You love a game where you become emotionally attached, get this game.
Fable 2 is an RPG/Action Adventure developed by Lionhead Studios for the Xbox 260 and PC and is the 2nd installment in the Fable series. The game follows a heroes journey of revenge against the ruler of albion Lord Lucian. The game is set in the land of Albion a country that is described as an ancient England. Throughout the game you will travel through many magnificent landscape from lakes, fairly large cities, forests and caves. You will collect a variety of weapons, clothes and treasures.
The game starts in a ruptured part of a large city named Bowerstone, you and your older sister Rose are orphans living on the street when you suddenly find an opportunity for getting your wish, living in castle Fairfax. A trader claims he has many treasures from the ancient world of Albion, but as he thinks that they are worthless pieces of junk a woman named Theresa, who is your gaurdian throughout the game, convinces you to buy a small music box which supposedly grants you one wish. After you buy the box you wish what you wanted and nothing happens, later that night guards from Castle Fairfax come and fetch you for the Lord Lucian, whilst you think your wish has come true you are wrong and their is an unfortunate twist for the worst. The same night Lord Lucien flees and starts to rebuild the Tattered Spire a great invention used in the old world to grant one wish. I won't say what the twist is incase you want to play the game.
After that horrible twist you are taken by Theresa to a Gypsy Camp near Bower Lake for you wounds to heal. Ten years pass and you are finally ready to get revenge on Lord Lucian for what he did. Theresa directs you to a small tomb in the middle of Bower Lake, within this tomb is the Chamber Of Fate, a place where all great heroes used to go to become a real hero. Here your Heroes blood is awakened and you become a real hero and are ready for your adventure.
Theresa sets you a task to find three heroes who specialise in Melee, Skill and Will, your character specialises in all of these. The first hero is the Hero of Strength, you have to save is a Monk named Hannah whoes nickname is Hammer, she lives in the Temple Of Light in Oakfield when one day she is set to get sacred water from the Wellspring cave in oakfield to water the Golden Oak, this is a great tree that keeps life within the plants on Oakfield. She refuses to fight as she has been brought up to fight, but after the process of getting the sacred water there is a twist and she is forced to fight.
The second Hero is the Hero of Will named Garth, you have to go to a Forest called Brightwood and save him from Luciens men at Brightwood Tower but you are to late and they take him away to the Tattered Spire. You are stuck and you find a way to get into the Spire, you will need to travel through Bandit Coast and the Howling Halls and make your way to Westcliff camp which is home to the Crucible an ancient fighting arena. You have to fight your way through rounds of different enemies within the game to win in order to be recruited by Lucien and taken to the Spire. Within the Spire you have to carry out task for the Comandant who is Luciens right hand man. Garth remains quiet throughout the process of the Spire, there is a reason for this but I don't want to ruin anything for you. You finally escape with Garth after many years inside the Spire and your quest for the Hero of Will is finished.
The final hero the Hero Of Skill who is called Reaver is settled in Bloodstone a battered port town to the south-west of Albion. Before you get to Bloodstone, You, Garth and Hammer have to fight through Spire guards at Brightwood Tower to open the cullis gate to Wraithmarsh but only you get through because the gate malfunctions and Hammer and Garth have to remain at Brightwood. You need to travel through Wraithmarsh and defeat Banshees, Hollow Men (Undead) and a Rock Troll to make your way to Bloodstone. Once you arrive Reaver lives in the biggest house in Bloodstone and he asks you to do him a favour, you have to go and take a treasure he has come across called a Dark Seal to a shadow court in Wraithmarsh, here you are asked to either keep the Dark Seal and risk your youth or give it to an innocent woman who is there as well and risk her youth. After this you return to Reaver and Bloodstone is under siege from Lucien's army and you have to escape through a passage way at the back of Reaver's house. You fight many spire guards throughout the passageway and make your way to Smugglers Coast. here you meet up with Garth and Hammer, when a Great Shard, an ancient weapon used in wars, destroys Reaver's boat and you are forced to destroy it and then you have your final Hero.
You go to Hero Hill near Bower Lake with Theresa to transfer the three heroes powers into You, but the process is interrupted by Lucien and his men, they take the Heroes away and Lucien does what he should have done in the Castle at the beginning. You are sent back in time to your old house and turned back to a child, your house is a wonderful farm where you have chickens and fields. Your sister is there with you and you have a day of fun until the day ends and you go to sleep, you are awoken by music halfway through the night and you go to find the source of the music, little did you know the source is the magic box you bought at the beginning of the game. You grab the box and you see you and the box and then a white background. The Camera circles around you as it shows you growing up again bit by bit. You are then teleported to the Spire and you confront Lucien as he is sucking the powers out of the Heroes into himself, I wont tell you the end because I don't want to ruin the game for you. Theresa then appears within the Spire where Lucien was standing and grants you one wish, you have a choice of, 1,000,000 coins this is the evil choice, brining back your loved ones such as your faithful dog which you have throughout the game and if you have any family you can bring them back and the final choice is to bring back all of the people who have died within the making of the Spire and you get a statue of yourself raised in Bowerstone Old Town. After this the three heroes get their wishes then they go to where they wanted to go. Theresa then talks to you and tells you that Albion is now yours but The Spire is hers. And that is the story of Fable 2.
Fable 2 is a game that you get addicted to straight away and after a while of playing the game you become emotionally attached to. You have a faithful companion by your side throughout the game that you will start to care about and have fun with. You dog sniffs out treasure chest and dig spots and also help you in battle, but you have a level system for your dog which you can upgrade each to level 5 these are Treasure Hunting and Combat. Your dog changes as your alignment changes (Good or Evil), if you are evil his fur will darken and his eyes will glow red if you are good his fur will brighten.
Another great feature of the game is Alignment, this makes you Corrupt or Pure, when you are Pure you will see a glowing Halo above your head, but when you are Corrupt your eyes will turn green, your skin cracks and you grow horns. People react differently to you whichever you choose. If you are Corrupt they will tremble at your presence and run away frightened you will kill them, but if you are pure they will come up to you and ask you to dance or any other emotes. But you also have Good and Evil, these will also effect how people react so you can be Pure and have full evil and they will run away from you vice versa.
I love little things about Fable 2 that other people will think are daft for example, you can knock on peoples doors and if they are in they will answer, if they aren't in they wont answer so you are stuck with the choice of, smash the door down which will add to your corrupt and evil meter or just walk away which will keep your alignment the same.
I love the way in games where you can see other parts of the civilization you are far away, like a city in the distance. Fable has this, you go to the top of hero Hill and look a certain way you will see Fairfax castle at the top of a giant hill and the Spire behind it. I have always loved this about games.
Fable 2 graphically is a great game, the waves of the water seems real as you swim through it either with speed or at a normal pace. Cities feel like real live places because of the texture and look of the buildings and humans roaming about, town criers shout as loud as their lungs will allow them and shop keepers jeer you in saying they have the best prices on the market. There are many different type of cities in Fable 2, there are the run down towns that have suffered attacks or have a bad economy and then there are place that have masses of people living there and every building is in tip top shape. The graphics make you know that the cities aren't rich or poor by how you see severe cracks on walls and burnt wood on the floor from recent attacks.
The music in Fable 2 is great, as you roam the world there is always a soft tone behind you, it fades and changes every time the mood changes. For example, in Oakfield there is a happy melodic tune in the background but in Westcliff there is a dull tune which lingers behind you as you wonder what will come next.
Overall Fable 2 is a brilliant game with so many features, small and large and great gameplay and storyline. I struggle to know what my favourite game is every time I play this game. I sometimes even become sad when I have finished it. You get attached to places and people all the time, and especially your companion, you will miss place that you thought where boring and hated them while you were in the places like The Spire for example, you get out of it and then you can see it from the shore of many cities and it makes you sad not to be in there. I get addicted to this game every time I play it and I am sure you will, it is a must play game in my opinion.
Now there were only a few things I didn't like about Fable 2. Firstly is the loading screens, everytime you went to another region withing the world a loading screen appeared, I have never liked loading screens, I don't mind if it's just a few seconds but it's longer than that and I hate that.
Secondly is the 2D GUI, I hated flicking through hundreds of items to find one because you could get lost within the menu and go past the item you are looking for without realising.
Finally is that the game is not long enough. I think this game is amazing and when I finished it I didn't want it to end. Obviously there are other things to do but it's not as fun as going through the game and knowing you have something important to do.
Score- 9