Fable II Previews

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Written by BuckGB on September 15th, 2008

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"If you hadn't married her, you could have taken her back to the ghost and killed her in front of him."

"I thought I'd try playing it good for a change," I explained to the evil Peter "Jiminy" Molyneux.

"Ah, but is that really good?"

He had a point. She had broken off her wedding with the deceased, ruining his life, sending him to an early grave. Why should she get a happy ending?

But I didn't have much time to consider these moral quandaries, as many as there are in Lionhead's RPG sequel. Series creator Molyneux had given us an open-ended three hours to delve into the game, so I chose the speed-run approach, blasting through as much content as possible.

We were immediately struck by how alive the game felt as we roamed the streets of town alongside our character's sister. People bustled around, going about their daily business; adults would "tsk" us as we ran past just for the simple fact we were rambunctious children; and shop keeps were touting all sorts of trinkets. We were allowed to explore the town freely, but noticed the game's method of keeping players on the story path fairly quickly. It's a glowing "breadcrumb" trail, which, as we found in the options menu, could be adjusted to be more or less in our faces. The default setting seemed just right, so we didn't mess with it.

In two-player cooperative battles, not much changes except that you can use slightly more advanced strategies like having one player take point with melee attacks while the other stands back hurling spells and firing their gun. Combos and attack chains seem to grow organically, fluidly building over each successive hit, but this really only seems to apply to melee attacks. Shooting and casting spells seem to be fairly static exercises, where you basically are just standing still, as opposed to the slinking dance of melee combat.

Even if you are playing all by yourself, however, you can still take advantage of a kind of cooperative play thanks to your dog. If you manage to knock an opponent to the ground, your canine companion will rush to savage the fallen foe, effectively removing them from the battle and enabling you to focus on the enemies that are still standing. Your dog is not always successful in this endeavor, as some enemies seem to regain their footing faster than others, but the moments when your pet manages to harass or otherwise bloody a downed opponent make for some rewarding animations as your dog shakes their neck like an unfortunate chew toy.

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