Fable II Comments by Christian Donlan

I'm sure you could complete oblivion's story in 2 solid days of playing. You'd miss a lot though... ;-). These games cannot be measured purely on the length of the main narrative, but also the amount of fun you can have within the world.

"its characters, quests and settings are all infused with an unmistakably British humour - more Adam and Joe than Monty Python, pleasingly"

Sold. Sold. Sold.

I have a quick question though, (apologies if this has been asked before), its about the narrative. I heard this is set some years after the first game, but having not played the original will this be an issue?

asphaltcowboy: Mea Culpa. Saw now that there are several review among those articles. Scoring seems to be very much on the lenient side though...

Else I do think it makes a difference if he's into RPGs or not. As this is one. But then again, Mr. Molyneux asked us to set someone not used to these on his game - so maybe EG just comforted this wish.

Anyway, Fable 2 seems to be a very good. Unlike the first Fable, which was quite good, but not a must play title at any rate.

Well done Lionhead.
My money is yours,well some of it.

I've been playing the game for thirty-plus hours and haven't been bored at any stage. The quest can be got through in about ten hours, but anyone that whizzes through at that speed is really missing out. The simple fact that I'd been playing it longer, had completed more side-quests and generally experienced as much of the game world as I had time to made some of the story stuff more affecting than it would have been had I tried to get through it as quickly as I could.

In short: you really do get out what you put in with this.

Damn you eurogamer! There I am, resisting buying a 360 and now you do this? Cruel, simply cruel.

Unexpected. Quite nice after recent disappointments (Infinite Undiscovery, Spore, Stalker Clear Sky).

Not helping my wallet though >_>

I wanna see what they give Fallout 3. Oblivion with guns or something more?

Two days of solid gaming for the main quest, loads more gameplay for sidemissions or just fucking about in Albion.

Super Mario World, Goldeneye, Portal, HL2 etc etc all could be finished in a similar amount of time, does this mean they aren't worthy of high scores?

Anyway, can't wait to get my hands on this come Friday and am glad Mr Molyneuxs unwavering hype has been vindicated. Now I'm just hoping for a 9 or above for Far Cry 2.

"Another 10/10... what a fucking joke. "

After giving LBP a 9, this is actually quite funny... but I haven't played Fable 2 (yet) so I can't really say if the score is off or not for sure ;)
No matter what... Fable 2 is a positive surprise to me!

You must remember usual +2/+3 to score for being Microsoft exlusive :)

"MOTHER FUCKERS! I hate you! I wasn't going to get this.

CUNTS! Sorry. "

My thoughts exactly...

God damn it....Saints Row 2, Far Cry 2, James Bond, COD5, Fallout 3 and now Fable 2

Now then, how many fucktards are going to by this simply based on review scores despite not even liking the genre and then proceed to moan and moan about how it's shite? :)

So, fallout3 or fable2, Fuck, I don't know, I guess I'll get Fable2 simply because it ships one week earlier...
On the other hand, I loved Oblivion, and Fallout3 seems spectacular, and even OXM seems to think that F3 (10/10) is better than fable2 (9.5/10)...
On the other hand, with Gears2 and L4D coming in november, I may not need another post-apocalyptic game at the moment....
Shit, i think i'll just flip a coin and hope for the best.

PearOfAnguish said : "Yes. If you are about to make a comment about the score, please take a moment to think what a twat you'll look, then fuck off somewhere else."

HE'S BACK! THE ULTRA DEFENSIVE FOR NO REASON PERSON IS BACK!

We're gonna make you famous, pearly. For being such a lemonhead. Congrats.

eurorgamer suck face to M$.

this game looks like crap horrible graphics.

I have a pretty good reason, actually. It's about not filling up the comments with cretins bitching about the scoring being too high/low. Tit.

First Kryon & HairyCrack, now Zappa.. the shining stars starting to hit the comments thread.

but the 360 only does fps's

"You must remember usual +2/+3 to score for being Microsoft exlusive :) "

or it might just be a bloody good game.

LOL

MGS4 gets an 8
Fable 2 gets a 10?

Way to hide your bias EG.

OMG they preferred one game to another!! teh bias!!

@zappa

You shame that name.

EG= xboxfanboys!

So, the co-op then. Can you play through the whole game in co-op?

I was really hoping for this game to fail badly as I find everything PM says just pretentious and he comes across as a sanctimonious twat but i take it back, he has delivered and few devs do that.

/Well done Lionhead.

@Kazum, yeah because it's bias if any game not on the PS3 gets a decent score. Do you remember the fact that Gears of War got an 8, as did Mass Effect?

OMG LittleBigPlanet got a 9 on Eurogamer, they are so anti 360! This comments thread is despairingly predicatble.

I'm buying, but I'm sure it's an 8 instead of a 10.
Microsoft Exclusives always seem to review around 2 points better than they should.

OMG, the Fanboyz are rolling out their ultimate weapon the "Future Fail" - fucking idiots.

LMAO!

eurogamer says nothing about graphics because EVERY pic looks last gen!!!

Wow the anti-Fable fanboys are squirming in their own tears. This is great!

well iHuGi really told us there.

"You must remember usual +2/+3 to score for being Microsoft exlusive :) "

or it might just be a bloody good game.

Yeah Halo 3 good probably :D

bastards, I was tempted to buy this but now I'm going to be sobbing in pain as I hand over the cash. And joy.

IGN UK gave the game 9.5/10. I think we can start talking GOTY.

Got the game, played it the whole weekend. A few comments:
- Imo graphics look a bit lame, technically. Games like Viking or IU look better and more "next-gen" imo.
- It's an RPG-lite...I'm about 20 hours in and only died once completely by accident
- I like the minigames and buying property
- *Way* too much 4th wall joke stuff on the loading screens, ugh. Not funny.
- Your avatar (I have a halo and got the "extremist" achievement for purity) is super ugly. He looks like Jay Leno ffs. And don't start me on the retarded selection of clothing. I can't make a cool looking character.
- It isn't fundamentally more open than Fable 1, it's not a free-roaming game like Oblivion. You are still locked into areas, but they're more open now and there's quite a bit more to explore.
- Too little combat though. There should be more enemies and more types of enemies.
- Spellcasting. It's idiotic. You can level up spells from level 1 to 5, you cast spells by pressing B and charging up, but you can only set a single spell to a single charge level. So you can't easily cast two different level 5 spells without using the d-pad, and it's basically not worth levelling up your spells. Not that it matters, two level 5 spells kill almost everyone anyway.
- The map - I want a proper minimap for exploration ffs, sometimes there's no map at all. Not that it matters because areas are usually quite simple, even the ones that look complicated.
- The "innovative" mechanics are mostly a bit stupid. You still buy titles (this is possibly the stupidest idea ever), it's extremely easy to make people love you, and the dog is mostly just a gimmick. But they're mostly fun (except buying titles).

Overall I like it. It's a good game, but it'd be nicer if it had more...errr...fake depth. I mean, like a reason to check out the merchants (except for buying potions for easy XP), for example for a better selection of weapons, or that kind of stuff :-/ (This is my biggest problem with the game actually, the weapon variety). 10/10 might be a bit too much, especially for people expecting a "real" RPG.

So overall, it is Fable 1 with a few improvements (mostly what people wanted anyway), and it is indeed pretty lite, "casual crud for the masses" if you want, but done pretty well. It doesn't have what I liked the most in Fable (the heavy weapons had a different set of animations if you were too weak to properly use them, that was super cool).

Oh and I have LBP too :-P

Just happened to be "talking to a prostitue" eh? More like negotiating. :P
Great review and I'm sure everyone at Lionhead will be estatic.
Quite looking forward to it now. Great that they don't punish you so much if you lose in combat, but only take a small bit of experience from you and let you get back up like revitalised.

"eurogamer says nothing about graphics because EVERY pic looks last gen!!! "

some bitter bitter tears here.

what the is wrong with actually acknowledging that 360 may just have another great game on it's hand, as does PS3 with LBP?

It's nice to be able to enjoy them both and not have to be so closed minded and silly about it.

Personally I was expecting a 9 here, but that was merely because I was anticipating a slight short fall in the games goals. If its achieved much of what its set out to do then thats fantastic.
As to these preconceptions about how long a game should be its an utter load of nonsense. I dont want a game that takes 40-50 hour, or in some people's opinion ideally 100+ hours, to finish. RPGs are only normally that long because they require ridiculous amounts of levelling up before you can acheive anything. Particularly as someone who likes to take their time with a game, if this was a long game I would probably end up never finishing it. The problem is that before the review is even out people have already decided what the game should be. They've already decided it needs to be long, or they've already decided it needs to be punishing and make you pay with your soul and cripple your mental resolve when you die. Basically, they want it to be the same as generic game #456.
Then we come to the issue of EuroGamer handing out more 10s than usual. Surely this cant be a bad thing. The only voices of dissent as far as I can see come from fanboys of consoles receiving fewer 10s than another. As for those stupid comments "OMG LBP 9 FABLE 2 10! WTF!" could it be possible that the reviewers actually like the game slightly more. I dont honestly know how someone can criticise without having played both games. If you weren't wrapped up in fanboyish immaturity you'd probably find too that you enjoyed Fable 2, just as frequently as Xbox devotees come to play LBP and think that maybe it does deserve a 10 after all. Imagine a time there were lots of truly decent games available - all could be given a 9 or 10. It would be great wouldn't it. Why not indulge in that time, rather than bitching about it.

STOP THE WORLD!

Somebody is WRONG on the internets!

eurogamer always mentions graphics, funny the xbox looking game gets no mention.

Surely this will be the most hotly contested GOTY year so far?

Of things that are already proven to be ace:

MGS4
Fable 2
GTA4
Braid
LBP
Wipeout HD

plus a few unknown quantities with the likes of:

Gears 2 (assuming it is going to be as good as people are hyping it to be)
Mirrors Edge
Fallout 3
Far Cry 2 (perhaps from a PC perspective)

I'm sure there is a fat bunch that I've missed to be considered.

""eurogamer says nothing about graphics because EVERY pic looks last gen!!! "

some bitter bitter tears here."

Nah. Lots of people will find the same. It's not a particularly good looking game technically (and imo the art style is itself a matter of taste).

Sounds good, now announce a PC version.

well ms must have gave eurogamer one big cheque for them to give it that score

woo 10/10
thank god i pre ordered this game (collectors edition)

@Avarice; why is that then? After playing it, what score would you have given it? I'm assuming you have played it, right?

Congratulations?

We haven't played it yet.

Remember how EuroG underscores some games as well? Surely we should wait if EuroG are right on this occasion!

I feast on the sweet tears of the SDF, they are the sauce of my power!

bluecheesesauce

Oh no - Gears 2 or this

Can't afford both. Damn.

Awesome, definitely getting it now. Also definitely getting out of here before even more fanboys (from either side) unleash their massive arsenals of "OMG U SUX" and "Better than X" at one another.

This and/or FarCry 2 though... ooh. Tough release schedule coming up. :(

@roovychainsaw
"I'm sure you could complete oblivion's story in 2 solid days of playing"

I'm pretty sure that the Oblivion developers ran through it in about 5 hours. Skipping the side quests and so on, of course. Someone had a link once in the comments for one of the previous Fable II articles.

GTA IV is also completable in 2 days (the main story quests at least) if you don't want to spend your time playing pool or driving aimlessly about doing mischief.