Playing Fable 2 I can’t help but feel left out slightly. While other gamers are rambling about the re-appearance of their favourite monsters or characters and the similarities between Fable 1 and Fable 2, I just play on, secluded from the “I played Fable 1 and understand what’s going on here in Fable 2 a lot more than you do!” club.
When I first began Fable 2, it made sense for me to choose the brand new female character. I based this on what I would rather be looking at for the next year, as RPGs tend to suck up days of time and being stuck with an unlikeable character would be tiresome. Also, I choose female characters in most of my games, I’m sure it is some sort of disorder. And so the story began.
You begin as a plump little orphan roaming around the streets of Old Town in Albion. Accompanied by your older sister, who pronounces your name as “Littow Spara” (little sparrow). The beginning eases you into the game, teaching you the combat basics and how to interact with things around you. This is when things become interesting too, as your reputation in Albion starts straight away.
The game seems to revolve around reputation, whether you as the main character will choose to do good deeds and stay pure and innocent in order to actually become liked and admired by the people of Albion, or go on to kill innocent people, sacrifice villagers to the shadows, steal from their houses and generally sit on the evil side of the fence to allow the people of Albion to both hate and fear you. The story moulds itself to whatever you pick. I chose the evil option, as earning money isn’t as fun unless you’re stealing it from shopping-tills and leading villagers into caves in order to slice them in half with a katana is fairly fun.
The environment itself is vast and rich in very vibrant things to see. The enormous amount of caves, mountains, lakes, waterfalls and lush grassy fields is my favourite part of this game, it’s all open to exploration and did I mention you get your own pooch? That’s right; your best friend is a doggy who can sniff out buried treasure and treasure chests, so exploring the wilderness is not all a waste of time.
In Fable 2 you can interact with any villager you meet and perform various expressions in order for them to form an opinion of you. In many cases, you can reach a ‘love’ level in the game, which then allows you to get married. However, if I had known that sex was involved in the game, I would not have chosen a female character. There’s just something very strange about raising my character’s experience points and accompanying them throughout the game only to see them getting ‘boinked’ by a character I was recently buying armour from. It would also give me a very dirty feeling, so my character will be remaining a virgin for as long as possible. Even so, the interactivity is the best I’ve seen in a game and the ‘beg for money’ feature might come in handy.
Customisation in Fable 2 is far from bland, a wide variety of dyes are available and can be used to dye equipment and hair. Hair can also be cut and clothes and armour can be purchased in order to set your character up the way you want, you also get an array of outfits as you explore the regions and other characters won’t hold back on criticising your fashion sense.
With all that said, Fable 2 isn’t without its flaws. Firstly, the online play isn’t as brilliant as the developers made it out to be. Maybe I’m just playing with the wrong people, but I was expecting something brushed with a little more ‘MMO’ paint. When I compare it to PC RPG games, I just can’t think of why I am making building up my character stats or customising my clothing when I’m the only one who will see it, unlike in PC RPG games where it is normally possible to show off your character. I appreciate that Fable 2 was not supposed to be an MMORPG, but it can at least have some sort of option to show off. The online co-op that Fable 2 has just doesn’t cut it.
The game comes with a number of mini-games which are almost as fun as watching paint dry, but it is how you earn money (the innocent way) in Fable 2.
Despite the online play which was a little disappointing and some of the crashing that is accompanied with the Xbox 360, the game itself has a lot to offer and will deliver hours of fun especially to RPG fans and fans of Fable 1.
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