Fable 2 Review
The World Of Fable 2 is a vast, charming and stunning achievement. The streets of Bowerstone have busy with activity and the wilderness between each community is filled with the chance for exploratation. You start the game off as a little child, starving to death on the streets with your sister. Until a startling event happens that turns your world up side down. Now you are a strong, young man, you are ready to step out in to the world of Albion...
With the exciting storyline out of the way, the game play in Fable 2 consists of working your way from town to town helping the people with tasks and choosing whether to do it the good way or the evil way. In your travels between these towns you will encounter creatures or humans that will attack you. To combat these foes, you have Hand to Hand Combat, such as Katanas, Cutlasses, Maces and Axes. Long Ranged Combat: Crossbows, Rifles and Pistols and Shock, Inferno and Raise Dead as examples for Magical Attacks. These attacks are mapped to the X (Hand to Hand),Y (Long Ranged) and B (Magic) buttons. This allows for a basic and simple strategy for a plan of attack and you can easily link up the different attacks for a different situation, it's a system tthat is very easy to use. If you happen to die, which shouldn't be very often, then you will recieve scars from your lost battle. The death system is very forgiving and all you do is come back alive exactly from the place you died, but with some experience lost.
There is a lot to do in Albion, the game gives you that freedom of exploration. You can get married, have protected or unprotected sex with your wife (or husband), if you choose the later, you could have a little child of your own. There are properties to buy like shops, pubs, houses etc. That you can earn money from by renting out the houses, selling the products from your purchased shops. There are plenty of side quests to do that will earn you moeny and one of the most important aspects of the game called "Renown".
The graphics in Fable 2 are pretty amazing, the environments are nicely done, from the busy streets of the Bowerstone Market to the luss green wilderness, it gives you that immersive feeling that you want from an RPG. The character models look great and are very detailed and believable. Although there are a couple of graphical issues that hinder from it being perfect. Like AI characters going through closed doors and dead enemies glitch like crazy if they land on some thing other than the ground. But those are the main issues I had with the game.
Audio has never been a problem for LionHead Studios. Ever since the first Fable for the original Xbox, the music has been beautiflly composed to fit every mood and environment in the game. This is some of the best audio, that you will be able to find on any game.
There is offline online co-op for you and a partner to do whatever you want, where you want. All you do when you want to play some one online, is go up to a orb that floats around the world (This represents another person playing in their own game) and interact with them. You can send them an invitation to your game, send them a gift, view their stats to find out more about them or kick them from your game.
Fable 2 can last up to 30-40 hours if you find every thing that this world has to offer and there is a lot that will keep you occupied for a long time.
In conclusion, Fable 2 is a fantastic game in it's own right and to me it was totally worth the wait.
