Fable 2 is a charming, funny, and adventurous role playing game.
The game begins with you as an orphan, exploring the slums of Bowerstone with your beloved sister. Small choices that you make in this crucial part of the game effect the overall route that you're going to take through the game. Do you help the criminals or the sheriff? That depends on whether you're going to be good or evil, and how you want Bowerstone to shape up.
From there, jumping years into the future, your hero is faced with travelling Albion to grab a crew of other heros, so you can take down an extremely evil man that goes by the name of Lucien. This bastard wants to take over and enslave Albion. The tales told in Fable 2, mainly the main quest are easy to follow and are always intriguing and deep. While it may not have the overall cinematic quality of other titles, it's easy to appreciate the work that went into the story arch in Fable 2. How you shape the story, how things go down, it's all up to you, and that's refreshing.
The combat in Fable 2 is extremely stylistic and flashy. There are three main elements to it; Strength which deals with axes and swords, Skill which deals with ranged weapons, and Will which deals with magic attacks. What's unique about the combat system in Fable 2 is how you progress with it. At the start of the game, you're limited to simple button mashing to attack with your sword, and little fireballs which you can lob at opponents. As you gather more carnage, and gather more orbs, you can upgrade your skills and become the hero you were meant to be. Upgrading your Strength can earn you new moves such as flourishes and blocking, Skill can earn you the ability to dodge or zoom in for headshots, and Will can earn you all sorts of wacky magic attacks that absolutely destroy opponents.
The controls are very responsive and forgiving during fights, so you're able to mash buttons and potentially win, or you can try to make some more fun out of the whole experience, which is always a blast. For example, you could use flourishes to push enemies back, then roll toward them and put a chaos spell on them to keep them still, roll back and shoot them all dead. That's just one of the many awesome possibilities you can get out of the combat. There may be a ton of quests to do in Fable 2, but it's just as much fun to run through Albion slaying anything that looks at you funny.
Through the combat, you can shape the character you want to be. Do you want to focus on guns? Then use guns a lot. Melee? Then be a total warrior. Mage? Then attack using magic. The experience you earn is apparent on how you carry yourself out in battle. That's the kind of freedom Fable 2 offers you.
You're not alone out there. You'll always have your dog. You're dog is a reflection of who you are, and he's your emotional connection to the world. He can point out treasure or enemies, and you can even teach him tricks. He might not seem that important, but if you ever find yourself without him, you'll find it hard to cope.
The land of Albion is huge, and there are a lot of interesting people to see, lots of places to explore. While most of the areas are separated by loading screens, it still seems large enough to create an immersive and creative world to discover. There's a lot of variety in what's out there. Bowerstone is the main city, where you can find the castle and the big marketplace, but there are several smaller towns and cities scattered throughout Albion. It's a large world that you can really learn. Simply doing the main quest doesn't show you everything that's out there. In fact, after finishing the main quest, I still found myself lost most of the time. The only way to truly see the world is to explore it, interact with the people and take the world in. Trust me, it's surely worth it.
Something that may be hit or miss with some people is the character interaction. By clicking the right bumper, a wheel of expressions comes up that you can perform. The interactions are actually pretty shallow in that regard. Dancing, laughing, playing the lute are about as deep as the happy expressions go, and then you can flip people off or point at them on the other side of the spectrum. Doing expressions can either get people to like you or hate you, be scared of you, or admire you. It's still fun to do, because of how over the top the expressions are, but it's not as expansive or impressive as a speech tree would be. Even still, this is because the game offers you the freedom to do what you want, and a speech tree would only give you a few options. See, the thing Fable 2 does with how you choose your path, is, it doesn't let you know where you're going. It just happens.
While the main quest offers a lot of playtime, about 12 hours to be exact, that's an extremely small part of Fable 2. Once you're finished with the main quest, you're character's finally enough of a stud that you can go and explore the world and see what there is to see. There are only places and quests that only appear whether you're good enough or evil enough, so the game begs multiple playthroughs. How much land are you going to own? Are you going to work as a blacksmith or an assassin? Are you going to join a guild? Are you going to have a family? Are you going to kill everything and everyone you see? These are the choice you're going to want to make. Albion is an expansive and dynamic, living and breathing world. It's truly impressive. Not to mention all the collectibles there are to find, such as gargoyles to hunt, silver keys to grab, and demon doors to open.
The graphics in Fable 2 are fantastic from an artistic standpoint. There is a lot of variety in the world. You'll see cliff sides, large towns, claustrophobic forests, dark caves, farmland, you name it. It's all really twisted and caricature-esque. It's all bright and colorful, and with excellent lighting effects to boot. Weapons shine fantastically, and combat is brutal and bloody.
Technically, Fable 2 could be better. There is a bit of pop in out there, load times are just a little too long, and sometimes the framerate dips. I definitely recommend clearing 6.8GB on your hard drive so you can install the game and clear up a few of these issues.
While there isn't any speech character interaction, the voice acting is superb. The people of Albion will make remarks about you, the main cast does a fantastic job (Stephen Fry in particular), and all the smaller role NPCs also do a believable, often times hilarious job. Honestly, the people of Albion say the silliest things.
The orchestral score is just as impressive. The main theme is sweeping, as are most of the other tunes throughout the game. The music always sets the right tone, whether that tone be epic, or small and dark. It's awesome.
Fable 2 is an awesome game. While the character interaction isn't as vast as you'd hope, and the framerate isn't perfect, these issues are heavily outweighed by the hundreds of things Fable 2 does right. The combat is exciting, the story is gripping, and the game's dynamic sense truly gets to you. Nearly everything you do in the game effects something. These choices effect how you look, how the world sees you, how the world shapes itself, and even the fate of a few souls. Fable 2 isn't as serious as it could've been, but that makes it laugh out loud funny at just the right times. Any way you look at it, Fable 2 not only lives up to its expecations, but it actually exceeds them. There are a ton of choices to make and you may feel overwhelmed; just don't forget to choose to buy the game.