Fable 2 is bad. Just throwing that out there. I wanted to see how it would sound. And it sounds wrong. But Fable 2 is not bad; in fact, it is an awesome game.
Lionhead has been working on Fable 2 since the first game came out. That’s been what, like four years? Anyway, imagining that it’s been worked on longer than like, Fallout and Oblivion, it was kind of disappointing. But not that disappointing.
So yeah, don’t get me wrong, Fable is a great game and a great experience, but that experience is just as long as the first Fable. Which is very short, especially for an RPG.
The length of the game is the main problem. It lasts about 15-20 hours and there is not as much replayability (in my opinion) as the first one. The main story is a good story but is only about 10 hours. Plus the extra five to ten hours that make up side quests. Which there are only like 10 or 15 of. There is definitely not as much content as I would have liked. I would like to point out that there is DLC (downloadable content) coming out for it in mid December, so hopefully that will add a lot.
There is not really anything else that I can say is bad about the game. Oh wait, there’s the armor. Armor does not exist. You can get some nice clothes, but not any armor. The only thing that clothes do is make you more attractive or scary or ugly. Now that’s really all that I have a complaint about.
So on to the good parts.
First, the combat. The combat is the high point in fable. You can switch seamlessly from magic to melee to skill combat, skill being guns and crossbows. The view of combat really reminds me of Assassin’s Creed. You look from third person down at your character from an eagle eye view, that is not directly above the fray. You’ll play one way in combat, possibly using all three varieties, or maybe only one. But then you’ll hear about your friend playing another way and try it. Every single thing in combat is fun. I liked magic and melee combat in the beginning, but then I got a legendary pistol and started using skill a lot more, which is very fun.
One thing that makes using skill so fun is the sub-targeting system. When you get to a certain rank in skill, you can use this sub-targeting. You can target any enemies, body parts (including the groin) and shoot at them to kill the enemy, amuse yourself, or cripple them.
Magic (Will) is also very interesting and fun. Lionhead really tried something new with it. They didn’t use mana. Let me repeat that. No mana. You’re thinking “What the eff? No mana? That’s Insane! It’s Crazy! It’s so crazy, it just might work!” And it does work.
You charge up your magic to a certain level to cast a certain level spell that you assign into one of the five slots. You assign a level 1 spell to the first tier of your spells then a level 2 spell to the second tier and so on to the fifth tier. It sounds kinda complicated but it’s really very simple. So you charge up for a certain amount of time to get to one of the tiers and then you cast the spell. You are very vulnerable when casting but it is almost always worth it to take the damage and cast a high level spell.
Lionhead also did the spells themselves oddly. If you buy one spell then you can either cast it in the area of a circle or you can target one person with the spell to make it more powerful. For example, you can cast inferno in an area and have flames shoot up all around you, or you can aim it at your enemy to knock them over and set them on fire. And remember, none of the spells use mana.
The melee combat is just normal melee combat but there is only one button to do everything.
I just thought of another thing bad with it. This involves the co-op in the game. There is co-op, but it is not very fun. It does not go into split screen so the camera can get really annoying. You tend to split up and you can’t and then you and your partner will argue for a little about which way to go.
But there’s something that is also kind of frustrating about co-op that is not as big: achievements. Now that doesn’t sound bad, because it’s not bad for anyone but achievement freaks. You work really hard for one achievement and then get it. But then you look at the description and realize that you could have just gone into co-op and gotten the achievement by being there when your friend did the requirements for the achievement. Or not even when they got it. Just being in the game of a friend will sometimes give you every achievement they have. One achievement is to build a real estate empire that is worth more than 2.5 million gold. It’s really hard to get. Unless you have a friend who got that achievement. Just join their game and voila! 100g! It’s kinda frustrating when you realize how easy it is to get a hard achievement.
Now the world. The world is very cool but still didn’t seem that much bigger than the first Fable’s. The world really is a lot bigger but it doesn’t seem like it because there is never an incentive to go explore. You can go outside of the paths, unlike Fable 1, but you never need to and it there is not really a point. The world is beautiful and very very cool in some instances but again there is not that much point to go and find the cool parts, especially when you can go and play Oblivion and just stare up at the night sky.
Fable 2 is a fun game and it is a really fun, humorous, full experience, but it has some small problems, and some big ones too. I definitely recommend this game for anyone who liked Fable 1 but if you didn’t then don’t get it. If you didn’t even play Fable than give it a try. You may love it.
So, once again, post comments or email me if you have anything to say.
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