Fable II Review

Hobbe-killing! Bandit, banshee and beetle-busting! Troll-tackling and treasure-tracking! Chicken-kicking! An entire countryside to save from the perils of unbending evil! Oh, and more marriage proposals than Elizabeth Taylor!

Fable 2 on XBOX 360 is the long-awaited successor to the original system’s well-lauded title and is a whimsical and light-hearted alternative to the grim, heavy-handed sagas abounding in other games. I mean, where else can you find a talking stone wall that simply wants you to kick a hen into its piehole before it gives you a prize?

Fun and often head-shakingly odd quests await you in the fantasy world (of imprecise timeline) of Albion, where your management of strength, skill and will (magic) abilities and your faithful dog combine to either banish evil from the land or become the most feared being Albion has ever known.

Eradicate a throng of hobbes infesting some yokel’s basement and earn renown, making you a welcome sight in town. Give a dancing child a toy horse and adoration from him and his giddy, clapping mother are yours for the taking. Then stride over and scream at a nearby proprietor via the “expressions wheel,” steal a handful of his wares, and watch as corruption points slowly affect how others perceive you and even alter your physical appearance.

Become the ultimate goody-two-shoes and expect to be surrounded by townspeople upon your arrival, all yipping with glee and many with heart icons over their heads — regardless of your gender or theirs — indicating their love.

Immerse yourself in dastardly deeds like selling unwitting fools into slavery, engaging in paid assassinations or simply randomly slaughtering passersby — after turning the safety mode off on said wheel — and watch others flee in terror from your path.

Pillar of righteousness or the ultimate face of fear, though, eating too many meat pies will make you fat. Only crunching celery (at least for me) got my waistline back under control, despite having trekked upwards of 200 miles between missions.

You earn experience primarily by killing foes either with melee implements like swords or hammers, ranged weapons like the blunderbuss or pistol, or a plethora of magic attacks including electricity, force push and inferno.

Felling enemies, human or otherwise, leaves the ground littered with orbs of various colors for you to collect. If you had employed your swashbuckling skills for the job, most orbs will be blue; firearm kills yield yellow orbs and magic leaves red ones. Green, “general” experience orbs act as a supplement to use in combination with the other orb pools. I REALLY recommend every player become adept in will/magic tactics; there’s something giddy about utilizing “force push” to send an enemy or two off the edge of cliff with the flick of a wrist. Multiplier tallies can, and nearly often are due to the game’s low difficulty, be earned for exemplary flourishes and enemy dispatches.

You start the game with a given nickname, but can earn or buy others. I finished with what I’m sure many did, “Executioner,” after trying “Salad Dodger,” “Chicken Chaser” and “Lionheart” on for size.

What’s fantastic about all this is that it can be tackled completely notwithstanding the main story arc, which involves avenging the death of your sister with the help of the mysterious clan called the Heroes Guild. You start the tale as an ordinary child (after picking a gender) about eight years old who, with your sister Rose, embark on several fetch quests in order to buy a strange music box from a traveling salesman/showman.

Without giving too much away, an evil sorcerer named Lucien invites you to his tower and shoots both of you dead and steals the music box. You are rescued by a cloaked woman named Theresa who tells you “it’s not your time yet.” From then on you awaken as a young adult and the yarn of revenge, centered around the search for two essential comrades also thwarted by Lucien’s nefarious deeds, commences.

Main story missions open up new sections of Albion and the game enables a “fast-travel” from place to place, complete with a glowing trail leading you to your next objective. Load times between locations border on excruciating. However, once you’re there, you’ll never tire of the storybook flora and fauna that greet your eyes as you saunter about. Portions of the game have an almost dreamlike quality; whether you’re topside running through a field of buttercups at the height of day or hacking goblins in a murky cave hundreds of feet below the surface, Fable 2 bursts with a color palette that is sure to please virtually anyone. One of my favorite scenes was behind one of the nine “Demon Doors” scattered about Albion, a wintry Norman Rockwellesque segment where the music was softly soothing and every footstep sounded precisely like snow crunching underfoot as I searched for my prize.

It’s been noted by various print and online sources that video games have generally become easier over the past several years, and Fable 2 could well be Exhibit A. Few if any enemies pose a serious threat even in great numbers. You could pop several bandits with a high-powered rifle, and their buddies will still come at you with swords drawn. There is also no dormancy or “charging up” period between spells, so by all means cast “Chaos” over and over if you like and see what madness develops. I did enjoy hearing a bandit scream “And he owed my money!” after seeing his friend fall to your sword, one of the many humorous touches Peter Molyneaux and Lionhead Studios employs in his brainchild.

You need currency to buy properties, potions, gifts and whatnot and this, too, is ludicrously simple. Jobs abound, including chopping wood, crafting swords and a bartending task that upon higher levels had me earning over $500 per pint! That’s without tip! I only wish my real bartending job was that lucrative.

There are also pub games to play to earn (or in my case, lose) cash, and I shudder to think how many real-time hours I wasted playing Fortune’s Tower. At least I don’t have to genuinely worry about having my kneecaps broken, but in the game, the law will hunt you down for indebtedness if you go too long owing money from pub game losses.

And then we come to Fable 2‘s mode of communicating with non-player characters. Oh, the silly “expressions wheel” where you never utter a word but instead growl, show off trophies, dance, blow kisses, give the middle finger and fart to either endear people to you – and perhaps get a gift – or scare them into giving you a discount on their goods. Use the L1 and Y buttons to discover what expressions, gifts and/or locations that “Lindsay the Whore” enjoys and she may fall in love with you.

Although I relished my time in Fable 2 — really, I did — the half-baked marriage crap nearly killed the game for me.

I did a bunch of good deeds, establishing my renown in Bowerstone Market and environs. I spied a potential spouse (it wasn’t tough, having at one time 233 people in love with me when played as a “pure” character) wooed her with a ring found in one of the treasure chests liberally sprinkled across the land, and got her hand in marriage. So far, so good. I selected one of the many houses I’d bought as our family home and then a cut-scene blessing our wedlock played. We then went upstairs to consummate the marriage and were followed upstairs by four others, men and women alike, all muttering variations of “Doesn’t my finger look sad without a ring!” People, I JUST GOT MARRIED. I’M TRYING TO GET LAID! A LITTLE PRIVACY?!!

I know an orgy sounds great to many of you, but you get my drift. I also can’t count how many times I’d come home after an arduous quest to find people, including the town crier, in my dining room. I know no game is perfect, but come on. Maybe the “building a family” element will be given the full treatment in the third itineration. Having hookers hit on you in Bloodstone was a neat touch, though, except for the creepy cross-dressing dwarf.

I guess I’ll finish a scrutiny of Molyneaux and company’s labor of love with a list much like Virginia (I think) the Travelling Trader lists her wares. Punishment and praise (and at least one spoiler) follow!

• I loved the dog. I’ve played a lot of games involving a sidekick, many of them canine (Haunting Ground, Fallout 3, The Bard’s Tale, Resident Evil 4 for a minute or two) and this guy animated perfectly. He alerts you to “dig spots” to find treasure, figures into your expressions (including urinating on people), growls to alert you of danger, hides his tail between his legs when he’s frightened and assists in combat. He’s even required to open one of the Demon Doors!
• Likewise, the game wouldn’t be complete without the bard regaling me and others with tales of my adventures, or the statues you can have erected in your honor after you stand for them. I chuckled every time I saw the one with my “Kiss My Ass” pose in Bloodstone.
• Though the Expression Wheel is ridiculous in sum, I would like to live in a world where “Vulgar Hip Thrust” could alone make someone fall in love with me. Or where a $750 fine could absolve me of a robbery/triple homicide. Um, not that I’d ever do such thing.
• I thought it was very accommodating and open-minded that one side mission involved finding a lover for a farmer’s son, only to discover that the lad doesn’t want a woman but a man as his partner and doesn’t know how to tell his father. As the player you can also engage in same-sex liaisons if that’s your bag.
• But what’s up with the treasure chests all over the place? They’re right out in the open and still contain wealth despite the throngs of bandits, highwaymen and creatures running around! It’s enough to boggle the mind! That doesn’t mention how often your character will be under attack, which I’m sure is to enable you to gain experience but is at times downright irritating when all I want to do is poke around the countryside.

Back to the main story! One mission in “The Spire,” toward the middle of the main game, trades the whimsical bright colors of the rest of the game for drab grays and blacks and all the guards look alike and all the prisoners do, too. It’s frustrating in a modern game to see this and thankfully this portion of the game is brief.

The endgame moral dilemma involving three difficult choices — sacrifice, love or wealth — will last throughout the rest of the player’s time in the game and is particularly noteworthy not least due to it determining who remains in the world with you. I had to have my dog back (oh dear, another spoiler…).

Last but not least, this will be the only time I’ll be heading down into “Reaver’s Rear Passage.” Period.