Fable II Review

Shamus at Twenty Sided has written up a review-of-sorts for Fable II, in which he points out a few surprising flaws (I personally liked the storyline) while also praising the gameplay aspects that he enjoyed.
The combat is much improved over the previous game. You dispatch foes with melee weapons, ranged weapons, or magic. Each is fun and has its rightful place in a fight. The controls are simple, but there is a little depth and strategy to each aspect of fighting. You'll likely focus on one at the expense of the others, which will affect your appearance. Using melee weapons makes you bulkier and stronger. Using magic covers your body in glowing glyphs. And using archery makes you. taller?

You just have to get used to strangeness like this, because the game is full of little simulations that are interesting in isolation, but don't make any kind of sense as a whole. There is a weight gain / loss system where you can eat food to gain weight, and eat tons of celery to lose weight. Starving yourself and engaging in Herculean amounts of exercise (i.e. combat) will have no effect on your figure. You can have (off-screen) sex (with or without a condom) with any NPC that's interested in you. (Some of them are gays and lesbians.) You can get married and do this sort of thing with your spouse, you can have a fling with a stranger, or even pay for a prostitute. Or you can forego the sex entirely, since it doesn't really relate to the rest of the game in a meaningful way. You can get STDs if you're unwise. The whole thing is fairly complicated, but it doesn't really go anywhere. It's the equivalent of the GM saying, (Yeah, okay. You have sex with that NPC. All done.)