Fable 2 Feature - Walking the Path of a Hero: Part 2

Posted by Ty Huston on 10.31.2008

The adventure continues! This is part two a bi-weekly journal entry regarding life in Albion. Spoilers inside, I repeat - SPOILERS inside.

Fable – the name itself sparks controversy in the gaming world. After years of hyperbole and finally the release of the original game, designer Peter Molyneux – best known up until this point for his works with “God games” Dungeon Keeper, Populous, and Black & White - was heavily criticized for over hyping the game due to the long development period and lack of dozens of ideas that he had for the game yet were never implemented.

Released in 2004, Fable received praise for being a fun, quality adventure game yet was met with a horrible stigma thanks to the over eagerness of Molyneux to tell the world of his fantastic ideas and failure to follow through. Now, the highly anticipated sequel has arrived and yet again Molyneux has hyped it to death. It’s time to see if it lives up to the expectations.

As part of reviewing the game, I’ve been asked to provide sort of an ongoing commentary of my first couple of weeks playing the game. Here, I’ll give a little insight into how I’ve played the game and what my experiences were like. Unfortunately, I don’t have the set up for taking screenshots of my handy work unlike some other 411 columnists *cough*Oracheski*cough*.





Continuing Onward

After my last entry, I decided to start doing some of the more casual things in the game and slow down on the progress of the primary quest. It was at this point when I returned to the gypsy camp to pick myself up a sweet tattoo and realized that pretty much all the chicks in the entire camp thought I was the greatest thing since sliced bread.

So, what does a hero do when all these women want him? He picks one, flirts with her and gets married. Oh, and I had a kid too. The little one is still a baby at this point, but she was conceived on the wedding night. My (real) wife got a pretty good laugh when I told her that I married a gypsy and how we live in a wagon. She made a joke about the game paralleling reality which was cute.

It’s interesting to note how your wife works in this game. You’ll get notices to check the quest board, where you’ll discover that your wife has a gift for you or that she wants more money or just straight up wants sex.

I’ve also killed some of the mouthy gargoyles in the game, run some small quests for the archeologist to find some ancient scrolls and completed some bounties. The bounties are a lot of fun, minus the dumb ones I seem to keep getting where I kill three beetles in someone’s cellar. What’s the problem here? Can’t these guys figure out how to make a fly swatter? Anyway, for 750 gold per three beetles (that’s 250 gold a beetle for you math impaired out there), it’s a cheap and easy way to make some coin.

I’ve also purchased the trader at the gypsy camp and he provides a wee bit of (34) gold every five minutes. Too bad my wife gets 50 gold at the same rate, which requires me to do a lot of questing to keep her happy and myself from going broke. I could have gone with giving her 15 gold to handle the upkeep of the wagon, but living in those conditions I figured I could set her up a little better.

I’ve also recently purchased the Manure Manner in Oakfield. Haven’t had a chance to mess with it yet, but I’ll likely rent it out.

That brings me to an interesting issue I have with the real estate acquisitions and you family. You have to be picky about which marital home you choose for your wife because so far the game won’t let me swap my family to a bigger home. As it stands, the wife tells me that we have enough room for the three of us but I have a feeling if we have anymore she’s going to complain about space and at that point perhaps I’ll have the opportunity to swap to a bigger estate. Honestly, I don’t know right now.

Continuing on from my previous report, it seems that magic is a bit of a pain in the ass. While the lower level spells are easy to pop off, when surrounded by a large group of foes it can be a serious hassle to fend them off while casting the higher levels. These require charging the button, and so you need to keep your distance.

I’ve also got a gripe about the pistols. While quicker than the rifles, they are significantly weaker. Obviously this is correct, but I’ve pretty well decided to stick with rifles for the time being. I haven’t ventured into using a blunderbuss yet (which is the equivalent of a shotgun in Fable 2) due to the lack of ranged fire and spending most of my money on real estate at this point. I’ll probably get to that by the next time I write, after I’ve gained a few more properties and a better income.




Moving Forward

I’ve completed a few more quests which involved the primary objective of the game, helping a huge monk chick nicknamed “Hammer” after her father was killed and making an attempt to save Garth from Lucien, although Garth was captured. It’s at this point, I am lined up to do The Crucible – which is the arena.

That’s it for this round of updates on my progress, I’ll be back on Mondaywith another update that features my views on The Crucible!

Screenshots
All 17 Fable 2 Screenshots

Pages: 1 2 3 4