Fable II Review

Fable II from Lionhead Studios for the XBox 360 is an action based sword and sorcery role-playing game with a little bit of gun powder thrown in. Fable II takes place in the world of Albion about 500 years after the events in Fable. This is how the gun powder fits in. Some people might be worried about the aspect of guns in the world of Fable II, but it fits in and doesn't dominate the landscape. Swords and fireballs are still major factors. Fable II's big draw is how your actions within the world effect your character and how the other beings within react to him or her. My experiences in this review are based on me playing an "evil" character. So, a "good" character will have slightly different experiences.

Your actions effect your relationships and will show in your appearance. As you become stronger, your physique shows more muscles and people in the world will mention how big your muscles are. As you become more skilled with magic, you will see glowing blue runes on your face and body. As you become more evil, if you choose that route, you will develope demon-esque features like horns and reddish brown skin. Your evil appearance will cause some people to run in fear while others will make comments on your evil behavior. You would think your reputation for killing people with big mouths would stop them from making comments. But, it doesn't. Oh well, someone has to teach them a lesson, right?

In Fable II, you also have a dog companion to help you in your adventures. It's primary role is to hunt out treasure and warn you of nearby hostile creatures. It's role in combat is limited to attacking hostiles you have knocked to the ground. It will also help you in influencing others by doing typical dog tricks as you perform varying actions. The dog's appearance also changes based on your actions. If you become more evil, the dog's coat becomes black and his eyes take on an evil red glow. Basically, he becomes a little hell hound.

The mini-games in Fable II are plentiful and enjoyable. For the most part. The purpose of mini-games is to make gold. Some of the jobs allow you to earn more money with some hand eye coordination like being a blacksmith or others let you earn gold through gambling. I have found some of the gambling games to be frustrating because winning is based more on luck than any skill.

While other mini-games like blacksmithing require a lot of repetitive actions. The payoff for being a good blacksmith is worth the effort though. I don't know exactly how buying houses and businesses are classified, but I'll put them in with the mini-games because they generate gold and how you go about acquiring and running them is a game in itself. How you run those buildings also effects your character. For example, if you buy a house and rent it out, you can adjust the rent. If you undercharge, it's considered a good thing. Over charge and it's considered evil. One of the cool things about Fable II is, basically, you can own just about every building in the game and those buildings bring in gold. Also, those buildings continue to generate gold while you are not playing. So, if you don't play for a week or two and own a few businesses and houses, when you come back, you will be treated to a nice addition to your gold account.

Fable II is full of different things to do other than follow the main story. I won't talk about the main story to not spoil anything, but there are tons of side quests, mini-games, and relationships to cultivate. The side quests are pretty standard RPG fare like save this person, find this object, kill this person and so on. Most are still fun and help develop your character's personality.

Do you release those people you just saved from bandits or do you sell them into slavery? I'm not saying selling people into slavery is fun. However, taking the slaver's money (evil), killing the slaver (evil) and then releasing the people (good) IS fun.

Once you start down the path of evil, you will be approached to do assassinations and maybe join a cult of evil weirdos. Without ruining too much, the cult of weirdos have THE best interview process. Just thinking about still makes me laugh.

Perhaps the part of Fable II I had the most fun with was the relationships with other characters in the game. Now, the following may upset some people. If you are easily upset by talking about sex and sexually based relationships, you may want to skip this next part. Scroll down past the "**********************" to continue the review.

Fable II allows you to have relationships with many different kinds of characters. If you grow your relationship with an individual enough, you can convince them to marry and have children with you. The upside to this is, if you keep your spouse happy, they will give you gifts from time to time. The gifts tend to be better in relation to how good your relationship with them is. The downside is you have to visit them from time to time and provide them with the things they want. Some just want a good allowance. Others are happy with just sex. Speaking of sex, Fable II is the only mainstream game I'm aware of that deals with sex and its consequences. I didn't play the first Fable and don't know if it dealt with these issues. After you convince a character to come to your bed, you have the option of having protected or unprotected sex. Have protected sex with your spouse and they don't get pregnant. Have unprotected sex with some harlot you picked up at the inn and you stand a good chance of getting a sexually transmitted disease. Before you say Fable II sounds like a porno, you would be mistaken. The actual sex acts trigger a black screen and all you hear are some comments like "Oh, your muscles are so big!" (because you're a stud) and "You're crushing me!" (because you're a fatty). Now, one of the things I had fun doing, because I'm evil, was marrying a woman and taking another woman in the same town as a mistress. That wasn't the fun part though. The fun part was getting the two women in the same place, kissing the mistress, stepping back and watching the fireworks before my wife divorced me. Of course, you get extra points for taking your mistress to bed with your wife watching. Ah, good times. **********************

Now, back to "normal" relationships in Fable II. Most relationships are fairly basic. The better your relationship with shop owners, the cheaper their goods are. If someone likes you enough, they may follow you around give you a gift. You can also scare some people into giving you gifts. Some relationships don't become available until you perform certain actions or quests. Such as, killing an innocent.

Fable II's combat system is fairly basic. It breaks down into three areas, melee, ranged and magic. All three start being basic button mashing, but as your get more experience, your actions can get more complex. With melee combat, you learn to watch what your opponents are doing and try to preform counter attacks. Ranged combat allows you perform aimed shots for bigger damage as your skill increase. Magic is perhaps the most complicated as it is the most versatile. There are your standard fire balls and lightning bolts. However, there are others like time stop and raise dead to give you more options than just damage. You can have up to 5 spells of increasing power ready at one time. The more powerful the spell is, the longer it takes to cast. My favorite tactic is to use a couple of lower level spells to buy me some time to cast the level 4 and level 5 big damage spells.

In conclusion, Fable II is a good game on the whole. The main story is a little short, but between the side quests, mini-games and relationships, you will have a lot of things to occupy your time. Plus, the game does not end when you finish the main story. You can continue to play for as long as you want. Finish those side quests, buy up every building in the game, get married a few more times and see how many families you can support, blow all of your gold gambling, do whatever makes you happy.

Fable II can keep you busy for quite a while. Pick up Fable II and give it a try. You won't be disappointed if you enjoy RPGs. --Gimpy Knee I hope you have found my Fable II Review helpful. You can find other game reviews at www.GimpyKneeReviews.com