Fable 2 Review

Peter Molyneux knows nothing about technology. More specifically he knows nothing about technologies limitations. With Fable he promised us a fully free roaming world, in which we as players would be able to do anything from killing Hobbes to raising a family. What we actually got was one of the most linear story-driven action RPGs ever, it was good but it wasn't what we were promised. With Fable 2 we are promised that Lionhead will not only deliver what they promised with Fable but they will also add new features like online multiplayer and trees that grow realistically (and let me be the first to say exactly how this feature is going to revolutionise the industry. It isn't).

My expectations for the game were immediately dashed when I found out that Lionhead were unable to deliver online multiplayer upon the games release. Whilst this feature will apparently be added by the time you read this review the lack of this feature upon immediate release only proves one fact. Peter Molyneux is a liar!

Other than online multiplayer and trees which grow realistically Fable 2's most talked about feature is emotion. Now you would be forgiven for asking exactly what this means, if anything. Does it mean that the disk has massive mood swings, or that a gas containing anti-depressants is released into the air during gameplay? Well the answer is simple, neither you moron! It means you, as a player, are meant to get emotionally attached to the characters.

Now I'm not sure if it's simply my misanthropic, emotionally retarded, narcissistic and profoundly unstable nature speaking when I say that I hate every single character in Fable 2, especially the ones you're meant to identify with. Every “living” being in Albion is retarded, and even the sound of Stephen Fry's (Jeeves and Wooster, A Bit of Fry and Laurie, QI, Stephen Fry in America, LittleBigPlanet, Blackadder, all right I admit it, I'm a fan of Stephen Fry but in all honesty, who isn't?) voice simply wasn't enough to prevent me from wanting to kill everything in sight!

This may in part be due to the flimsy excuse for a plot holding these characters together. You start the game as a child, more specifically an orphan in order to comply with code of generic fantasy storylines, whose sister is quickly and brutally murdered by the ever dubious Lord Lucien (wherever do they think of these names?) as he attempts to prevent himself from being killed in a manner prophesied by one of the ever vigilant blind girls who seem to litter Albion in the same way that rings of power litter Middle-Earth. The plot henceforth advances with the player making arbitrary choices between the insipid extremes of Good and Evil with ultimate goal never being advanced beyond the commonly known “stop the bad guy”. That's it. I'm not joking. This is your emotion.

Gameplay wise Fable 2 is basically Fable with larger environments and more social interaction, a feature made utterly pointless by my absolute hatred of Albion's inhabits. Graphically Fable 2 is a mixed bag, with some environments inspiring awe and others inspiring a big pile of blandness (really should have thought about that sentence).

I know it may seem that I hate Fable 2. I don't. I'm just bitterly disappointed. Fable 2 doesn't even entirely deliver upon Molyneux's promises for Fable. You'll be fine with this game if you don't listen to anything that he says, but otherwise you'll feel like me: profoundly ripped off. I really don't see the point in Fable 2, it would have been far easier and just as successful if Lionhead had released Fable HD.

7/10