An Unprofessional Review of "Fable II"

Peter Molyneaux may concede that "Fable II" is not the 100 percent perfect masterpiece he had hoped Lionhead Studios had churned out this time around, but who's criticizing? Okay, the game is 99 percent a masterpiece, and one percent crazy glitches and a few design choices. But luckily for Molyneaux, there's a one percent margin of error in my mind.

Hundreds of years after the events of the first Fable, in which a slightly homosexual sorceror recruits an orphaned boy to come to a place with other annoying people including a stupid douchebag Guild Master who annoys the hero all the time, we re-enter the lands of Albion to play as a character vaguely connected to that ancestral line of heroes experienced in the first game. "Hero X" experiences great tragedy and is again rescued by a mysterious magical hero who talks to him through a dog, and must exact revenge upon the villain, Lord Lucien (who looks eerily like Andrew Jackson -- symbolism???) in a rousing good show of an adventure that is the best RPG since Morrowind.

The mark of a great game is when the designers put something that hasn't been done before into their work. Enter Molyneaux's crowning achievement of Fable II, the loveable dog. The whole point of the game is that the player feels connections to both his character and others in the world. To see virtual beings interact just like real people is amazing, and you know it's for real when you witness the change in expression on the dog's face when the character has been away from him for long periods of time. Molyneaux wants us to feel compassion or hatred for things in his world, and it's remarkable. The amount of freedom to create a unique character is something I hope is copied and tweaked many times over, because it's highly enjoyable.

The world feels so much different than other RPGs, too. The towns are old, the terrain unaltered. Molyneaux has admitted that they deliberately gave it a European feel, and it shows. The countryside reminds me of Lord of the Rings just a little, and unlike most RPGs where walking everywhere feels laborsome, I actually enjoy wandering around, and that's because of the dog:  Molyneaux programmed him to be completely aware of everything around him, and he finds any and all treasures hidden from view. Fable II isn't necessarily a complex story or complex in its philosophy, it's just complex in what you can do in the world, and that's something not seen before.  I'm OK with the fact that there wasn't some shocking plot twist or a truly epic plot, because it's different!

Credit Molyneaux for admitting that Fable II has some bugs and things, but geez are there some pretty silly glitches. At one point, my character's son was frozen in place for days, so I couldn't interact with him or get him to follow me, so I had to wait until it fixed itself somehow. At times the dog gets stuck on objects and just walks back and forth in place, and if he happens to be pointing out dig spots or treasure, you cant get him to show you where it is unless you walk way behind him to get him unstuck and then carefully tiptoe towards where you had been walking. Also sometimes in combat enemies get stuck on the ground or the character himself gets stuck, and has bitten me in the rear a few times. The Xbox at times struggles to load everything off the disc quickly, so characters will start talking but nothing is coming out of their mouth, or the dog will be just a shadow on the ground following you around. Most are just funny more than irritating.

The genius of Fable II is that it takes the core formula of the first game, expands it, improves it, and makes it a whole heckuva lot more fun, and that's all anyone could have hoped for. It's extremely polished, addictive as hell, and I'm glad it's here. Molyneaux can only craft his true masterpiece from here on out, because he's got the template for a terrific game right in his lap.