Fable II: Impressing the Critics

I am not a huge gamer, though I do have a bit of interest in RPGs. You may remember, when the XBOX 360 came out that Fable I was widely predicted to be a real broadener of its appeal. This article on ARS Technica outlines how the lack of love for Fable I ultimately limited the sales of the original XBOX, and allowed PS 2 to assume leadership of the hardware business.

But Fable II has now arrived, and appears to be pleasing a variety of critics with its beauty and the ability of every player to have a different experience. Every player.

Check out this collection of reviews.

Let's start with graphics. The game is gorgeous, as you can see in these screens I nabbed off 1up.com:







In terms of gameplay, the word is that this game really does offer a rich playing experience that offers real variances based upon the decision you make. Every player truly guides their own individual destiny. Check out this ARS Technica review excerpt:

Because of the nature of Fable II's design, the game is best discussed (to put years of otherwise-useless literary theory to use) through the school of structuralism: taking the product apart piece by piece as a composite system composed of many different sub-systems that work together to make the game function. Together, the combat system, the character development system, the questing system, the social system, and all of the game's many different aspects combine with an overall narrative to create an impressive and multi-faceted organism the breadth of which is staggering. To make it digestible, though, the game is best divided into three main super-systems: narrative, combat, and simulation.

At the top of the hierarchy is the questing system, which is largely intertwined with the overall narrative and the focal point of the adventure. The game begins with your hero as a child, and you move through what amounts to a tutorial level learning the basic mechanics of questing. You'll take on your first few quests, make some moral decisions along the way—which we'll return to later—and generally learn the flow of narrative and questing in Fable II. Once this opening section has been bested, though, the game opens up to reveal that the questing system is really the crux upon which the game as a whole turns.

It's hard to critique the actual narrative of Fable II. I can't tell you about the story, and whether it's good or bad, because there isn't one. There is only your story. That may sound like PR rhetoric, but it's the truth. How I played through the game, whom I interacted with, the decisions I made, the deaths I suffered, the victories I cherished: all of these amounted to an experience that was mine and mine alone. How yours will be is impossible to predict. But what can be discussed is the way that questing works, and the way that narrative factors in to the overall play experience of the game.

Now check out this sizzle reel about gameplay:



It appears that XBOX 360 has a winner that will help broaden the appeal of that platform.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.