Fable II

I wrote this review ages ago for a gaming website my hubby, Tyson, and I have. I've never put it on my blog before, so here you go!

My Overall Thoughts:

-    This game is good, but I liked the first one a ton better.  It has an alright story, but they altered things that should have been left alone.  

-    I would still suggest playing this if you have played the first one, but prepare to be let down.

My Thoughts on Game play:

-    The story starts out with you as a kid, but it isn’t long before you become an adult. The story is kinda connected to the first one. The game takes place a long time after the first one ends. The heroes of Albion are mostly myths, and your character is a descendant of the guy in Fable I.

-    Your character can level up in 3 different areas:  Strength, Will (magic), and Skill (shooting).  It is pretty simple, and easy to catch on.  No need to follow a tutorial or anything.

-    This game has a lot of morality and ethical choices in it. You decide if you want to be good or bad. I try to stay in the middle mostly, but sometimes, I like to go evil. 

-    The game has a main story line to follow along with several side quests. The quests are easy enough to follow, and they provide a trail of gold light for you to follow in case you get lost or don’t know where you are going. This is one of the new features that I actually like. A lot of games could use this attribute.

-    The ending is very very anticlimactic.  The whole game is based on getting Lucian, and I was expecting an epic boss fight at the end of the game. I was very disappointed. You don’t even get to fight the guy! What the heck! What was the point? 

My Thoughts on Controls:

                

-    Control is easy, but I have an issue with one thing. Strength and Skill are easy enough to grasp, but it took me a while to figure out what to do with my spells. You have to hold down the B button for a while before you let go and cast your spell. It is soooooooooo lame! The first game had way better magic controls. When you level up a spell, you have to hold the B button down longer to activate the upgraded spell, and the enemies can hit you while you are holding B. It sucks. 

                

-    The D-pad was not as useful in this game either. You couldn’t assign potions or food to a direction. It just automatically selected what it thought you wanted. Targeting other people brought up expression on your D-pad, but it randomly chooses the ones to use.  

                

-    The last issue I have with the controls is the menu. You have to scroll through a lot of crap to get to stuff. It isn’t fun. This is why it is good to be able to assign stuff to the D-pad.

                

-    They should have left all the good control stuff alone. It would have been so much better if this game controlled like the first one.

My Thoughts on Graphics:

                

-    I thought they could have upped the graphics big time in this game.  It looks just like the Fable on the original Xbox. The 360 can do sooooo much better than what they put in this game.

My Thoughts on Sound:

                 

-    The music is pretty classic to the old one. It’s there in the background, but it isn’t annoying. It’s calming and stuff. Sometimes the battle music gets annoying, but it’s all good.  I wouldn’t go out and buy the soundtrack for this game or anything, but the music is ok. 

                

-    The characters talk to you and stuff, and sometimes it bugs me, but that is what you get when you enter a village of adoring fans. Your character makes noises when you interact with other people, but you never say anything.