Fable 2 for me personally, has been standing at the front of the que as to why I wanted a 360 and so far is the biggest highlight of the console still.
Its amazing versatlity with how to play through your Hero's life is unprecedented and unbelievably open ended.
It has alot of rough edges and some parts are pretty dated by 2008's standards, but weighing the good against the bad is like putting a chicken on the scales alongside 1990's Marlon Brando.
Story-2/5
While the game has got itself a substantially large story drive, it tends to be stuck on 1st gear for the majority of the game with not much really occuring to keep you entirely focused to finishing it. Nearing the end sadly enough, it quickly picks up and alot of epic set pieces unfold for you to play through and have your emotions twisted till they brake.
You first start the game as but a small child. You live life as a street orphan making ends meet by singing cheerily along the streets in unison with all the other urchins about wanting more food...least you probably would if your character could talk.
You and your sister live a simple life, until you stumble upon Murgo's wonderous trades. He advertises a magical music box that may grant whoever should turn the handle one wish. The fact that it has a price though quickly diminishs the childrens motivation for giving it a try. Fortunatly odd jobs will appear around for you be able to earn yourself your precious gold to see for yourself if this sleezy tradesman truelly knows what hes selling.
Eventually you'll have it in your possession for both children to be called forth by Lord Lucien. Confused you both follow along and upon meeting him, you can already guess his intentions are far from entirely friendly. He kills your sister and almost kills you to were you not rescued by the blind seeress Theresa.
She'll nurse you to health and 10 years on will pass before you regain control of your hero.
With intentions of revenge and also a new best friend in the likes of your dog, you are to set out to locate more hero's to help in the fight against Lucien.
Thats the initial outset, but theres an incredible amount of activites to step in the way to quickly have you put the main story to a halt. That and like I said, it takes far too long for the story to actually give you some needed motivation. Lucien is found out to be a rather pitiful antagonist with plenty of complexity to his character to have you realise this isn't some ''stop the evil king'' type of quest. Your allies who you encounter are all varied and distinctive from the towering but kind Hannah to the insuffirably cruel Reaver.
What also retracts alot from the story is you yourself. Your character will never utter a full word during the story and only occasionaly can give an expression to show his/her feelings on the matter. Its an odd decision too when the male hero counterpart is voiced by Nolan North, a well praised and talented voice actor. With him only here to mutter abit of gibberish and make funny noises its certaintly a waste of talent.
So while the main story has its moments, most of it is hardly much to get you anticipated.
Graphics/sound-3/5
The presentation overall is decent but not quite bordering on breath-taking, netheir does it quite give u the sense of disgust over ugly textures. The graphics are likable but in some cases do require some improvement. The games look has been made intentionally cartoony with the character models almost look like they were made of clay. The enviroments are very varied and in some cases really give a sense of beauty with the wonderous sunset or looking down upon the Town of Bowerstone from a Castle Balcony. The animations unfortunatly aren't quite upto the same quality. Your character sprinting for example makes him almost look like hes running on ice. The people of Albion too all have some rather canned animations and some can look a little jerky, such as a man running with his arms at his side.
Your character though and how his appearance can change throughout is very much a treat to witness. From halo's looming over your head to horns perputrating out of your forehead, theres alot of variety to how your characters complexion can behold and it all looks appropiatly distinctive.
The sound is one of the high points of the game. The main characters are all fitted with some well known british stars with the likes of Stephen Fry (QI gameshow) and Zoe Wannamaker (My Family sitcom) lending their voices to bring to life their respective characters. The people too all voice themselves brilliantly, capturing the emotions they feel when your presence is made clear. They also have a huge amount of dialogue too for you to listen to. They will literally comment on just about everything going on in your hero's life from your marital status to your appearance to your latest quest. Everything you do will eventually get around and you'll hear plenty about it from the citizens of albion.
Shame thats theres only so few voices to fill the entire community of Albion. For the standard citizens I'd say theres only about 6-8 in total different voices between them all.
The sound effects themselves all sound crisp and matching well with what they represent. From the soothing sound of the birds when making your way through the country side to the smash and crinkeling of the undead hollow-men upon their defeat. Magic spells will sound powerful and your ranged weapons especially, will have themselves a real kick to match just how powerful they are.
Gameplay-3/5
The gameplay of Fable 2 is incredibly varied that the amount of genres that can be listed is pretty substantial.
Playing through the story alone gives you the full effects of its combat and morality based gameplay, but then theirs also building yourself a family, working a job, buying real estate, getting drunk (then throwing up in hilarious fashion), hunting down criminals or just becoming one yourself, robbing homes and pillaging families.
It doesn't all succeed on the levels that you'd want but noone can deny just how much versatilitie Fables 2 gameplay has to offer.
The combat probably plays the largest role in the game, fortunatly that too is surprisingly content-full. You have three different sectors concerning your combat, melee, ranged, and magic. Melee is of course wielding a sword/axe ect. and mashing the attack button. Its simple beyond monotonaus at first but new techniques can be learnt such as blocking, parries and charge attacks.
Ranged is the same, initially just having you press down on the ranged attack command but eventually will have you be able to go into a fine-aim view and even shoot with pinpoint precision shooting bullets into bandits balls.
The magic is definatley the largest factor of combat. Theres a hefty amount of spells to learn all with able to be upgraded for more power and a better area of effect.
Whats unique with how Fable 2 macro's all the spells. You have yourself 5 different slots each available to fit one spell from each level. You can't however just stack any spell into any slot, so initially you'll only have one spell to conjure without having to scroll to another. Soon enough with so many powerful spells you can have 5 settings and holding onto the spell casting command will unleash whatever magic spell you let go on. I at first almost acts as a handicap only having one spell available at a time, but once your get yourself with some level 5 spells you'll have alot of experimentation available with how you work your magic.
The enemies AI is enough to give a slight challenge, tho how considerbly strong you can soon become and how many potions your bound to quickly have stacked, there'll be a surprisingly low chance of you ever even dieing throughout the entire game. Even if you were to, you'd simply ressurect right there on the spot, lose abit of EXP, gain your character a battle scar and just carry on the fight.
The combat overall is still stylish with some slo-mo making an appearance all at the right moments and with alot of variety concerning your weapons and magic, the combat is satisfying enough to stay strong till the end.
The morality of your character is of course key to the whole package. Everything your character does will usually have your character earn himself some goodie brownie points or some nasty evil influence. Not only can your character be the epitomie of all evil or an absolute saint, but he/she can even choose between becoming Pure or Corrupt. Which is attained from what types of food you eat to even how you choose to have sex, with or without protection. They don't work together either so you can have a character who is a saint, but a saint who likes to sneak in a quick glass of wine, then throw the glass out the window and just stick with the bottle.
Like i've already stressed, the amount of other options besides the story is almost a little daunting. I literally spent the first 5 hours or so just living life in the first town before I'd then follow onto the first main quest.
Interacting with the people is a focul part of the game, though not upto par with the combat and morality.
Its basically thinned down to a medium sized list of expressions your character can perform, which are also set under specific catergories such as ''Social'' to ''Fun'' to ''flirting''. Theres not alot there to say have your character discuss the meaning of nipple hair but enough to have abit of run with the pedestrians by threatening to cut their throat or doing an impression of a chicken to annoy them.
Family life is also evident but its just as shallow as the expressions. You basically just keep doing the same expressions whatever your possible spouse likes to see and then give her/him a ring, buy a house and wulah marriage sealed. Its pretty silly to think a marriage was birthed through constantly blowing kiss' at someone but again it serves its purpose as a small amusement rather to build any meaningful attachment. As its most definatley fun to become a bigimist then intentionally bring your spouses together to witness them argue, and simultanously divorce you of course.
Exploration is of course evident in the game. While you will have a glowing trail to follow to your main objective, which needn't be the main story mission, theres still plenty of paths to wander off in and areas to prematurely explore before the story reachs it. Most of the time however, it may be seen as worth it. You'll come across plenty of treasures but most were hardly worth the effort, considering how easy it is to also turn your character into a goldinaire, finding some golden necklace which you may already own 10 of is hardly giving you a sense of accomplishment.
Replay Value-4/5
The game itself has dozens of hours to spend amidst living life in Albion. The main quest if you choose to, somehow, ignore everything else and focus on the story solely, will still give you around 9-10 hours. The non-story quests and everything else possible to do in the game can easily last you weeks I'd say. Starting again is advised too over some specific situations giving you a choice with how to handle it and with 3 different choices to end the game on, theres then 3 completions at least to get the whole game under wraps. Playing as a male or female character isn't entirely necessary and with no voicing of your main character doesn't affect much besides your appearance, but its another tick for why playing through at least twice is essential.
Fable 2 can be seen as fairly casual with its easy combat and well, casual feel with how you go about your characters life. That shouldn't get in the way of how much fun it is and with its casual feel can further the enjoyable visit you'll be giving Albion. Some aspects of it are pretty shallow and will probably have you wanting more, but whats here and with so much to do and even more to actually listen to with concern to the Albion citizens, anyone whos after a substantially content-filled RPG with satisfying morality effects and varied combat, look no further than Fable 2.
3.5/5
