Blog, Thoughts and Portfolio of Joe Angus

Fable2, rob and destroy? or be the hero everyone wants you to be?Oct 26th category: blog | tags: xbox play game fable2 360

Apart from being mostly bed bound the entire weekend due to a horrible cold / flu like illness, I did manage to give Fable2 a good bashing and to my surprise it really did live up to more than my expectations at least.

I’m never one to get completely hooked on a game (not for a good few years now anyway), so when an RPG comes out I am usually a little wary of purchasing the title as I probably won’t even touch on breaking in the surface of what could be an epic adventure. Fable the original I very much enjoyed on the original Xbox so I took a chance after reading many reviews and previews and pre-ordered the new 360 title.

You start off as a kid, much like the original - although this time you have a girl (or a boy if you’re the girl) follow you about and start plotting out the story. Immediately I noticed that the graphics are definitely not comparable to the likes of Farcry2 or Gears of War, but they are far better than adequate for this time of game play. I could see straight away from looking at the player models that there couldn’t be anyone but Lionhead studios to of created them!

From the get go it doesn’t take long before starting your first mini quest which involves getting 5 gold coins from either helping other villages with their problems, or helping criminals cause villages more problems! This is one of the great aspects of Fable, as every decision you make will actually cause a chain of events which you may not notice now, but you will in the future of the game.

One of the new features of Fable2 from the original is the new pet dog which follows you around, and he/she really will become your best friend in the game as he not only jumps on downed enemies ripping at their throat, but he also ensures you don’t miss any hidden treasure chests, or buried goodies by barking and leading you to them! It’s up to you how you treat him, I tended to throw his rubber ball off edges as far as I could, just to watch him jump into to a river, doggie-paddle over to the ball, then come all the way back - easy amusement I know.

The combat system I found extremely intuitive, with only 1 button per type of attack (melee, ranged or magic) you can pull of some fast paced combo’s which enables you to quickly battle your way through the 20-to-1 battles you may encounter on your trips. You can now spread your abilities and be less focused on one particular profession unlike Fable1 which means you can experiment with a range of skills all together.

I’m currently using the magic spell ‘Force push’ (yes I know, fable2 has jedi’s), and have gotten it up to level2 at the moment - this is absolutely fantastic to watch as with just quick button press I can send multiple enemies absolutely flying through the air often killing them on landing. I also had some playing time with Inferno and burning my foe’s but I decided to concentrate on the push for now!

One of the downsides I found to the game so far was just how easy it is to impress villagers and in general make them completely adore you. Within 5minutes I had 7 woman and 1 man crowd around me and all fall in love with my when I was just trying to flirt with one person! Soon after they were trying to marry me I legged it to start my quests!

Although I did later in the game decide to marry, and after I was being yelled at for “I CANT WAIT TO RIP YOUR CLOTHES OFF” I decided to follow her upstairs to the bedroom! To my suprised I was asked if I wanted protected or unprotected sex, and to an even greater surprise I couldn’t be protected because I didn’t have any contraceptives!!! Unbelievable, Lionhead doesn’t even give you a freebie to start you off?!

Anyway, my experience so far as mainly been a good one and I’ve really enjoyed playing it far more then most of my other games to date. I’d love to hear of the choices and experiences other Fable2 players have run into!

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