Fable 2

[Dimnos]

Who has played it? Who likes it? Tell us of your exploits!

[Grislygus]

My little brother isn't shutting up about it.

[the_owen]

Its fun but the main quest goes by far to fast.

[pac-man]

Yeah, the story is too short, but there's plenty extracurricular stuff to do. I kept healing my hero with food so he's a fatass and is now on an all celery diet. The co-op is a great concept, but the implementation is lacking. You have to use generic characters (keep your stats and items, though) and my experiences have been a little laggy. All-in-all a good game, but nothing too special.

[Nick]

Short version: It sucks.

[OxBlood]

Short version: It sucks.

This post contains spoilers...oh my.

Long Version: It feels unfinished. Again. And it is definetely not made for what I like to call "real" gamers. You can do quite a lot of things, earn money with real estates, found families, buy clothing for your character, do secondary quests, roam the land in search of treasure, follow the main quest...

BUT! And here I will list what is wrong with every single feature I just listed. Just my opinion, as always.


-Real Estate Money machine: Nice Idea but there are more efficient ways to make money, and the only thing you need it for are weapons wich you buy once.

-Family Feature: I actually have to say I don´t know what I should use that for. Why in the hell would I want a family in an action-adventure game? I just don´t see the point. They cost money, the don´t do anything for you...I was married twice in the game and the only thing I used my family for was to sacrifice them at the temple of shadows *shrugs*

-Clothing: One of the biggest letdowns. They always emphasized that "everybody will look unique". Well, that obviously can´t be true, since there are only about 10 sets of clothing in the game. For males at least. And only one or two of them look decent enough to wear. Also, there are too few tattoos and haircuts as well. Far too few.

-Secondary Quests: They do two things. They earn you experience because you always have to fight something. And they earn you Fame. Fame does two things as well: It unlocks later steps of the main quest and it earns you expressions to use on the villagers. Wow. Great. No money, no items as far as I can tell.

-Exploration and treasure hunting: Yeah, okay, the areas ARE bigger than before. But is there anything to do there? Nay. There are three things that one can find. Treasure chests which contain only crap like coffee or experience potions (that I can buy in town anyway) or more useless, ugly clothing that you already have. Second are digging spots that your dog (one of the things I like about the game, the dog is nice) finds. Contain the same useless crap. Pendants, condoms, a boot, sometimes a health potion...then there are the demon doors that want something from you and in return open up to a mini-area with a treasure, often magical weapons, that tend to be WEAKER than your regular weapons every now and then. Oh, and you can try to find and shoot 50 gargoyles, which should net you another worthless treasure I guess.

-Main quest: Yes...the main quest. About 6-8 hours short, easy as hell and with NO final boss. Way to go lionhead.

Difficulty is another problem of the game...in the beginning you have an extremely short healthbar wich caused me to die...no wait, I forgot, you can´t die in Fable 2, you fall to the ground, the XP-Orbs around you vanish, you get a scar and there you go, you stand up and continue the fight. After you get one or two upgrades to health, you won´t "die" if you pay attention. And after you slotted a life-leech-upgrade to your weapon, you are invincible. I´m all for relaxing games with little challenge once in a while but this is really laughable.


All in all, I thing Fable 2 wasted almost all of it´s potential. It´s short, it´s too easy, I doesn´t reward the player properly, the story is only mediocre at best, the magic system isn´t as fun as in the first one...

On the bright side, I DID like the meleé and ranged battle systems, the dog, the IDEA with the different outfits, the jobs (even though you just press A all the time), and the moment your annoying sister dies. Possibly because she kept calling me Spatz, which is Sparrow in german. But it´s pronounced "Shputs" which sounds really stupid.

[Dimnos]

No final boss?!?! WTF! Whats up with games recently that have no bosses? Thats gay.

[pac-man]

Yeah, the endgame sequence is pretty gay. OxBlood pretty much laid it all out there. It's not a bad game, though, it's just a lightweight.

[OxBlood]

My main problem is trying to imagine what Lionhead was DOING all those years? It can´t have taken that long to deliver a product of such inferior quality.

[pac-man]

I like how Molyneux talked about both Fable and Fable 2. You would've seriously thought these were some earth-shattering titles if you listened to his hype.

[OxBlood]

True, but most people have learned one thing about Pete Mc Molly: He talks Bullshit most of the time. I even suspect him to be a bit retarded sometimes or at least extremely naive. I DO believe him, that he would like to make good games...he just doesn´t make them. He has several good ideas, tries to implement them in games and fails with that. Over and over again, and while most of his games are more or less enjoyable if you can live with all the shortcomings, they are still nowhere near top-quality games.

[Zomboid]

I'm so glad that I didn't get excited for or even bother with this game, based on what you guys are saying. Fable was fun but was way too easy and short. Looks like this did the same.

[Nick]

The original game was better. The environments may have been smaller, but they were more of them, and they made it fell like they were part of something bigger. Everything in this game seems small.

[timrpgland]

This is the definition of a sequel as it just builds on the second without doing anything that differently. I've been enjoying it quite a lot. I had good fun with the first.

Owning property is done much better this time around. Collecting rent while you're not playing is nice :(

[pac-man]

I liked the gaining of money through rent too; but it reminded me of Final Fantasy VIII, where after a while you're just not worried about money. Not that that's necessarily a problem, but the less things you have to worry about in an RPG, the less engrossing the experience IMO.

[timrpgland]

Personally, I didn't expect Fable 2 to be a life changing experience or anything. I expected to be what it is. Give me 20 or so hours of good fun with some decent immersion/control over the world that you don't see in other rpg worlds. It did that.

Could it have been more? Yes... but it's a game.. There are lots of games out there. People love to hope/think a game will be the "end all." I have gotten past that years ago.

[OxBlood]

Most people expect a sequel to be better than its predecessor...but I don´t think Fable 2 manages even this extremely simple task.

[timrpgland]

I don't see how it doesn't. It's basically the same game with more to it.

[Nick]

It has more in it if you go by the numbers. Story wise, it sucks.

[timrpgland]

The first Fable had a good story?

We talking about the same game here?

[Supafly345]

Being an ascended videogame critic gets pretty hard when you have to back up what you say huh Nick?

[OxBlood]

I don't see how it doesn't. It's basically the same game with more to it.

Hm, let´s see if I can wrap that in words.

The first fable had a story that made you feel more or less important.

The second fable always TELLS you, you´re important, but I never felt like it. And it has no boss.

It also felt like some of the new features were tacked on just because the designers thought it was cool to have them, even though they don´t seem to fulfill any real purpose.

Take the families for example. I don´t really know if they have any purpose other than to feel like you´re playing the Sims or something like that. They cost money, they distract you from being what you´re supposed to be (a hero that is).

Then there´s real estate. It DOES have a purpose (earning tiny ammounts of money and adjusting your Corruption/Purity rating) but it feels a little strange to be renting out homes as a friggin hero.

The dog. I like the dog, really. But along with the golden trail, it´s purpose was mainly to excuse the lack of a good map. Some argued, that the game is about exploring but what is one of the most important tools of ANY explorer? Yes, a map. You really can feel what they thought.

"Who will design the map, Roger, how about you?"

-"What? Aw man, no, let´s just add some more or less stupid gimmicky-features and call it a day."

It really feels forced.


As you may already have noticed, I view Videogames from a efficiency-like point of view (please excuse my lack of flashy words, it´s the best that comes to my mind right now). I want to know what certain features of a game can do for me and the game itself. And I tend to find it strange if things are purely cosmetic or are just designed "to have fun" but don´t DO anything.

And that´s what Fable 2 feels like for me. Feel like someone forgott to add content for real gamers. It´s short, it´s devoid of any challenge, it´s full of strange features that I wouldn´t bring in connection with a person that calls itself a hero, you NEVER find treasures of any worth outside of demon doors and even if you do find one of the magical weapons, your Master Longsword with the Ghoul enchantment tends to be better anyway. They implemented..or explemented (is that a word?) a new kind of armor, the non-armor that is purely cosmetic. I am fine with that but if you do something like that, you should design more than a measly 10 sets of clothes of wich 7 look like crap.

I really wanted to like Fable 2 but it I was alarmed when I caught myself thinking about selling it. I normally NEVER sell any of my games. The only game I have ever sold since my early PS2 days was Alone in the Dark 5.

Sorry for the wall of text but I just like to write a lot :D

[timrpgland]

You really seem to think the first Fable is something more or better than it actually is. I can't help you there.

[Nick]

No, we just think it was better than Fable 2. Because it was.

[timrpgland]

It's ok to be wrong.

[OxBlood]

You really seem to think the first Fable is something more or better than it actually is. I can't help you there.

The problem is, that Fable 1 didn´t have to compare itself to anything.

Fable 2 has to be compared to Fable 1 and there is just not that much that sets it apart that really matters TO ME.

Fable 2 is more of the same with some things missing but then tries to replace these things with new stuff that feels a bit strange at times.

[Dimnos]

The shitty map is what really does it in. You cant be in an area and simply press down on the right thumb stick and get a detailed map that tells you where the road you are walking down goes. So you really have to rely on the auto travel. So you auto travel somewhere only to talk to one guy to have to auto travel back or somewhere different and you spend half of your play time watching a load screen. Everything in the sounds like a good idea but unfortunately it plays out like design flaw domino effect.

[Angryhydralisk]

At least it didn't connect with the kids and we're getting action figures and stuff. Or are we? I haven't been to a shopping mall in weeks.

[Dimnos]

I think it has just enough sex and STDs and such to spare us from all that.

[argonath]

I just finished the main quest after 20 hours or so. I liked the game, but I feel the same way I do about much of Stephen King's work: good buildup, but with an ending that is rushed and unsatisfying after so much had been put into it. I may go back through it again with a different alignment, but I imagine it'll still feel the same. I give it a 6/10.

[Fathom Zero]

I thought it was alright. The style is very unique, and a change of pace from the more hardcore Oblivion. I liked the combat a lot, although dying is about as meaningless as death in Bioshock. Perhaps even less so.

[Dimnos]

death was a joke in fable 2

[pac-man]

I didn't die once while playing Fable 2. Oxblood already pointed out the main flaws with this game, but there was never a point where I felt challenged or stuck that didn't involve the map.

[Nick]

I love the outfits in this game. All six of them.

[Dimnos]

All six of them.

:lol if you mix and match you can pull out 8 different ones.

[Fathom Zero]

I have the Highwayman's Coat and a bandit bandana.