It's been a few days now since Fable 2 was released, thus allowing us some time to experience the new world of Albion. Fable 2 is a hack and slash rpg type with a little life simulation thrown in. As you explore Albion you can buy houses, get married, have children, slay countless numbers of monsters, and make many morale decisions. If you have not experienced Fable before, you can still pick up Fable 2 and not worry about being behind or left out of the loop when it comes to the storyline. The game takes place 500 years later than the first games events wrapped up.
The combat system seems very similar to the first game allowing you a choice of a ranged weapon, a melee weapon, and a magic ability.
Ranged weapons come in three shapes, crossbows, rifles, and pistols.
Rifles are the most powerful, but are the slowest, crossbows are the 'middleman' being average in speed and damage, and respectively pistols are the fastest ranged weapon but also the weakest.
Melee weapons vary between 4 shapes there is a sword, cleaver, mace, and an axe. Weapon details are listed in game if you toggle the right stick when you have the weapon selected you can see its speed. Generally the maces and axes are the slowest weapons.
Magic abilities all come with a ranged attack as well as an area of effect (except the summoning spell has no aoe, and the time spell well, slows down time).
The story is really well put together in Fable 2, it flows well. You can easily get sidetracked and go on side missions, but a handy little glowing trail helps guide you to whatever quest you choose. You are also allowed to quick travel to any places you've been to previously that you may need to return to. There is also a return of the Arena now called the Crucible.
Now to gain skills you must slay enemies causing them to drop orbs that you collect to use on gaining skills. You can put skills into Melee, Ranged, or Will (Magic). A really well rounded system, however I found that the Time spell dominated over the other spells. The spells require a charging time so you have to stand in one spot taking damage to unleash a lot of damage, it's really not worth the wait. The time spell greatly helps combat allowing you to slow down time (after charging) or just simply appearing behind an enemy (instead of the shooting ability many other spells have ) which means as long as you slash them they can't turn around to hit you. This works on almost all enemies, except for the Trolls. Trolls can easily be Defeated as long as you get the Roll ability and lock onto the Troll. If you are good with ranged weapons you can constantly circle the troll without taking damage because his attacks go right through you when you're rolling (this is really helpful for the last round of the Crucible).
Fable 2 has been great fun for me so far and I am continuing to play as now a pure evil character. If you like ratings then I'd give this game an 8/10. Why 8?
Because of the Multiplayer. We were told from the start "revolutionary multiplayer" but we all know Peter Molyneux tends to say things like that. The multiplayer is kind of a let down, allowing you to enter into another persons world only to discover you have to choose a character from a few choices of heroes. So you cannot play your character with your friends character, it's just not happening, even though that would make this game just over the top. The glowing friend orbs that move around the world as your friends play are a really nifty idea often leading to some random xbl messages. The singleplayer more than makes up for the lacking in the multiplayer department. Fable 2 is a great game, I'm really impressed.
Keep rocking the 360's friends, support exclusive developers!
