get released in Austalia.

The good old times where you could mangle pixalated children is long over and it is not always the game developers fault.

 

[entropy3ko]

I guess even Yahtzee has to respect copyright.

 

[SanitysRequiem]

Just a heads up, mate. You actually can't become president as our constitution (and I'm talking about the United States now) says that you have to of been born in the US, ya dig?

Oh! Is everyone as excited for the No More Heroes 2 as me?

 

[Zeldadudes]

I really hope people won't be taking this review too seriously.

I'm a big fan of ZP, and Yahtzee's work outside of the Escapist - particularly the John DeFoe games - but I can still clearly see that this was nothing but a rant, not a review.

Yahtzee usually provides something to agree with, something that isn't just nitpicking, but this was fairly pathetic, to the point where I found myself slightly angered.

I understand the need to entertain, but it seems that with this, and the previous few reviews, Yahtzee is starting to sacrifice his integrity as a reviewer, for the sake of humour.

If you want to beat up children, you shouldn't be looking for it on video games - I was under the impression that it was common knowledge that violence against children was a big no-no in the gaming industry, yet Yahtzee seems unaware of this, as he's gone ahead and complained about it.

I also find this rather contradictory - recently in an article for news.com.au Yahtzee wrote about the censorship of Silent Hill. In this article, he wrote that anyone who claimed that violence was essential to the gaming experience was A) More or less wrong and B) Slightly psychopathic. Yet here he is, complaining that being unable to hit children somehow damages his enjoyment.

This video was as funny as usual, but lacked credibility; please don't do what most Yahtzee fans do, and take this as divine gospel - do not let this rant sway your opinion of Fable 2.

Then again, I personally love Fable 2, and worship it as a beacon of hope in the gaming industry, so perhaps I'm heavily biased myself.

EDIT; To clarify - As a rant, this was hilarious. As a review...pretty damn poor.

Also, the issue with violence against children in games is interactivity. You're allowed to watch a child get shot, but you are not allowed to shoot a child yourself. There is a difference, there; watching a child be shot is one thing, wanting to and trying to shoot a child yourself is, well, pushing the limit of acceptible content.

I heartily...heartaly.....heartelly........I strongly agree with you!

No offense but if he is ranting then he can't find anything to review can he?
The game is shocking for the amount of hype it was given and i regret buying it -.-
If he reviewed it then he would probably have something nice to say about it but in this case he didn't.

 

[cuddly_tomato]

I really hope people won't be taking this review too seriously.

I'm a big fan of ZP, and Yahtzee's work outside of the Escapist - particularly the John DeFoe games - but I can still clearly see that this was nothing but a rant, not a review.

Yahtzee usually provides something to agree with, something that isn't just nitpicking, but this was fairly pathetic, to the point where I found myself slightly angered.

I understand the need to entertain, but it seems that with this, and the previous few reviews, Yahtzee is starting to sacrifice his integrity as a reviewer, for the sake of humour.

If you want to beat up children, you shouldn't be looking for it on video games - I was under the impression that it was common knowledge that violence against children was a big no-no in the gaming industry, yet Yahtzee seems unaware of this, as he's gone ahead and complained about it.

I also find this rather contradictory - recently in an article for news.com.au Yahtzee wrote about the censorship of Silent Hill. In this article, he wrote that anyone who claimed that violence was essential to the gaming experience was A) More or less wrong and B) Slightly psychopathic. Yet here he is, complaining that being unable to hit children somehow damages his enjoyment.

This video was as funny as usual, but lacked credibility; please don't do what most Yahtzee fans do, and take this as divine gospel - do not let this rant sway your opinion of Fable 2.

Then again, I personally love Fable 2, and worship it as a beacon of hope in the gaming industry, so perhaps I'm heavily biased myself.

EDIT; To clarify - As a rant, this was hilarious. As a review...pretty damn poor.

Also, the issue with violence against children in games is interactivity. You're allowed to watch a child get shot, but you are not allowed to shoot a child yourself. There is a difference, there; watching a child be shot is one thing, wanting to and trying to shoot a child yourself is, well, pushing the limit of acceptible content.

I also hope nobody takes this review seriously because for the first time in a long time Yahtzee went way too easy on a game, considering how god-awful it is. Ok, he (rightly) lambasted it for the absurd claims it made to freedom, the freedom to not do anything until you meet some arbitrary boolean controlled variable. He (rightly) panned it for the woodness of the army of NPCs in this game, each and every one remarkable in their unremarkableness. He (bloody well rightly!) hurled shit all over it for the absolutely absurd system of making money - blacksmithing for 3 hours by (I shit you not) pressing 'A' in synch to a little moving icon over and over and over and over and over and over again.

He covered, in halarious detail, the fact that Peter Molyneux never seems to deliver what he promises and his absurd claims come up rather short.

All of that was perfectly accurate and valid.

What he didn't mention was the fact that they never even bothered finishing the damn thing off before selling it. Look at this crap.

http://www.xbox360fanboy.com/2008/10/24/fable-ii-players-report-game-breaking-glitch/

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3170894

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3170876

http://www.co-optimus.com/article/743/Fable_2_-_Good__Evil_and_Glitches.html

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=HzKN7bOpLNo

This game wasn't even out of beta, or possibly they never used testers who knew what they were supposed to be doing, or possibly none of the developers in charge of fixing this crap can do their job properly and need firing. Why in the name of arse has this game not been recalled? TWICE I was playing it and had to go back and start the whole fucking thing again because of some stupid bug. "No problem" I thought! "This time around I will just use my memory card to back up my save - no more re-starting". Lionhead, in their infinite hubris, won't allow you to do that. It would seem that would destroy the choice making aspect of this game, that is - the choice to turn yourself into a 300lb heffan or spend the game looking like a shark attack victim.

Yahtzee - Next time you review a Peter Molyneux I will convince my hot girlfriend to sleep with you if you attach a phallic shaped object to his uncaring-about-bugs-in-his-own-products noggin.

 

[Allan Foe]

Zero punctuation is fairly amusing but the Australian Gamer podcasts is where the fun's at. The last one had me in stitches [http://www.australiangamer.com/podcast/149_yahtzee_joins_to_complain_about_bayonetta_the_hoff_and_lbp.html], seriously, I haven't had such a hearty laugh for a long time.

I'd give up ZP for a weekly Matt, Yug and Yahtzee AG podcast any day.

 

[kinggkaii]

Yahtzee's finally sold his balls to the highest bidder and put a dumbass kiddie game into his review.

and here I thought he was our ray of hope to get an honest review to a game .

 

[Snittgaard]

Great review Yahtzee, I almost enjoyed it as much as the Mailbag Showdown.

 

[Radical AdZ]

I've been trying to view this since Wednesday and still having no luck. Any advice?

 

[Iori Branford]

Yet here he is, complaining that being unable to hit children somehow damages his enjoyment.

You mean, complaining that the game protects the children in an incredibly half-assed way that puts a bullet in the game's immersion, just to shut up a few superstitious tightwads who think every act of violence in-game magically causes something similar to happen in real life.

 

[Spacewolf]

"well that may of been abit charateristically overoptomistic on your part peter." i love the vocie he says it in it makes an unfunny line funny

 

[Snittgaard]

"well that may of been abit charateristically overoptomistic on your part peter." i love the vocie he says it in it makes an unfunny line funny

That' was one of my favorite parts too ..

 

[EonEire]

The only game that has ever made me want to shoot children in is Fallout 3. Little Lamplight actually made me search for a mod to do so.

And I loved Fable 2 and this review was still funny and accurate. Why is it people think that just because a reviewer dosn't like a game you cant like it yourself? Why does their experience of a game need to change how you felt about it? This has never made sense to me.

 

[jewru]

lol that was a awesome review. still i though fable 2 was a decent game, not as great as i hoped or imagined , but still good.