Fabulous Fable
30th October 2008
If the Brothers Grimm had lived in this day and age, they might have forgone writing creepy folk stories about sugar-addicted children who murder witches and instead created a video game like Fable II.
Part tongue-in-cheek fairy tale, part morality play and part monster-chopping and bandit-beheading hack-and-shooter, Fable II follows the same formula as a lot of other fantasy role-playing games, but with a unique and oddly gentle flavour that makes it sort of special.
Four years have passed since the first Fable came out on the original Xbox, but five centuries have gone by in the game's often-whimsical, sometimes-scary world of Albion, where the deeds of the original hero are now more legend than history.
The game begins in your character's childhood, where a power-mad villain named Lucien murders your sister and leaves you for dead. Over the course of Fable II's decades-spanning storyline (which, thankfully, lasts much longer than the original Fable), you'll ultimately seek out three fellow heroes -- a chunky female fighter, an egomaniacal marksman and a noble wizard voiced by Firefly's Ron Glass -- who are the key to defeating Lucien.
Pretty standard fantasy game stuff, that. What makes Fable II different is that the things you do between shooting banshees with a blunderbuss and frying trolls with magic lightning can be just as much fun as the act of saving the world.
You can get married and start a family, buy homes to furnish or rent out, own businesses, train your dog to do tricks, get tattoos, dye your hair, put on too much weight, solicit prostitutes, contract sexually transmitted diseases, become a cross-dresser . . . hmm, this is sounding eerily like the real world.
It's how you live your life in Fable II that literally shapes your character and the world around him or her, and there are shades of moral grey in Albion's colour-saturated landscapes that will give you pause.
Do you marry a woman whom you've tricked into falling in love with you, or break her heart so badly that she takes her own life? Do you bend to the will of a cruel taskmaster, or instead defy him and lose thousands of experience points? Do you sacrifice an innocent girl to shadowy beings, or allow the creatures to age you prematurely? You might find yourself taking solace in the fact that it's just a game. Or maybe not.
Unlike most other role-playing games, Fable II really makes you feel like the adored hero -- or feared monster -- of your world. As you undertake more quests and defeat deadly villains, bards will sing of your deeds, statues will be erected in your honour and you'll have no end of matrimonial offers from both sexes.
(And yes, you can have more than one spouse. Just watch out for the blackmailers.)
While the game might not live up to all of the early pie-in-the-sky promises of its creators, Fable II is good fun from start to finish. And even though the ending is a bit abrupt (and involves what felt to me like a no-brainer moral quandary), you're free to keep playing after the story has finished, giving the bards of Albion even more to sing about.
And maybe looking for wife No. 3.
BottomLine
A great balance of action, story and character-building, Fable II should appeal to a broader range of gamers, rather than just the usual fans of the role-playing genre. Consistently fun, despite some flaws.
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STEVE TILLEY'S CHEAT SHEET
WOOF, THERE IT IS Make it a priority to seek out books on how to hone your dog's treasure-hunting skills as early as possible, so that he'll sniff out the best buried loot. And don't forget to tell him he's a good boy.
SLOW DOWN AND FRY Use a second-level Time Control spell to slow down your enemies while you charge up a third-level or higher Shock or Inferno spell. It's a particularly deadly one-two punch against groups of foes.
INVESTING IN THE FUTURE Complete the 5,000 gold investment quest in Westhills before you sail off to seek out the Hero of Will. No spoilers or anything, just saying it might be a good idea.
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FABLE II
XBOX 360
LIONHEAD STUDIOS/MICROSOFT
RATING: MATURE
Sun Rating: 4 out of 5
Source:London Free Press