As I mentioned a week ago on my blog, I picked up Fable 2 for the Xbox 360.  It has been one of the awaited games of 2008 behind GTA 4, Call of Duty 4 and Gears Of War 2.  It’s been a long time in the making but does it deliver?

Fable 2 by Lionhead Studios is an action adventure RPG style game.  It combines a mix of sword combat with ranged guns and a dab of magic.  It doesn’t really matter which one you want to specialise in as they are all well balanced with lots of depth and they’ll get the job done.

The storyline is imaginative and vivid and its the only one I’ve played that’s brought out some emotion in me. As you really get involved with the characters there are some pivotal moments where you’re asking “Did that just happen?” Unfortunately the main quest is quite short and finishes before it really gets going and has the biggest anti climax I have seen in a game, well there’s Halo 2, but I was expecting a bit more with the final boss.

The graphics are beautiful to look at from afar but get up close to some of the character models and you’ll wish you hadn’t.  They seem very simple and blocky in a way but as there can be many people on screen at once there had to be a compromise to maintain the framerate.  It does run smoothly and so far I haven’t had any game freezes but I do get some lapses for a couple of seconds when I am coming out of the menu after changing my clothes or weapons.

The sound effects are nice as well and if you have surround sound you’ll notice it even more.  Every character seems individual but during the quests some would rather dictate an enormous dialogue to you rather than tell you what to do.  I found myself too often pressing A and skipping them as I found they went on for far too long.  But this isn’t a bad point as you’ll never miss what you have to do thanks to the handy magic line that will always tell you where to go.  Because of complaints of the map feature in Fable 1 they decided to remove it from the HUD in Fable 2 and so is only available in the pause screen which to be honest is pretty useless. I didn’t have to use it at all when I completed the game but if you really want to explore the towns you will be a bit confused as it’s easy to get lost looking for that elusive pub.

As an RPG there are lots of customisation to the game, change your clothes,weapons, hair style, add tattoos and more.  You get fat depending on how much beer and pies you eat so bear that in mind.  There’s the whole good/evil slant and pure/corrupt stance to keep you occupied as every decision you take affects these.  It doesn’t alter your route down the main quest but being evil will form horns on your character and being good will create a halo above your characters head.  They are both balanced so it all depends whether you want to be loved or feared, either way it doesn’t make the game harder.

Death is way too forgiving in this game, they have made it too lenient to get away with it so in theory you could finish the game in your first playthorugh, albeit with basic skills it would take a long time.  Instead of dying and game over you’re knocked out and lose a random amount of experience.  You also gain scars every time you’re knocked out which affect your look rating but can easily be changed with some posh clothes.  Towards the later parts of the game, experience is picked up in the thousands and the little you can lose being knocked out is better than having to restart. But it does make it so much easier as you can never die and will always get up again to finish the battle.

My other main complaint comes from my love of Oblivion.  In that game you could pick up nearly anything from peoples houses and steal it, be it a pen or an amazing sword.  However in Fable you are very limited to what you can obtain.  First of all it lacks the amount of items that Oblivion had but also you can only get things from chests and cupboards.  You can’t pick anything off dead bodies which is very frustrating when you want your enemy’s weapon or clothes for free instead of buying them off the merchant down the road.

What stands Fable out from the others in it’s category is the inclusion of the Sims and Sim City features. You can interact with every person in the game and build/or break a relationship with them. You can laugh at them, let rip or flex your muscles if you wish.  You can also buy most buildings in the game including shops and loads of houses.  You can rent them out and increase or decrease the rent to your desire depending on how corrupt you want to be.  However doing this too early in the game and make the experience too easy as you’ll be swimming in gold.  In addition there is limited multiplayer support over Xbox Live where you can trade items as well as jumping in (like Lego Star Wars) and help out your friend.  However when you jump in you have to become a preset character and can’t use your own but saying that you still reap the gold and experience benefits you gain together.  Oh and the inclusion of your dog makes the most mundane of tasks enjoyable.  He’ll alert you when enemies are nearby as well as helping you find buried treasure and you will gain an attachment too him noticing when he’s disappeared or injured.  It’s a nice perk so you’re not just killing enemies with no one watching.  These new features definitely give a new slant on an otherwise stale genre.

So Fable 2, out now on the Xbox 360, in my opinion is a must have if you’re into these sorts of games.  There is literally so many side quests to do you’ll be on it for hours at a stretch.  You’ll play through the story several times as there is so much to achieve and you’ll be captivated throughout, apart from the loading screens which bring you back to reality as they do really break up the experience. However it’s still a game you should check out.