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Top Of The RPG Pile

Customer Rating:
This games is fantastic - huge and complex. I have only just started it, but this is what I have done so far (from the Gypsy Camp onward):

- Wooed all the women (and accidentally one of the men!) in the camp.
- Done the cave thing at the start.
- Explored almost all round the Bower Lake area.
- Defeated Thag - selling the prisoners to the slaver in the process (I still feel really guilty about this!)
- Travelled to Bowerstone.
- Got a job as a 3-star Blacksmith.
- Bought 5 rings from the jeweller.
- Wooed and married someone in Bowerstone.
- Killed them and the innkeeper at the inn (I don't feel good about that either).
- Gone back to Gypsy Camp.
- Married someone else
- Had a baby with them.
- Married someone at the same time.
- Got 2 divorces.
- Got into a gunfight with, and subsequently shot dead, my ex-wife (I hated yself for doing that).
- Done a few good deeds to start with a clean slate.
- Married someone else in Gypsy Camp and had another baby (previous baby taken into foster home).


I now have a happy family and have played for a day without doing any of the quests after meeting Theresa. The games is simply HUGE. It clearly borrows a lot from other games - the cave was reminiscent of Oblivion, and the ideas are not all original - but it improves on previous RPG titles, making it the best I've played in a long time. The talking layout is easy to understand a lot simpler than titles like Oblivion, although maybe it is over-simple.

The games is very big, but it is easy to keep track of where everything is - in Oblivion, I was constantly forgetting my mission and where I'd seen the landmarks. But the truly inoovative feature of this games is your dog. *SPOILER* After a shocking and cruel twist right at the start, he is your only companion and is brilliant at finding treasure and other things - it is fantastically designed and acts just like a real dog. Although I am usually evil in these sorts of games (and have probably been too evil so far in this one) the threat of losing my dog if I am too evil has kept me (almost) on the straight and narrow.

The thing that really struck me about Fable 2 was how incredibly immersive it is. IMO, all good RPGs should make you empathize for the people in them, and I never felt this with Fallout 3. Although at the start of Fable 2, I was worried that I just didn't like the characters, I was stunned and actually upset by the *SPOILER* fate of my sister. Making choices to be evil actually makes me feel guilty in real life, and I think that this is the mark of a great RPG.

Overall, I would describe this game as a funnier, more light-hearted version of Oblivion, or to those who haven't played Oblivion, I'd say Fable 2 is immersive and fun after the slow opening. It is perhaps a little too easy, but I rate it:



GRAPHICS - 9/10
Far better than I expected, perhaps overly cartoony, but the opening cut-scene just blew me away.

SOUND - 9/10
Those West-Country accents may grate at times, and I don't like the voice of the main character, but there is little wrong with the rest of the stellar performing cast.

GAMEPLAY - 10/10
Easy to grasp, and with almost unlimited freedom of choice, simply amazing.

LIFESPAN - 10/10
I could play this game again and again and again and again......

Good fun, pretty visuals and a detailed world. Don't rush through though!!

Customer Rating:
I was looking for an action/rpg game that my girlfriend would enjoy on her new 360 and came across this. Both of us enjoy games with vibrant, detailed worlds and have got many action/rpgs from the old gen consoles/pc like okami. The reviews looked decent so we ordered it for christmas and have played it on and off until it was completed at new year.

1)The graphics are just lovely. Technically they may not be the most advanced but the world is realised with great attention to detail. The countryside is lush and green (and in the autumn, ablaze with oranges and reds) while towns vary from prosperous renaissance trading cities to filthy pirate dens.

2) Gameplay is fairly intuitive, combat is simple (my girlfriend opting for the "button bashing" technique) yet slick, merging melee, ranged and magical attacks. While we understand that fable 2 isn't attempting to be a hardcore rpg game, my girlfriend complained about the lack of variety of clothing or degree of customisation of the character. She absolutely adored the dog though.

3)The main quest is rather short so don't make the same mistake of blitzing through the first half of the game in a fit of Christmas excitement like we did.The game allows you several breaks from the main quest so ensure you thoroughly explore what else the game offers in the form of side quests and sub games.

4)This game isn't perfect (some iffy getting wedged into scenery, not being able to vault over all walls issues) but you get the sense the team behind this game has had great fun creating a cheeky fantasy world full of character. The lifestyle you lead in the game really did affect what other characters think of you, with shopkeepers refusing to serve my evil character but spewing sycophantically about how my girlfriend's heroic character is "her favourite customer" Voice acting was great (apart from the gargoyles' worst Scottish accent since shrek)and added a greatly appreciated British sense of humour.

Overall it is a very entertaining, if short action/rpg that should appeal to most gamers with any interest in fantasy/magical worlds.

falls a bit short of what it claims to be

Customer Rating:
Ok so I figure a lot of other reviews cover most of the general gripes and pluses about the game, but I thought it might be worth sharing some more specific detail on the game that I wasn't aware of until I bought it.

The Good:

Nice graphics, music and acting
Story is pretty good
Character development and the whole good/evil deeds thing works nicely
Lots of character customisation
The 'sims' style approach to every day life works well

The Bad

It's not as free roaming as I expected. You have no map, and can't travel exactly where you want to at any given time easily. Although you can use short cuts to access areas you have already been shortcuts are also forced on you when you head to certain places (i.e. a message saying Village 2 days travel on foot and then the game loads a new section ant there you are at your destination.)

Yellow trail takes you to where you need to be, you can't find your way there with maps.

Character can't jump. This is incredibly annoying. Jumps are context sensitive, so you press A at a ledge etc to vault it.

Character interaction is pretty lame. It is so easy to 'win over' someone with the right gesture that this whole thing becomes fairly pointless.

If you want to play the game realistically and turn off the safety feature (which enables you to hurt innocent people) you have to constantly switch it back on whenever a new area loads.

The game feels very 'guided' and linear and it detracts greatly from the supposed 'choose your destiny' thing that fable champions so greatly.

It's very comicy.

The sims stuff is good, but who plays an RPG to get married buy a house and have kids?

All in all, it is a fun game, but if you are a serious RPG fan, or you want the promise of fable's free roaming choose your destiny, go anywhere and do anything gameplay, then Oblivion is by far and away the unsurpassed king of the genre for you. All in all I think Fable 2 is a game that tries to be many things, action, adventure, RPG, the sims, etc and in doing so only really succeeds in being average at all of them. Rent it first!

Just as enjoyable as the first

Customer Rating:
Fable II, and the original Fable are not games to play to win. They are games to savour. "The Journey is the reward." springs to mind. If "winning" is everything to you, then Fable 2 might not suit you. It's more akin to an interactive book. There's no death, no real failure, just progression as the pages of your character's life are turned at a pace you decide.

The graphics work well to create a beautiful world where it's nice to just wander about. There's a bit of speech repetition from NPCs, but that's only to be expected. I thought the whole romance/sex issue is handled a little to delicately IMO, but it's a generally wholesome game so I suppose that's only to be expected. Sooner or later you generally feel a real link with your character, so much so that when he or she get's fat, you feel like you ought to do something about it! :)

I don't rate Fable II as highly as the original Fable as it doesn't really offer anything new. It doesn't have the same "Wow!" factor that the first one did. Sure the dog's an excellent addition, the charging of magic seems to work better than the old will level too, but thtat's about it. If you haven't played Fable yet, I'd buy Fable: The lost Chapters" and enjoy that first.

So seeing as I have really enjoyed Fable II, so what am I complaining about? Well the original Fable was SO good, I was expecting the same revolutionary progress in Fable 2. But all I got was more of the same. It was like discovering a great restaurant and being blown away by the fabulous food in Fable, then you go back again in Fable 2 and it's still fabulous, but no better than the last time you went, despite the menu saying it's an improved recipe.

Bottom line, buy the game, it's great. :-)

another let down for the 360

Customer Rating:
i have now played two of the new games for the 360, grand theft auto and fable II, both of which made a very big first impression, quickly followed by a sense of massive anti-climax. The first thing that hits you is the quality of the graphics and this takes some time to get over, particularly with a number of impressive cut scenes, but then i find i begin to get a bit bored by the gameplay, not only are there no real improvements to the original versions of these games, they have also lost some of the scope and magic of the originals. considering that fighting seems to be at the centre of fable its surprising to find it is just as awkward, clunky and disatisfying as before. the fact you cant die but just keep coming back to life removes any challenge, the storyline strays little from fable I, which was also underwhelming, with an abrupt,anticlimactic ending, leaving one feeling flat and let down. its one of the shortest games i have played so far. there are things you can do to spin it out, but i couldnt be asked to be honest. i began to replay it as a villain, since this game allows you to be good or evil, but this game just doesnt hold the interest enough to warrant this. having said all this it is still worth playing, but i would try and borrow it off a mate since it only lasted me a couple of evenings, and other than the graphics it was on the whole more disapointing than the original. fable would like to pretend its a roleplaying adventure, or the kind of grand-theft-auto san-andreas type of game, where you can go where you want do what you want, like entering some kind of virtual world of your own- if this is what you expect prepare to be disapointed. a lot of time and trouble has been taken on graphics and endless cut scenes, while the fighting and the actual gameplay can be pretty tedious.