Fable II

When Fable was first released it forged its way deep into the part of my heart reserved specially for games that hit that “sweet spot.” Suffice to say the wait for Fable 2 has been a long one, but like all good things, they come to those that wait.

Set in the charming and fairy tale styled world of Albion some 500years after the events in the first instalment you once again find yourself following the path of a hero as you set out to rid the world of its resident bad guy.

I’m going to dive in straight away and start talking about your four legged friend, yes, man’s best friend becomes your greatest buddy, sticking around, no matter how dire the situation. Of course, his unrelenting loyalty also shines through when he helps to locate hidden treasure chests or gets you to dig up a spot with the promise of some hidden booty. We had heard plenty during the “release hype” stage of the games development, and if I’m honest I always thought “yeah, nice idea, but it’ll just be annoying surely?”

That thought was soon pushed out of my mind and after having now sunk a good few hours into my hero’s life, I can’t imagine the game without him. It would surely be a lot more boring that’s for sure, it’s like playing co op with your best mate who lives miles away, except instead of an old school friend who was there when you did something daft like get stuck in an automatic door, he’s a four legged friend who doesn’t ask for much in return, he’s happy with the odd play and the occasional treat, great stuff.

One of the main problems I think a game such as Fable can suffer from is that the combat can get quite boring and repetitive after a while. Thankfully the combat in Fable 2 is great fun, especially more so when you start levelling up your skills and spells. Mixing up a fight with some good old Will (magic) followed by a few shots of your gun or crossbow and then if need be a flurry of melee combos to finish off your opponent, it’s all rather stylish and you’re guaranteed to nearly always come out of a good battle with that “Oh yes, I’m a badass” persona.

Controlling yourself in combat is quite simple; each type of attack (melee, ranged and magic) is bound to a button (X, Y and B respectively.) Holding the buttons down for various lengths of time will cause different actions to be performed, so keeping the X button pressed will eventually get yourself a more powerful melee attack performed, unable to be blocked by your foe.

Magic, or Will in the game is handled slightly differently, more so because you can only have a limited number of spells “equipped” to your spell bar at any one time. Cycling through the spells though is about as easy as they come, with the greater the duration of time the B button is held down, the further up your spell bar you’ll travel, releasing the button will cause the spell it’s currently highlighted to be cast.

I think it’s what makes the combat so much fun, your ability to quickly bounce between one of the three combat styles, picking one that suits your style or dependant on your situation. More so, each type of combat style actually feels really different, there’s a lot of difference between firing a ranged weapon and casting spells that go deeper than just different buttons on a controller being pushed.

I touched upon the “fairy tale” thing earlier on, and do believe that the world of Albion would slot in quite at home in between the pages of Hansel and Gretel and Red Riding Hood. The world itself is touched with an art style that gets me thinking of “old England” while I can’t help but feel there’s a certain Discworld style to some of the locations such as Bowerstone. Of course this could just be personal opinion, but at the same time I can safely say the world of Albion is charming, graphically appeasing and has a streak of humour that’ll have you chuckling away to yourself. The humour being one thing I really enjoy while playing through, especially the random quotes from villagers that appear during the loading screens, which makes the abundance of them slightly easier to bare, although still annoying if you’re bouncing between a few locations within a short space of time as you can sometimes end up with a stop start feeling when you just want to play.

That said, one thing that is great about the world is how free flowing it is, just because you’re in one shop adding some 5 star furniture to your swanky bachelor pad doesn’t mean the world becomes static, conversations can be overheard throughout the worlds citizens, gatherings happen and people generally just get on with life. You don’t get that feeling that your only reason for being in the world is for it to revolve around you, you soon start getting into the mindset that you’re actually there to become part of the world, to help shape it as you deem fit.

Albion has more to offer than the straight forward and slightly generic beat the bad guy routine. Why not get married and raise a family? Feeling a bit frisky then get Married numerous times! Of course, raising a family doesn’t come cheap, but thankfully there are plenty of jobs on offer. Put that elbow grease to good use as you strive to become a master blacksmith, barman, woodcutter and more. Of course, jobs are a great source of gold and at the start will be your primary way of earning some shiny coins to purchase weapon upgrades and some stylish new clothes.

Once you get bored of the whole job routine, you are after all a hero and what sort of hero should have to graft for their living? If you prefer you can take some of that hard earned gold and invest in the property market, and by renting out any houses you purchase you will find yourself with a nice steady source of income. Of course, shops are also up for sale from the basic market stalls selling pies to the heart of every town…an Inn.

Talking of graphics, I think probably the best decision made by Lionhead was to keep the Fable styled graphics in favour of a more realistic approach. The art style plays a big role in making the world of Albion full of life and atmosphere, something I think might not have been repeatable should the engine have been overhauled in favour of something more “next gen” if you will. Graphically the game might not be the greatest in terms of visuals, but it does not falter as what it does, it does well, and if you are one of those that like to turn your nose up on anything other than almost photographic realism styled games, you’ll end up worse for it.

Probably my biggest, and I suppose only gripe is with the menu system, which I found to be very awkward and cumbersome. Tasks which should be quick and simple, such as reading a number of books to learn a host of new expressions shouldn’t take ages to complete, having to enter each part of the menu every time, I should be able to select the books I want to learn from and then have them learn all at once, or something like that anyway. With the way it works currently, it becomes a real drag to sift through each separate menu subsection to find various items, books, information on quests and such. It’s a shame that something so fundamentally basic as a good menu system was overlooked as I do think it’s one of the few things that can become a real annoyance.

The rest of the interface is handled quite well, the D-pad takes control of simple commands for your canine companion or expressions dependant on your situation, while additional commands and expressions can be found easily by holding down the RB button and bringing up the interface wheel. This feature does work well and once you familiarise yourself with the location of each sub section you can very quickly enter the interface and select the desired action of your choice, all within the space of a few seconds.

Of course, every action you carry out will have an opposite reaction, be it good or bad. The world really does shape up with the way you play, be loved, be feared, be worshiped, or be terrifying! NPC’s throughout the game will react with various levels of difference depending on your morale alignment, but regardless of the choices you make, one thing is for sure, you’ll have a great deal of fun getting there.

Multiplayer also features and you’ll soon spot little green orbs floating around, which represent your friend’s location while they are playing. You can even interact with them and give them a gift, invite them into your game or join theirs.  Teaming up in two player co-op is good fun, especially if you’re feeling rather evil and fancy turning your friend into a widow. You’ll be able to unite your combat attacks, joining them together to make more powerful combo’s, and the same principle flows through to expressions.