Gaming and Geekery

Based on my love for the original Fable, I was very quick to pick up the sequel yesterday. As with coming into any sequel (film or otherwise), I already had a set of expectations going into it. So far, everything looks good.

To begin at the beginning, the in-game world is beautiful. Great attention has been put on detail from the environmental effects and the overall depth and variety needed to make the world immersive and eye-catching. The majority of character animations are smooth and realistic, save for combat (below) which is a bit clunky and NPC animation.

The voice acting, music and ambiance are all top notch. Everything sounds as it is expected to and the themes match the scenery and definitely add another layer of immersion to the experience on the whole.

Down to gameplay.

I played through the original Fable (on the PC), as I've mentioned already. Down to the basic elements, F2 feels very much like the original. However, they've added a good deal of new features to make things fresh and interesting. 

The first, of course, is the dog companion. I was a bit wary of this feature at first, but I must say that it's a nice touch. With the removal of the on-screen minimap, the dog acts as a scout for you and (with proper in-game training), can sniff out (quite literally) treasure chests, buried items, enemies, and even quests. And of course, there would be no point to having a dog with you without being able to play fetch.

I admit it. I play virtual catch with my virtual dog.

Beyond this, the game offers the sometimes under-appreciated "breadcrumb trail," which is not new to games of this scale but new to Fable. In short, it gives you the basic path to follow in order to get to your next quest. I personally like this feature, as I have a tendency to get lost in non-linear games.

The co-op functionality is bloody awesome. The original Fable would have been so much better with cooperative gameplay and I'm very happy that it ended up in this rendition. Two players can work together both off and online, and while I haven't gone on XBox Live to play it yet, I have tested out the offline co-op. Essentially, a secondary player brings in a "henchman" to travel with you, with whom you can share experience and gold that can be transferred over to that player's account. Alternatively, you can give them nothing and be done with it.

In offline co-op, too, both players share the same screen. This obviously has its pros and cons, but it works out very well, especially with having a button available to the henchman to teleport to the main character's location.

The biggest downside I've seen with playing a henchman is that you cannot interact with merchants. So having them collect gold is only useful if it's to be transferred back to another player.

At some point, I will probably go over the career and quest systems, but I need to get into the game more before I do. So far, however, the game is very enjoyable.