A night with Fable 2.

While we had high expectations for Fable 2 (being fans of the original and all) we became somewhat weary of the title when Molyneux started propagandizing his latest game in recent weeks. Compounded with the huge content cuts in the “limited edition” version of the title, we almost decided to pass over the game until our Fallout 3 fever ended. As it turns out, we had Gamestop credits in surplus, and with Fallout 3 still days away and one strong gaming itch to satisfy, we picked up the more expensive version of Fable 2 with high hopes.

We won’t kid you: Fable 2 is not an enormous advance beyond the original. That’s not to say that “more of the same” is necessarily a bad thing when it comes to a game’s sequel, but in regards to our expectations for Fable 2, it absolutely is. Over at Ars Technica, Frank Caron recently wrote:

…where the original game failed, its successor triumphs. Believe it or not, much of what Molyneux has spent the last two years pitching to journalists and fans has come to fruition in what can only be described as one of the most engaging RPG experiences of the year.

Fable 2: meh. Apparently, our definition of “RPG,” or at least, the focus on certain elements thereof, is vastly different than Caron’s, because Fable 2 is as much ~~a social simulation~~ an emote-fest as it is the type of RPG gamers love. In other words, too much of the game revolves around repeating the same set of emotes again and again just to get an NPC to like you, with the added opportunity to take the NPC to their favorite “area”. It’s like dating for blind, straight nerds, because none of the female NPCs even meet the common “beauty” expectations in today’s video games. Whether that’s a purposeful statement that Molyneux intended to make or not, it’s a peculiar one considering that there are clothing items like “hot pants” that look anything but hot on a player’s female avatar.

As far as social interactions go, Fable 2 takes what Fable originated, but puts more of en emphasis on it. Frankly, we’re not too fond of the rapport-building system that’s creeping into games these days. It’s a great idea if executed correctly and minimally, but for a single-player RPG, it’s nothing short of tedious considering it becomes a requirement for speeding up real-estate buying if one’s intent is not to kill townsfolk mercilessly in order to make property values drop.

This brings us to the morality basis of the game, or perhaps even better stated, the options one has to customize their character. Obviously, Fable 2 is built around the good/evil duality, but more importantly, it’s also about the skillsets a character can acquire. As with the original Fable, players can choose to focus their character’s evolution by deciding how much they want to focus on melee attacks, ranged attacks, or magical attacks. These three “schools” are nothing new to gaming or even fantasy, but we can’t help but notice the similarities between the Fable franchise and the Quest for Glory (QFG) franchise that preceded it. For those too young to remember the QFG series, they were adventure games published by Sierra Online, with similar humour and three philosophical schools. Only in QFG, solving quests was linked even closer to which “school” a player chose to follow, whereas in Fable 2, it’s mostly limited to how one kills things.

In other words, Fable 2 tackles the melee/ranged/magic triangle in a much poorer fashion than an adventure game series that came many years before, which is not to say that Fable should have advanced the idea, merely that there’s no reason more emphasis couldn’t have been put into the idea. Perhaps that’s because for every time Molyneux praised Fable 2′s fancy simulation features, he mostly ignored the repetitive hackn’ slash combat system and lack of any real puzzles. And that’s part of Fable 2′s problem: combat is simplified over what was possible in Fable, and once one decides to power up a school of attack, it’s still not particularly engrossing, as can be seen in the unbelievably poor magic system built into Fable 2. If you thought Fable had a poor method of handling spell-selection and spell-casting, get ready for an abysmal implementation in Fable 2.

For most, sticking to anything but one or two spells is too cumbersome to bother with, which means relying on very typical one-button hack’n slash melee combat, else a lot of rolling around trying to regain distance between firing off ranged attacks. Granted, utilizing all three schools in a single combat encounter rewards the player with an experience bonus, but doing any less is boring anyway. In short, Molyenux isn’t giving players the opportunity to specialize, unless he wants players to have a horribly boring experience in combat, followed by even less exciting rapport-building quest almost every time one enters town. Oh, and accidentally attacking townsfolk hasn’t been fixed since Fable. Sure, there’s a “safety” system that prevents some accidental attacks, but it doesn’t prevent one from accidentally casting a spell that makes everyone in town pissed off at you.

Speaking of towns, or anywhere else in Albion for that matter, there ought to be a better map system. Something like in the Grand Theft Auto series where we can zoom in on a map, and select key areas individually. In Fable 2, this would make “teleporting” to a previously-visited location much easier, particularly when we’re leading townsfolk across the world to their eventual deaths and need to find a prime spot to visit (such as the Temple of Shadows).

As far as bugs go, we can’t always read a building’s description when we should, seeing as the “A” button often doesn’t work even when we’re standing in front of a building’s sign and are prompted to press same. Also, taking assassination hits and leading the targeted individual to the Temple of Shadows for killing doesn’t automatically complete the assassination quest. In fact, the sacrificial victim doesn’t die in the Temple of Shadows, and we have to kill them (their ghost?) again. Kind of odd, considering it should be a two-birds-one-stone thing. Finally, just as with Fable, it’s not uncommon for villagers to suddenly run up to you, even though your casing of a location showed no one to be around. This makes assassinating people in even private town areas risky, because apparently everyone in Albion is a nosey bastiche.

As stated earlier, we picked up the “limited edition” of the game. We’re not sure the extra cost was worth it, but to be fair, the Halo outfit and sword one gets comes pretty early in the game, and saves one some money since the items are very good for a brand-new, cashless character. That said, by the end of the night, almost all of this equipment was replaced, which arguably makes the limited edition a very poor buy, since this content is locked to the player’s XBox account, and can’t be resold with the game. Another reason that virtual items in collector editions are lame.

Mind you, none of this means that Fable 2 is bad. If you’re a hardcore Fable fan and don’t see the need for much more advancement, then you’ll love Fable 2. If you’re one of the million nerds who thinks having an in-game pet is some sort of awesome, you’ll probably also like Fable 2, because it happens to meet that inordinately insane offering. For the rest of you, Fable 2 is neither a serious RPG in tone, nor complex enough to satiate true RPG fans. Molyenux, despite his vapid propagandizing, is certainly an innovate game developer with some excellent titles under his belt. That said, he’s a poor RPG developer if the Fable franchise is to be his RPG legacy, which he seems to be okay with. If anything, Fable 2 showcases some excellent ideas that may go over much better in an MMOG, but we’re a tad disappointed with our one-night stand. We’ll probably call Fable 2 back for a second go-at-it, but only when we’re horny and no one better’s around. Fortunately, Fallout 3′s around the corner, so Fable 2 will likely be sitting at the phone for quite some time before her phone rings.

A night with Fable 2.

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