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Fable II (Xbox 360) | 
| From: Microsoft
Category: Video Games
New (5) Used (4) from £29.98
Avg. Customer Rating:  95 reviews
Sales Rank: 122
Format: Unknown Format
Platform: Xbox 360
Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
Media: Video Game
Operating System: No Operating System
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: 9CS-00016
UPC: 882224719681
EAN: 0882224719681
ASIN: B001CSO00A
Release Date: October 24, 2008
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.co.uk Review
Carve out a virtual life for yourself as hero or villain in the fantasy world of Fable II, where nothing is pre-determined. Create your own character, male or female, and control them over their whole lifetime. Watch as they grow up and then make the tough moral choices that will affect their abilities and how the world sees them.
 Some cities are huge, with a complex infrastructure for you to exploit |  Acting for good or evil can have a permanent physical effect on your features |  Guns are commonplace, but swordfighting is still vitally important |  Not all your enemies are human in the world of Fable | Set in the land of Albion 500 years after the first game (such that primitive guns are now in widespread use), you can either seek to rid the land of evil or conquer the realm for yourself. The game features an all new combat system, allowing you to use a range of melee and ranged weapons, while death brings only a loss of experience. But the game need not be about fighting at all if you don’t want it to be. You can buy property and become a mayor, or get married and have children. Many games call themselves role-players, but here the nature of your role is entirely up to you. Key Features - Game of life: Mould your own character and watch them grow into adulthood, their features changing according to the deeds they perform for good or evil.
- Virtual reality: Will you be a charming evil doer or an antisocial hero? The role you play is entirely up to you as you follow the game’s story or ignore it to do your own thing.
- New age of combat: Wield a huge range of weapons, including swords, axes, and newly available muskets. Or master a range of magic spells with up to 80 different varieties available.
- Team up: Invite a friend into your game at any time and play with them in co-operative mode.
- Best friend: Every character gets a chance to own a pet dog, one who will help you to find your way through the game world, attack enemies, or just be a good friend.
About the Developer: Lionhead Studios
Headed by industry veteran Peter Molyneux, creator of the famous Populous and Theme Park, Lionhead are one of the UK’s best known developers. They were bought by Microsoft in 2006 and now produce games such as Black & White, The Movies, and Fable only on Xbox 360 and PC.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 90 more reviews...
 Good at first, but... January 7, 2009
I'm a big fan of the Fable series, so I thought I would share my thoughts on it;
Good points;
Vast world, beautifully constructed. Character animation is very, very life-like. Most of the world, like Fable 1, is built with a hint of surrieslist into it. Humor is pleanty and these serve to make the few times in the game where it horrifies you even more brilliant.
Diffrences with Fable 1;
Those liking the spells/armor in Fable 1 need not bother to buy Fable 2, with only a few spells open to you (all aggressive) and no armor, you feel somewhat done over by the developers by taking out a strong game mechanic.
Faults;
There are many, many bugs in this game, seriously lending itself to the beleif it was rushed through beta testing. The spell casting system is implemented, one spell dosent work at all and there are a large number of quests that can break (IE, not being able to kill some of the characters, or having a quest-critical character suddenly dissapper)
Navigation in the game is done by following a trail of glittering light, the system often gets confused and can leave you running in circles. The dog, lovely and beautifully created, is also not immune to these bugs, and will sometimes lead you to tresure you've already dug up, or fail to find mission-criticial items, as well as being often unable to guide the character.
All in all; this could of been a masterpiece, but it's "rushed" feel forces me to be rid of it. I highly doubt the acclaimed patch (still under development at this time) will even be released for offline users.
What a waste of time and money.
 Top Of The RPG Pile January 2, 2009
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This games is fantastic - huge and complex. I have only just started it, but this is what I have done so far (from the Gypsy Camp onward):
- Wooed all the women (and accidentally one of the men!) in the camp.
- Done the cave thing at the start.
- Explored almost all round the Bower Lake area.
- Defeated Thag - selling the prisoners to the slaver in the process (I still feel really guilty about this!)
- Travelled to Bowerstone.
- Got a job as a 3-star Blacksmith.
- Bought 5 rings from the jeweller.
- Wooed and married someone in Bowerstone.
- Killed them and the innkeeper at the inn (I don't feel good about that either).
- Gone back to Gypsy Camp.
- Married someone else
- Had a baby with them.
- Married someone at the same time.
- Got 2 divorces.
- Got into a gunfight with, and subsequently shot dead, my ex-wife (I hated yself for doing that).
- Done a few good deeds to start with a clean slate.
- Married someone else in Gypsy Camp and had another baby (previous baby taken into foster home).
I now have a happy family and have played for a day without doing any of the quests after meeting Theresa. The games is simply HUGE. It clearly borrows a lot from other games - the cave was reminiscent of Oblivion, and the ideas are not all original - but it improves on previous RPG titles, making it the best I've played in a long time. The talking layout is easy to understand a lot simpler than titles like Oblivion, although maybe it is over-simple.
The games is very big, but it is easy to keep track of where everything is - in Oblivion, I was constantly forgetting my mission and where I'd seen the landmarks. But the truly inoovative feature of this games is your dog. *SPOILER* After a shocking and cruel twist right at the start, he is your only companion and is brilliant at finding treasure and other things - it is fantastically designed and acts just like a real dog. Although I am usually evil in these sorts of games (and have probably been too evil so far in this one) the threat of losing my dog if I am too evil has kept me (almost) on the straight and narrow.
The thing that really struck me about Fable 2 was how incredibly immersive it is. IMO, all good RPGs should make you empathize for the people in them, and I never felt this with Fallout 3. Although at the start of Fable 2, I was worried that I just didn't like the characters, I was stunned and actually upset by the *SPOILER* fate of my sister. Making choices to be evil actually makes me feel guilty in real life, and I think that this is the mark of a great RPG.
Overall, I would describe this game as a funnier, more light-hearted version of Oblivion, or to those who haven't played Oblivion, I'd say Fable 2 is immersive and fun after the slow opening. It is perhaps a little too easy, but I rate it:
GRAPHICS - 9/10
Far better than I expected, perhaps overly cartoony, but the opening cut-scene just blew me away.
SOUND - 9/10
Those West-Country accents may grate at times, and I don't like the voice of the main character, but there is little wrong with the rest of the stellar performing cast.
GAMEPLAY - 10/10
Easy to grasp, and with almost unlimited freedom of choice, simply amazing.
LIFESPAN - 10/10
I could play this game again and again and again and again......
 Good fun, pretty visuals and a detailed world. Don't rush through though!! January 2, 2009
I was looking for an action/rpg game that my girlfriend would enjoy on her new 360 and came across this. Both of us enjoy games with vibrant, detailed worlds and have got many action/rpgs from the old gen consoles/pc like okami. The reviews looked decent so we ordered it for christmas and have played it on and off until it was completed at new year.
1)The graphics are just lovely. Technically they may not be the most advanced but the world is realised with great attention to detail. The countryside is lush and green (and in the autumn, ablaze with oranges and reds) while towns vary from prosperous renaissance trading cities to filthy pirate dens.
2) Gameplay is fairly intuitive, combat is simple (my girlfriend opting for the "button bashing" technique) yet slick, merging melee, ranged and magical attacks. While we understand that fable 2 isn't attempting to be a hardcore rpg game, my girlfriend complained about the lack of variety of clothing or degree of customisation of the character. She absolutely adored the dog though.
3)The main quest is rather short so don't make the same mistake of blitzing through the first half of the game in a fit of Christmas excitement like we did.The game allows you several breaks from the main quest so ensure you thoroughly explore what else the game offers in the form of side quests and sub games.
4)This game isn't perfect (some iffy getting wedged into scenery, not being able to vault over all walls issues) but you get the sense the team behind this game has had great fun creating a cheeky fantasy world full of character. The lifestyle you lead in the game really did affect what other characters think of you, with shopkeepers refusing to serve my evil character but spewing sycophantically about how my girlfriend's heroic character is "her favourite customer" Voice acting was great (apart from the gargoyles' worst Scottish accent since shrek)and added a greatly appreciated British sense of humour.
Overall it is a very entertaining, if short action/rpg that should appeal to most gamers with any interest in fantasy/magical worlds.
 falls a bit short of what it claims to be January 1, 2009
Ok so I figure a lot of other reviews cover most of the general gripes and pluses about the game, but I thought it might be worth sharing some more specific detail on the game that I wasn't aware of until I bought it.
The Good:
Nice graphics, music and acting
Story is pretty good
Character development and the whole good/evil deeds thing works nicely
Lots of character customisation
The 'sims' style approach to every day life works well
The Bad
It's not as free roaming as I expected. You have no map, and can't travel exactly where you want to at any given time easily. Although you can use short cuts to access areas you have already been shortcuts are also forced on you when you head to certain places (i.e. a message saying Village 2 days travel on foot and then the game loads a new section ant there you are at your destination.)
Yellow trail takes you to where you need to be, you can't find your way there with maps.
Character can't jump. This is incredibly annoying. Jumps are context sensitive, so you press A at a ledge etc to vault it.
Character interaction is pretty lame. It is so easy to 'win over' someone with the right gesture that this whole thing becomes fairly pointless.
If you want to play the game realistically and turn off the safety feature (which enables you to hurt innocent people) you have to constantly switch it back on whenever a new area loads.
The game feels very 'guided' and linear and it detracts greatly from the supposed 'choose your destiny' thing that fable champions so greatly.
It's very comicy.
The sims stuff is good, but who plays an RPG to get married buy a house and have kids?
All in all, it is a fun game, but if you are a serious RPG fan, or you want the promise of fable's free roaming choose your destiny, go anywhere and do anything gameplay, then Oblivion is by far and away the unsurpassed king of the genre for you. All in all I think Fable 2 is a game that tries to be many things, action, adventure, RPG, the sims, etc and in doing so only really succeeds in being average at all of them. Rent it first!
A great game that requires time to be fully appreciated December 30, 2008
Fable II, and the original Fable are not games to play to win. They are games to savour. "The Journey is the reward." springs to mind. If "winning" is everything to you, then Fable 2 might not suit you. It's more akin to an interactive book. There's no death, no real failure, just progression as you journey through your character's life at a pace you decide.
The graphics work well to create a beautiful world where it's nice to just wander about. There's a bit of speech repetition from NPCs, but that's only to be expected. I thought the whole romance/sex issue is handled a little to delicately IMO, but it's a generally wholesome game so I suppose that's only to be expected.
After playing a while, I felt a real link with my character, so much so that when he got fat, I felt like I ought to do something about it! :)
Initially I didn't rate Fable II as highly as the original Fable as at first it didn't really offer anything new. It didn't have the same "Wow!" factor that the first one did. But the more I played it, and new areas of the game were discovered and the world map got larger and larger I was simply blown away by it. The fact that I've played it for a couple of weeks solidly is a testament to it's addictiveness.
New to Fable 2 is the dog, which is an excellent addition. The revised magic skills changing to a charging system seems to work better than the old replenished will level. Where before you could zap and gulp a quick refill of will potion to quickly deal with enemies, now you have to charge up for the powerful spells and you are vulnerable whilst charging. Combat is also a little more sophisticated than in the first game, with combo's possible. However a button-mashing technique is still effective so you don't have to be an expert to fight. The ranged weapons seem a little more powerful too.
So if you like to imerse yourself in a game with a story and meander through it, Fable is a must-have. Be warned however, this game requires time to get the most out of it!
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