welcome to the CoG network!

10 Things You May or May Not Know About Fable 2 - My Impressions

Nicholas "bapenguin" Puleo October 20th, 2008 at 10:31 AM

 

 

Fable 2 has a serious problem on its hand.  There is no way to talk about everything you can do in this game in a meaningful way without leaving the article's length something just shy of a novella.  Even after putting somewhere in the neighborhood of 10-12 hours of game time, I feel like I haven't even scratched the surface.  

Read on for my full impressions of the game.

Lets try to explain this in terms of a gaming equation.

 
Fable 1 + Oblivion Quest Design + Sims Style Character Relations + PETZ style AI Pet + Casino Mini Games + Job Mini Games + Actual Town Economy Mini Game + EVE Online Style Income = Fable 2

 

I'm probably missing something.  Something I haven't even seen yet.  In fact, I know I haven't even touched the weapon modification system yet.  Damn it.
 
So what's Fable 2 all about?
 
Heroes.  In the land of Albion it's been some time since the world has seen a true hero, one that someone can tell tales about.  Your character in Fable 2 is a on the path to becoming a true hero.  
 
 
Like I said, there's simply too many things to talk about here, so I'm gonna break it down into a list of 10 bullet points.  Here are 10 Things you May or May Not Know about Fable 2.
 
  1. You can quick travel between places by pulling up your quest log.  Simply choose a quest and off you go.  The same holds true for Sales on Items, Updates to your Families, and just about anything else.
  2. Your quest will take you to new areas of Albion, and to familiar areas from Fable 1.   Every area in the game cycles between day and night, and slowly cycles between seasons.  Depending on the time of day, different things are available and happen.  Shops are only open during the day.  Balverines only come out at night.  I guess too many shoppers were getting eaten by Balverines.
  3. There's a clearly marked main story line, but along the way you open up side quests.  These quests earn you renown, help change the state of towns, and provide a ton of experience.  One quest had me cleaning up the mess of two fellows that accidentally read from the book of the dead and caused the town's cemetery to be overrun by the undead.  Ooops.
  4. While you probably know you can get married in Fable 2 (multiple times), what you didn't know is that you need to set an allowance for your significant other.  That's right - it costs money to be married, but you do get a benefit.  The more money you allow your wife (in my case) to spend, the happier she is.  The happier she is, the better your house can become.  The better your house is, the more benefit you get from it.  The perks a house provides are clearly marked on the deed - conveniently placed on the front door.
  5. Your dog companion is incredibly helpful for finding treasure, locating hidden items, and keeping pinned enemies down.   You can teach your dog new tricks by reading books and giving positive praise.  These tricks can help make people like you more in social situations making it easier to get information, or cheaper to buy goods.  Your dog levels up just like you.
  6. Remember the demon doors from the first Fable?  They are back.  You'll need to do something special to unlock them and find out what's behind.  So far I haven't had any luck.
  7. The Orbs in the game not only allow you to quickly join another player's game for co-op, but it also allows you to see stats, gift items and send messages.  The orbs themselves take on that players personal gamerpic - it's quite odd to see a floating picture of your friend floating around.
  8. The D-Pad is a contextual menu of emotes, quick potions, and commands for your dog.  This changes depending on who or what you are focused on.  In a co-op game you can combine emotes and actions for double the effect.
  9. The game has a huge economy in it.  You can buy a shop and earn income from it every 5 (real world) minutes.  You can buy a house and rent it out to earn income as well.  Want a cheaper house?  Kill the owner, drive the price down.  Buy it.  Spruce it up and resell it a higher value.  Want a discount on weapons?  Buy a blacksmith.  There's so many possibilities here, and again, I probably didn't even scratch the surface.  Those aren't the only ways to earn money, you can complete odd jobs, learn a trade, and of course - gamble.
  10. Your character earns 4 kinds of experience.  General (Green), Yellow (Ranged), Red (Will), and Blue (Body/Skills).  Each one of these can then be used to upgrade their respective skills.  So if you have 1500 general experience and 2000 will experience, you can unlock a 3500 XP cost Will skill.  The game will always pull from the specialize experience pool first.  You can even find potions and items that will give you bonus experience points.  Score.
 
The bottom line - Fable 2 is an incredibly gorgeous and deep game.  I had a hard time putting it down this weekend, and I absolutely can't wait to play some online co-op.  

 





 Tags: xbox 360 fable impressions


    N4G : News for Gamers

 



Reader Comments

txshurricane at 10:51 AM on 10.20.2008
I had a friend over to try out the World at War beta, and he saw you trying out Fable II. He was flipping out "That game isn't even out yet!" Funny.

Interesting bullet points you have there. I'm anxious to hear more.
 
justabaldguy at 11:42 AM on 10.20.2008
Yeah I yelled at Nick too for that!

Great review here though, man these 10 points whetted my appetite something fierce! The floating orbs sound neat. Nick, did you transfer a character created in Pub Games? If so how was that process?
 
bapenguin at 11:45 AM on 10.20.2008
I did transfer it. It was really simple. Go into a pub game, click "Merge with PubGames Character" - Done.

Also - No penalty I could see for cheating in PubGames, though I only did it a handful of times to "try" it.
 
National Kato at 12:04 PM on 10.20.2008
Thanks for the 10 list, bap! I'm looking forward to this.
 
Troggles at 12:38 PM on 10.20.2008
Number 10 is the same way Fable 1 worked. I'm actually glad about that, as I thought it was a great system.
 
Anonymous at 02:04 PM on 10.20.2008
Nick,

I'm considering changing my avatar to Kermit the Frog today. It ain't easy being green with envy.
 
morose at 02:39 PM on 10.20.2008
I think I need to stop reading about Fable 2. The urge to grab this tomorrow even though I'm only 20% complete on Saints Row 2 (and having a blast) is too strong already.
 
TheReaperCooL at 03:46 PM on 10.20.2008
Morose I've just completed Saints Row 2 Not fully, just 75 %
As for Fable 2... I've played it in a Hungarian Expo, and the character was "sliding" when it was moving on the ground. Is it normal, and this will be in the game? Cuz it s**ked and it was very irritating (to me).
So you move forward, and when you want to turn your character hardly turns and slides a bit forward... >_<
 
justabaldguy at 04:58 PM on 10.20.2008
Interesting on both counts. Firstly, I'm guessing you create your character in Fable II, save and exit the game, play Fable II Pub Games, and merge your character? Or do you merge at a pub game INSIDE Fable II?

Secondly, thanks for the info on the cheat! I cheated "a lot" just because "I'm a cheating dog."
 
bapenguin at 05:25 PM on 10.20.2008
You merge it inside Fable 2. When you find a "Game Master" NPC in the game it basically launches exactly what was in Pub Games.
 


Total Comments: 10

Comment
CoG UserName:
CoG Password:
Comment:


Goozex Promo
Official Rules

Related Games

Fable 2

Platform: XBox 360
2-Player Online Co-Op
2-Player Local Co-Op

 
if it's like the 360 version, I think you can make a custom game mode with infinite respawns.
No you CAN play it by yourself, but the FUN is playing WITH others not AGAINST others.
Is there a way to lower the difficulty level of GRAW 2 Coop or increase the number of respawns? Being four newbies, we die every
Did you try any of the skirmishes out? Even though I've looked forward to the campaign for this, for me RTS games always hold t
Ok. That would be cool to have co-op though in Story.
Re: Gears of War 2 1/05 5:18 pm
Brilliant! Didn't know that about the Maulers. I learned elsewhere the shields should be placed facing in (towards where you'll
Does co-optimus just post games that have lots of co-op, or just some? A new game I have "Go! Go! Break Steady" sort of has co-o
Is this one of those games you can't just play by yourself? I played the demo by itself, and it was ok. I thought the same of Ro

459 Co-Op Games
1657 Members
721 Reviews
3808 Ratings

Detailed Stats

 RSS Feed

 News Only Feed