Fable II | 
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| From: Microsoft
Category: Video Games
List Price: $59.99
Buy Used: $47.99
You Save: $12.00 (20%)
New (14) Used (16) from $47.99
Rating:  105 reviews
Sales Rank: 49
Platform: Xbox 360
Genre: role_playing_games
ESRB: Mature
Media: Video Game
Edition: Standard
Batteries Included: No
Age: 17 - 20 years
Operating System: Xbox 360
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 0.1 x 0.1 x 0
MPN: 9CS-00002
Model: 9CS-00002
UPC: 882224694179
EAN: 0882224694179
ASIN: B000FRVAD4
Release Date: October 21, 2008 (New: Last 30 Days)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: MINT CONDITION GUARANTEED SHIPS IMMEDIATELY
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| Features:
| • | Action RPG for Xbox 360 picks up 500 years after the first Fable and offers wide-ranging open-ended gameplay | | • | Players can assume the role of either a boy or girl | | • | Combat system allows for short-range, long-range and magic attacks | | • | Currency earned in minigames on Live Arcade can be used in the game | | • | Online multiplayer mode lets you bring other players into your world |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
Fable 2 is the anticipated sequel to the popular original that sold more than 3 million copies. Created by famed game designer Peter Molyneux, Fable 2 for Xbox 360 features an epic story that picks up 500 years after the first game. It offers an open world environment giving players a massive amount of freedom to explore and play as they please, with every decision made contributing to the game itself.  | Fable 2
Players:
Offline: 1-2
Online: 2
Gameplay Modes:
Single player, offline cooperative multiplayer, online cooperative multiplayer. |  | | 
The new combat system lets you master different fighting styles. View larger. | 
You are free to roam the world of Albion any way you like. View larger. | Every Choice Has Its Consequences
Fable 2 provides players with a truly immersive experience where a virtually limitless number of choices can be made, all of which have their own consequences, making each game unique. When you start the game, you choose either to play the role of a boy or girl, and depending on your choices, the hero will grow up to be tall or short, good or evil. Players can get married and have children; female player characters will become pregnant, which will then be reflected by their physical appearance. Early in the game, players are presented with a stray dog for a best friend, who will need to be fed and loved, and will accompany the player throughout his or her life. Depending on the player, the dog will change appearance and assist him or her in various ways, such as alerting of impending dangers and attacking enemies. Players inhabit the world of Albion and are free to roam the land to as they please. Players can use different expressions to communicate with others, such as taunting and laughing, and even belching or farting. As the players grow, so does Albion, reflecting the choices that were made earlier in the game. Every house, hut, castle, and dungeon can be purchased if the player wishes. Players can buy up all the land in a town and can become mayor, king, and even emperor of the entire land. Fable 2 presents a dynamic and free-roaming world that doesn't demand a player to take any one set path. At the same time, players seeking a plot line will find an epic story and quest that they can follow if they wish, along with many side adventures. Fight Using Different Weapons and Magic
Fable 2 introduces a new combat system that allows for mastery of hand weapons, such as swords, long range weapons such as cross-bows and guns, and, of course, magic. Players improve at each discipline with time, and can combine different combat styles when they fight. Other advanced design features include tactical positional advantages that can bring new strategic elements into combat. Bring Other Players into Your World
Fable 2 has a multiplayer mode that allows you to bring other players into your own world. Consistent with the rest of the game, the actions of these other players can be permanent and affect your world. You can explore and fight together with these other players, share treasures, and even fight each other. Note: Fable 2 will not ship with Online Co-op mode. An update with this functionality is rumored to be released shortly after the launch of the game. Xbox LIVE Arcade Mini-Games
Gamers can play minigames through Xbox LIVE Arcade and earn currency that can be used in Fable 2 to purchase weapons, armor, and other items for the hero. Fable 2 is rated M for having mature content that may be suitable for persons ages 17 and older.
  
Depending on your choices, the protagonist can turn out wildly different -- male, female, good, evil, and more.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 100 more reviews...
 overall November 20, 2008
Fabian Heindl (Pullman, WA USA)
a very good game and definitely worth playing through at least once (i had to do it 3 times cause of achievments/good/evil). the only complaint i got is the fight against the main bady at the end... kinda of a let down and leaves you wanting for a lil more in my opinion. but the rest of the game definitely makes up this lil thing at the end of the story
 Frustrating and disappointing November 19, 2008
D. Seo (Santa Ana, CA, USA)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
After about 20 hours in, my experience can be summarized with two words: frustrating and disappointing. And this is such a shame because I enjoyed the first Fable immensely, enough to rate it a perfect 5 stars.
Without a doubt, the single biggest problem in this game is the lagging and framerate stuttering. I didn't think a game in this day and age on the 360 would ever have such terrible performance. This would be somewhat tolerable if it affected only a small portion of the game, but sadly it is EVERYWHERE. Whether I'm pausing/unpausing the game, starting/leaving a job, talking to a store owner, scrolling through a list of items, etc, there's hiccups and stutters galore. You'd think with all the processing power of the 360 at its disposal, the game would be able to load up a small, miniscule item in an inventory list without hiccups. Things really take a turn when I'm dyeing or changing my clothes; I'm talking delays of up to ten seconds whenever I scroll up or down even once on the list. This is all the more inexcusable considering that Fable 1 never had any lagging issues whatsoever.
Another thing I can't wrap my head around is the floaty, loose, imprecise controls. It's actually a step BACKWARD compared to Fable 1: the controls felt tight and sharp, but here it's like trying to steer a freakin' boat. There's also a slight delay from the moment I push the left stick to the moment the hero actually moves. Is there some reason why the controls shouldn't be as tight and responsive as, say, Saints Row 2 or Fallout 3? The controls become incredibly annoying when I want to focus on a specific person or object in the environment and I have to wrestle with the controls several times before I can get the hero to face exactly the right way. Simply moving my hero around and looking at things should be mindless and obvious, so much so that, really, I shouldn't even have to devote brain cells thinking about it. It is one of the most basic mechanics of a game, and shouldn't become a constant chore in itself.
Lionhead also made some curious design choices that make me scratch my head. For instance, why am I allowed only one save slot? Are they kidding me? Even back in the NES era, games like Zelda allowed more slots. Again, this is a step back from Fable 1, where I was allowed -- if I remember correctly -- three save files, and within each file were 5 slots, for a total of up to FIFTEEN saves. Why the cutback?
Another head scratcher concerns how civilians react when I pull out a weapon in their midst. If I pull out a weapon in front of a crowd for no reason, I lose points with the civilians; that makes sense. What does NOT make sense is that when I pull out a weapon for a good cause, i.e. to kill bandits that appear in the distance, I STILL lose points. Don't these people realize I just HELPED them? What, Lionhead couldn't be bothered to program the civilian A.I. to be able to recognize the difference? This annoys me.
Looking past these issues, what I've seen of the game so far is decent and serviceable: the main story is okay but not great, the graphics are good (although eye candy by itself is never enough to hold my interest), the music is well-done, and there's a good variety of stuff to do, not only in the form of side quests but also minor activities. I've really stuck with the game and tried to get to its heart, but I hate that all too often, playing this game ends up feeling not like entertainment but like work due to its technical issues and bad design choices. I've just about run out of patience. This is truly a shame, because I had such high hopes.
[edit] And what's up with the map? Useless! It's so tiny that you can never figure out where everything is. And it's not even interactive; it's just a static picture. A far cry from the likes of Saints Row 2 and Oblivion.
 fun game November 19, 2008
K. J. Szafranek (appleton, WI USA)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
this is a great game. A definite upgrade from the previous....
...just wish I knew when the $10 gift card was coming
My First Experience with Fable November 18, 2008
J.S. Knapp (Harrisburg, PA)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I heard a lot of hype about this game and I read a lot of reviews and finally got convinced.
It's hard to decide where to start with this game. In fact I completely scratched my first review and started over again.
I'll try reverting to the standard "pros and cons" system:
Pros:
Graphics are decent, things are easy to find, enemies are easily identifiable by red highlights when they first appear - you don't often get snuck up on except when being shot at by enemies off-screen.
There's a lot to do in Fable II. Lots of places to go, lots of people to see, lots of quests to go after, lots of stuff to buy/own/find/steal... It's a game that keeps you entertained simply by bombarding you with content and options. That alone justifies the four-star rating.
You have a dog. Everyone talks about how helpful the dog is but I haven't seen much benefit besides finding buried treasure and treasure chests. He attacks fallen enemies, but when my enemies fall, they're usually already dead, so that's not much help. Luckily he never really gets in the way, and he doesn't peform good or evil actions to throw your moral standing off kilter (such as would frequently occur in Black & White by the same designers.) So I don't have to waste time "teaching" my Dog to be good or bad - a big benefit.
Fable II has a very short learning curve. I understood the controls and basic features pretty quick, and the game does a moderately good job of coaching you along as new content becomes available.
Fighting is really cool in Fable. It's a lot of fun working up to level 4 and 5 magic spells and watching the fantastic carnage as you set enemies on fire or shock the hell outta them!! Melee combat quickly seems pointless when you can cook everyone around you in mere seconds.
Cons:
The abundance of content seems to be just that - content. It's filler-work. I can get married, but why? I can have kids, but why? I can buy 5 different kinds of Carrots... but why?? They've given me a lot I can do but no real reason (besides achievements) for doing any of it.
The game area is big, but awkwardly broken up. You play in regions - segments of land that seem completely disjointed from each other. The regions don't feel the same at all, and it's hard to remember how to get from one region to another because there's no visual connection, no guidance, etc. I often just end up using the "fast travel" feature because I've lost interest in trying to figure it out. In addition, the map is completely useless. I mean COMPLETELY useless. You see yourself represented as an arrow. But the arrow might mean which way your hero is facing, or which way the camera is looking? Haven't figured that out yet! There's dots to indicate quests, and a few other icons, but NOTHING to indicate where stores are, nothing to indicate which road might lead to which region - nothing. You often find yourself fast warping to somewhere that's literally a 10-second walk away because you just can't seem to figure out where the hell you are.
The story is just that - a story. It's not necessarily compelling, nor is it difficult. Thankfully the "breadcrumbs" feature guides you to your next point, so you can progress as slowly or as quickly as you'd like.
You quickly end up with a lot of "junk" in your inventory. It doesn't help that for some reason, you HAVE to take or use any item you find. There is no "cancel" button to just leave items where you found them. In addition, you can't drop items, so you have to try to sell them off somewhere.
Conclusion:
Fable II can keep you busy for hours on end. But the more I play, the more I think that I'll never be compelled to finish it all. It's entertaining - definitely. It's a good game. It's just not addictive.
 Fun, but buggy and short. November 18, 2008
Bailey Z. Rose (Orlando, FL)
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
Praise first: Fable 2 is addictive to play, the environments are beautifully rendered, the music is compelling, and there are some fairly neat innovations like the dog.
Criticism:
First off, why is this game so short? To Lionhead's credit, there are hours and hours of extra gameplay that can be had through buying & upgrading houses, getting marrier, opening demon doors and finding gargoyles, as well as completing side quests.
These things are peripheral to the actual game -- the story that compels you to progress to the end and requires the player to make an emotional, or at least time-based, investment in the game. You can complete Fable 2 in a day without the use of a guide -- it's too short and actually has less locations than its predecessor, which came out 5 years ago or so.
Yep -- less locations. The 'main' quest is actually less compelling -- and much shorter -- than the one in the first Fable. NPCs, quests, and other game functions are often buggy / laggy. Graphics were good but it was weird having to wait every time I went to a new room. After playing games like Dead Space and Grand Theft auto, it was hard to settle for loading screens every couple minutes.
There is a wealth of side-quest material, but it's just not that interesting. The demon doors, often guardians of epic weapons in the first Fable, are much less populous now and their prizes usually aren't worth the effort. I'm sure there are a number of people out there who will subject themselves to tedium just for the sake of getting Xbox 'achievements' but I believe the majority of us actually want to be motivated by something in-game -- items, character interaction, etc.
All in all, Fable 2 is a fun experience, but it suffers from being a little too light-hearted and the small scope of the main story and a slew of bugs and glitches make it feel rushed.
Probably worth a rent, as you'll be able to beat the game multiple times and attempt plenty of side-quests within a week.
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