Gaming and Geekery

Okay, so this was a long time coming. I went into a fair amount of detail about Fable 2 in my previous post, but now that I've completed the main story arc of the game (and started a second character), I'm ready to finish my review.

The game itself, in all of its greatness, is rather simple. As a player, you aren't as forced into the physical development of your character as you were in the original Fable, but your customization options are fairly limited. You have handful of adornment selections which are only vast if you decide to make your character a cross-dresser, your character's physical appearance ranges from anywhere between tall and rather bulky to short and fat with your wondrous selection of horns if you're evil and a halo if you're good (in their extremes). Dyes for your attire and hair are a nice touch, but attire is utterly useless except for minor NPC perception adjustments and overall, you are just as capable at defending yourself if you're naked as if you were wearing protective gear.

Combat is rather clunky at times, lacking any real sense of tempo or action outside of the occasional slow-motion view of a slain enemy flying through the air like a ragdoll against whatever it may have the unfortunate fate of colliding with. For the most part, you have three options for combat: Taptaptap the hell out of the X button, stand back and taptaptap the hell out of the Y button or Holdholdholdrelease the B button. The controls are simple and with that, comes the simplicity of the combat system. Many times, you find that the only reason you got hit by an enemy in the first place is because you put too much effort into developing your character to one or more extremes. For example, Will users will get hit a lot, especially if you're looking to cast the most powerful spells. Skill users are great at sniping, but some enemies have the purely sinister ability to dodge bullets and arrows (thank you for that realism). Lastly, Strength users can absolutely tear everything they come across apart, but they will perpetually block every attack unless you put enough points into abilities to let you 'flourish' and break through those blocks. All in all, it feels like a step back from its predecessor.

The quest lines and stories are, as always, golden. The comedy is ever-present in the majority of the storylines and for the most part, you find yourself right at home in the Fable universe. Hannah (Hammer), the first major character you encounter in the game, is made of pure awesome. The character's monologue (since your character never speaks) and dialogue with other characters is brilliant and entertaining. The others, however, not so much. Going into detail would spoil story elements, but I will say that introducing a character that we're supposed to perceive as a major asset to the storyline and then having them out of the picture within a few minutes' time is very bad form.

Lastly, the endgame story elements are garbage. Throughout the entire game, you are built up to believe that you will be engaging in a full-blown, knock-down, drag-out fight with the antagonist in this story, only to have the plot fall flat on its face by ending it with easily the most lackluster and thoroughly disappointing final confrontation I've ever seen in a game. I'll just say that the saving grace is the ability to continue with additional content after the main story line.

In closing, the game is very beautiful if not a bit limited, has a high replay value despite its short main storyline, and can easily eat up hours of your time. I would personally recommend it for a 1-2 week rental and leave it at that unless Lionhead decides to expand upon it considerably.