I’ve now put almost 8 hours into the game. It is everything Fable I should have been but there are some weird things going on.
- The economy is a little messed up on the gambling games. I won a large amount of money, but when leaving the game, I actually lost some.
- The map is useless except for a vague general overview
- The inventory and expressions menu are a little counter-intuitive
- Are you used to using “B” to cancel? So am I. Has anyone else frightened the citizens by thinking you were canceling an action and you torched an area with a spell?
- Inconsistent volume levels between gameplay and cinematics.
- Co-op is completely useless. It’s not even co-op. A locked camera? You’re just a helper? It’s not your character? I can see why Lionhead didn’t have it in there. Funny. People complain and that’s what you get. There are times the developer does know best.
This is not a big deal, but it’s too easy to do things on accident. I got married twice because there were onlookers nearby when I was doing expressions. I ended up giving the wrong person a ring. I was then stupid enough to move them into houses next to each other. Both spouses were mad at each other and then turned their anger towards me. They both walked off together. I’m now renting my two houses out. I actually thought that was pretty funny, but I did not intend to become a bigot (Yes, I did end up hating them. I was a bigamist as well.) and a divorcee.
This may seem like a big gripe. I like the game, but there’s just a little bit of polish that was missed. It’s just a smudge. I guess it’s because I’m also playing the most polished game ever right now.
Brock says
I haven’t but in nearly as much time as you. I want to, but haven’t had the opportunity to yet. I’m hoping to sink plenty of time this weekend.
Will says
The map is definitely useless, and I have summoned a ring of fire in town many times now due to hitting the B button. I don’t like using the L trigger to lock on to and unlock a target.
I can see how you could accidentally marry two people. I rarely use the D-Pad for expressions b/c I find that the game likes to switch out available expressions at the most inappropriate times (I do use it to pet the dog and to dig holes, though).
Will says
I played six hours of co-op with my wife last night. It is definitely not useless!
It does suck that you lose out on your character’s clothing, items and weapons, but your abilities, money and experience are all intact. You are playing a henchman that is an awful like your hero, but not exactly that character.
You can argue that it isn’t co-op in that it doesn’t advance your story if you are the henchman, but you are working together to help the hero out. It doesn’t have everything it should, but it is a lot of fun.
Brock says
Were you playing online co-op or hotseat local co-op?
What breaks the co-op for me is the fact that they just slapped in the local co-op camera instead of giving you independent cameras. If it was an independant camera for each person, I’d be fine with it, henchmen and all.
Tony says
So if you’re playing online co-op, are you stuck in the main players POV? Strange.
It never seemed to me that co-op was such a big deal in a game like Fable. In a game where, like, the main aim of the story is to develop a character. A single character.
Brock says
That’s exactly it, Tony. You’re forced to share one camera instead of each having your own, even online.
I agree somewhat about the lack of any burning need for co-op. Sure, I guess it would make sense if you played as your own character in the co-op games and could be a duo of destruction (or justice) but it was never a feature that I particularly cared about. I like the Orb feature, as it’s nice to have a way to send cool stuff to your friends, but otherwise, woop de doo.
Jason O says
I think it’s a general philosophy, and a pretty big fallacy, that all games need some kind of on-line play.
Trying to tack on multi-player always seems to be a miss more often than a hit. I really do not care about trying to play Fable II with other people. I have plenty of other games, better designed for it, that I can play with other people on-line.
Ehergeiz says
@Jason O: I hear what your saying, but I can’t help thinking that a co-op Fable II that actually works/is fun would be awesome.
Something that I think would be great is if they go the way most of the games seem to be going. That is DLC.
If you get to the end of the game and you have this awesome character that you forged through all of the choices you’ve made and battles you’ve fought, why wouldn’t you want to do something more with that character? Unless your tired of the game that is. I think it would be a great idea to have some extra missions available that you could go through with a friend.
And just in general, it’d be awesome to have a game or two that you could keep your character from one game into the sequel. Tangents aside.
I guess it just comes down to what the developers envision for the game and what they want the experience to be for the players.