Fable 2 turns out to be a game that will grant wishes to many gamers who have high expectations from life. If you are one of those people who always wanted to marry as many as different women as you liked and bore children with those multiple women, Fable 2 allows for this to occur. If you’ve ever wanted to marry an individual of the same sex, Fable 2 also allows that. If it has ever been your virtual dream to buy every single house, store, castle, and land in the game, well, as expected, Fable 2 allows that too. You see, Fable 2 is an ambitious game that goes the extra distance to ensure gamers have an entertaining experience. While several pundits will argue that Fable 1 failed to meet the lofty expectations, Fable 2 not only surpasses them but sets the bar for future action-RPGs on the Xbox 360.
What has Lionhead Studios done this time to create such a remarkable game? The list is extensive, but for starters, they added in cooperative play, included a canine to assist your hero in his/her adventures, improved the sheer size of the game world (10 times larger than Fable 1), kept the unique art style and British voice-acting, and stayed true to their goal on making every choice in the game come with consequences.
One of the most amazing features of Fable 2 is the canine pal that every hero will have at their side; players will be amazed at how helpful their furry little buddy is. Perhaps the most beneficial aspect of the dog as your partner in crime is that he seeks out buried and hidden treasure along your journeys. He’ll bark when he’s close to treasure so you can stop in your tracks to turn around to find the treasure. When it’s buried, he’ll scratch at the ground to show you where to dig to uncover the items.
Your dog doesn’t just find treasure and items for you, but he’ll also attack enemies that have been knocked to the ground. While your pet isn’t the best fighter in the world, he at least occupies their attention for the most part to buy you some time to eliminate the fringe opponents sneaking up on your position; and can learn new abilities by finding training manuals throughout the game. Another interesting aspect of the dog feature is that your pet changes its appearance throughout the game based on your decisions (along with the main, human character model). Having seen both the light and evil side changes, the evil traits are definitely the most appealing graphically.
Carrying over from the original, players will have to make tough choices throughout the entire game and face the consequences that come from those decisions. Whether it’s marrying a woman and cheating on her or killing a whole town for no good reason, players decide the fate of their character. To tell you the truth, it’s tough to choose right from wrong at times. In one occurrence, this woman fell in love with my character but I decided to cut off relations since my mission was to deliver her a rejection note from a ghost of a man who committed suicide due to her dumping him. To make a longer story short, the woman then committed suicide herself and I received evil points. I doubt anyone could have ever seen that one coming (although some may say it does a good job at mirroring real life situations).
The most appreciated change that I fell in love with is the simple yet intuitive combat system – it is pure magic! Players can seamlessly switch between melee attacks, magic and ranged combat on the fly with the push of a button. At one point you can be going toe-to-toe with an enemy using your sword and effortlessly merge into launching a fireball at an oncoming enemy from behind. While some gamers will find the combat a bit simplistic, it’s for the better since it’s tremendously entertaining and effective. Leveling-up your character through areas such as Will (magic), Strength (melee), and Skill (ranged attacks and speed) provide gamers with a lot of choices when it comes to creating and customizing their character over the entirety of the game.
