Right, time for another blog post. Another video game review I'm afraid, but that's the theme lately.
I recently completed Fable 2, which took me less than a week of on and off playing. There will be spoilers below as usual, but at the bottom will be a recommendation in my usual format if you are interested in my opinion of whether or not to buy it.
First off, the plot.
The plot in Fable 2 is pretty simple. You start as generic orphan child #362, with your sister generic orphan child #361. You go around for the first bit doing some tasks for random people to earn some gold so you can buy a magical music box from a dodgey merchant since it apparently will grant one wish. You get the box eventually, either having done good or bad deeds, and then you activate it and it promptly magically disappears. Grumpy, you and 361 go to bed on the street. You are then summoned to the castle, and then promptly killed by Lucien. I forget why. Your sister dies instantly, crumpling to the ground. You however somehow manage to be flung out the nearby window and land onto the soft embrace of solid concrete.
Somehow you survive being both shot and falling far enough to shatter all the bones in your body, and then a cutscene happens and you're ten years older, having been living with Theresa and Gypsies. Theresa is basically the one who tells you what to do. All the time. She's kinda useless though. The gist of the rest of the game pretty much boils down to Lucien being the bad guy and is trying to rebuild 'The Spire' which is a massive tower that can summon enough will power to grant one wish to reshape the world and is an artifact from 'The Old Kingdom' or whatever. It's also in the middle of the ocean. Somehow he manages to recruit enough manpower to be guards to enslave enough manpower to rebuild the darn thing. Through his sheer evilness I guess. I'm not even going to bother going into how he feeds that many people.
As the hero you go around collecting the fabled hero of strength, will, and skill. Which are the names of the leveling up attributes. You get this massively muscled woman with a big hammer.. called Hammer. You get the wizard guy who you have to save from the tower, and you get the evil crackshot magnificent bastard type guy called Reaver. I'll go into characters later.
Once you get all three to help out, you gather on top the hall of fate.. and promptly get captured by the bad guys. Then you have some weird cutscene in a 'Perfect world' where you're with your sister doing some stuff in the nearby farmland. Even though you're -both- still wearing pauper clothes and are back to being children. At night you hear a music box playing, exit the gate exiting the perfect world, and then wander along some carnage filled paths, find the box, and teleport to the Spire. Wander up the steps, use the box, Lucien is foiled, then killed, either by you or Reaver. There is no final showdown. Which was a letdown. You then make a wish, either to revive everyone who died making the spire, revive your dog and family and sister that were killed by Lucien, or get a million gold. The last option is the most evil. Then the heroes disperse, and.. thats it. You've saved the world, hooray for you. It doesn't feel that gratifying to have finished the game. It gets repetitive.
Then we get the characters. The protaganist, Hammer, Garth, Reaver, Lucien, and Theresa. Oh, and every single generic npc clone wandering around. The hero is.. silent. You never say a word. You get moral choices.. that are so black and white it's not any fun. In Mass Effect 2, or Dragon Age, you really have to think about your choices. And even then what you think is right might turn out to be the evil choice, or have unforseen consequences. Here? Save person A or kill person A. Lead person B to safety or steal person B's personal belongings, wallet, left shoe, and leave a grenade in his possession. There is no grey area.
The heroes of leveling up, Hammer Garth and Reaver. Well.. Hammer is cliché and irritating. Garth is.. a mage.. I really have no idea what kind of guy he is. This lot have no character. Except.. Reaver. Reaver is fun. He is a bad guy that does things his way, is prepared for anything, and made a deal with shadows for immortality. He is also voiced by Stephen Fry, which helps, which makes him even more fun. He is clearly having fun as Reaver, being a merciless bad guy. The first time you meet hima sculptor is doing his likeness in stone and he is posing. Wearing rather dashing clothes too. Once you leave you overhear him say "You really think my rear is that large?" And then a gunshot. He's the most fun you'll get. Lucien is.. generic badguy. He wants his family back I think, but frankly his descent into evil is so generic and unexplained I don't care.
That what games need to do. Make people feel emotionally connected to the cast.
Oh yeah, then there's Theresa.. who.. erm.. tells you what to do for the main plot.. vaguely.. buggers off at the end, then says the Spire is hers after you win.
And your dog. Which is pretty much a fluffy metal detector, since he finds dig spots and treasure.
I really didn't feel any connection to the cast, or any desire to revive anyone or do useful stuff.
Then there are still morals, leveling up system, and actual gameplay/combat to go. This'll be a long one.
Morals. Black and white. They're so simple its pitiful. You either go sheer saint or go sheer bastard.
Leveling up. You have strength, for close combat with swords, Skill, (Odd name choice) for ranged weapons, and Will, for magic. Strength makes you more buff, skill makes you taller, will makes you shiny with mana. It's simple and does the job as leveling up goes. It's not extensive, but, it works.
Gameplay and combat. Combat is a button mashing fest. It's sad and simple. You go the entire game mashing the same button depending on what you focused on. I went for Skill because I really like flintlock pistols, and they were fun. Early game, it was simply a case of press Y again and again and again until everything is dead. Then leveled up a bit, hold Y to target someone, -then- mash. Repeat. Eventually I could target the head with left trigger and up. Do that for everything and they're usually dead. Strength is no better. You mash X to hit people. Hold to block. Whilst holding, press a direction and you'll prepare a flourish for more damage. You'll either get hit and interrupted, or the enemy will back away. You can't move whilst prepping. Magic is annoyingly useless. Since late game most things take repeated attacks of level five spells to kill them. Spells work by charging them up from level one to level five, holding B. Level five AoE spells take eight years to charge up, by which time the enemy have taken several chunks out of you, and then they get hit, and don't even die. You're so vulnerable when charging it's near useless.
Gameplay and frills, well, you can buy clothes for your appearance, and hey, everyone wants to look good. They also change how attractive you are. You can buy new weapons, but there aren't many levels of weapon. Because it's kinda a short game. You can marry someone.. except it's so shallow and unfufilling it's pointless. It can take five minutes to get some stranger to fall in love and marry you. And you can have kids. and you can have sex, both marital and extra-marital. You can have multiple partners. You can buy houses and refurnish them. You can buy shops which earns money. You can buy every single house ever.
The story of this game frankly is 'You can... but why would you want to?' to borrow from Yahtzee of Zero Punctuation.
There is no point in buying everything except completionism. There's no point in refurbishing. I didn't and I finished the game just fine. You can have sex.. and get a black screen with a few moans and that's it. And frankly all the npcs are a bit weird anyway.
And that's my review. Bit of a ramble but oh well. Long and short of it is, either buy it cheap or borrow it. Replayability is low because unless you have the patience to mash through the entire game again, you're not gonna try being the opposite moral. It's a bit short, it's ungratifying, and it's not that well executed in some areas. It can be fun, but I find myself looking back and struggling to find specific points that made me go 'Hell yes!' with enthusiasm or tension. Maybe I'm just picky, but I look for more in my games.
Next, not sure.
Silver16
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