I picked up Fable II last weekend, looking forward to sinking into a charming fantasy world. I’d been eagerly anticipating it because I really enjoyed the first game. Its sense of progression was immensely satisfying — just looking at my character reminded me of everywhere I’d been and how much I’d done (and since I was playing The Lost Chapters, that actually amounted to more than six hours of gameplay). Very few games give me this kind of feeling, and I was eager feel it again.
To preface, here’s the sum total of what I knew about Fable II before picking it up: You have a dog. Sold.
At this point I’ve put just shy of ten hours into the game, and I’m finding it less enjoyable than expected. My issues are with three specific aspects of the game:
The first is the insane level of “motion” blurring. I don’t really want to call it motion blur, because what I’m talking about is in addition to the regular motion blur. This kind of blur is like the low refresh rate of an old LCD monitor, or like the PSP’s original screen. As the camera moves, the image leaves a slight smear, like it’s blurring the frames together. I’ve seen games use this before (like in Resident Evil: Code Veronica X for the PS2) and it was used to give the impression of a smoother framerate. I don’t think this should be necessary for games in this generation, and it’s probably not there for that reason, but it gives me the same effect. For the record, I have a quality (though admittedly old) CRT HDTV, and I’m playing it in 1080i with component cables, and nothing else on the 360 (or anything else, for that matter) looks like this.
The second issue is controlling your character. Moving him around feels like steering a bowling ball, or say, driving the cars in Grand Theft Auto IV. After building up speed in one direction, it takes much longer to change direction than I expected, making the controls feel “heavy”. Looking back, the first game had a similar feel, but your character felt much lighter. It was bad enough that after playing for an hour, I was worried I wasn’t going to get used to steering myself through the entire game, careening around like I was riding in a go-cart. Thankfully, I think I’ve finally gotten the hang of it. I just don’t understand why I should have had to.
The last issue is with the melee combat. I remember when Peter Molyneaux previewing the combat for the press, saying that its greatest feature was the one button combat. I’ve heard people compare it to the style of Assassin’s Creed (whose simple system of “tap the button when your strike connects to follow up with a stronger hit” I loved) but I’d have to disagree with that comparison. After leveling up your melee skill to get all your moves, I found the rhythm to be really messy. In order to do your strongest strikes, or “flourishes”, you have to hold the melee button down, wait a short time for it to charge, push the thumbstick in the direction of a bad guy, and then release it to attack. Trying to use a flourish when you’re in the middle of a mob of thugs can be maddening because you have to stop attacking, press X, hold it, point the stick, and then release to hit one guy. I’ve found that the only way to make it work for me is to do nothing but flourishes or combos, but never mix the two. I think they want me to use some variety, but it’s too annoying.
To be honest, none of these are dealbreakers. The game has a lot going for it, and I’m finding myself encouraged to continue because of those other things. I’m just amazed that these things either didn’t exist or worked better for me in the first game. The sequel is supposed to be where they iterate on everything they got right and improve on things they didn’t, right? I guess I can’t have it all this time.
Now then, it’s back to being a bartender. My husband wants to move to a new house!
November 3rd, 2008 at 6:57 pm
You won’t believe how many dogs you get in Dogz 2008!
January 3rd, 2009 at 12:10 am
Ooh, dogs! I love dogs! Well, for as much as I can love dogs… My cat is very fickle about my interests in my other animals, she barely lets me play Harvest Moon anymore…
Anyway, we didn’t get your take on the second player “Henchman” feature. Just wondering if there is one…
January 3rd, 2009 at 1:21 am
@Ravenous
My take on the whole co-op thing is that it’s a pretty classic case of Mr. Molyneaux being… deceptive with his promises. I don’t think he ever explicitly said how the co-op (online or otherwise) would work, but it appears that no one thought it would be “you play a generic character that’s forced to stay on the same screen with the hero”, especially online. Not being specific about it, I think, caused a lot of people to be surprised when they discovered that they couldn’t transplant their heroes into other people’s games.
Technologically and thematically, I understand why it had to be that way. It’s a bitch to program, and the story as-is wouldn’t really work with two heroes running around. And hey, local co-op like this could be pretty cool, as your (presumably game-playing) buddy doesn’t have to just sit and watch you play by yourself, but can beat up some thugs too.
Thinking about this, I am reminded of what Shawn Elliott and co. on GFW Radio talked about with the medic in Team Fortress 2 when it first came out. The problem there was that medics are essential (or at the very least, very beneficial) to having a superior defense or offense, but it takes a very specific kind of person to enjoy playing “prison bitch” for everyone else. In hindsight, it appears as though many more people were interested in doing that than it might have seemed.
With Fable II, when talking about local co-op, I would think most hardcore gamers wouldn’t like it much as they /themselves/ don’t get to keep anything from from the experience. What you do is entirely to the main character’s benefit. However, maybe I’m underestimating people and they actually enjoyed it a lot more than that. Online, though? It seems like people were so let down by not being able to use (or show off) their characters and were put off by the janky technical crap, so it was quickly forgotten.
All that said, multiplayer games and I don’t really “hang”, despite my wish to get along famously. We don’t really understand eachother, so it’s possible that everything I just said is wrong. For what it’s worth, though, you now have my take on it. ;)