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Fable 2 @ E3 2008

Jul. 20 12:47 PM by Lynxara

So, I didn't get to play Fable 2 this year. Part of it was time. There was always a line for it on the floor and I had something like 50 different DS titles to wade through. The other part of it is that I never played the original Fable, and so felt somehow unworthy.

Don't look at me like that! When Fable first came out, I had a terrible computer and no Xbox. When the Lost Chapters came out, I had an Xbox, but my computer was still terrible and I had no time to play it.

More to the point, I had no idea what Fable was really about. Nobody I knew left that game talking about a great story or even fun things they did, just how much of the promised features got cut and how it's weird your main character ages when no one else does. If there's something about Fable that makes it worth my time to go back and play now, you may inform me of this in the comments. Maybe I just had lousy friends. At the time, it just didn't seem like a game worth prioritizing.

Ah, but now Fable 2 is on the way. All I really know about the game this time is that you get a dog that makes Peter Molyneux speak very excitedly.

Right now the most attractive element of Fable 2, for me, is getting to have a dog. Hopelessly mundane? Yes, but you see, my house's yard isn't fenced in, so I can't really have a dog. I could play Nintendogs instead, but in Nintendogs I can not transmogrify my pet into a flame-spewing hellbeast by consistently performing evil actions. Basically, this game offers me the chance to be the Queen of Despair, ravaging the land with fire and sword in my improbable spiked armor, while also buying cute toys for my faithful venom-dripping monstrosity. These toys shall be used to play games of fetch. Evil fetch.

Nothing else about Fable 2 really grabs me. I can choose to have protected sex in a setting where technology still permits practical use of the crossbow? Really? Is it magic protected sex? Is Fable II seriously heading into Book of Unlawful Carnal Knowledge territory? Even better: can I run around dungeon-crawling, the ooze of orc-brains on my boot, while also nine-months pregnant? What happens if my water breaks while dragon-slaying? Can I tote around a Scroll of Summon Midwife? Yes, I could dodge this problem by playing a male character, but that seems to defeat the point of playing an RPG about creating your own fictional avatar.

And, honestly, the idea of having a faithfully loving househusband and child in my game is just kind of distressing to me. I have enough anxiety about being a good wife as it is, I don't need to worry about whether or not my career as a wandering skull-crushing brigand is making my imaginary husband feel inadequate, or is setting a bad example for my imaginary child. Even if I opt out of having a virtual family, presumably there is some sort of virtual dating scene I have to worry about instead. Look, dating was stressful enough that I ended up deciding to actually get married so I wouldn't have to deal with it. Making me virtually date in a video game that is otherwise about monster-stomping feels like a violation of the "no backsies" rule I like to imagine life having.

Now, it is of course possible I entirely underestimate Fable 2. The controls sound great, and as you'll see from the screen gallery coming up, the graphics are sharp and beautiful. I like the game's emphasis on freedom, of course, but I like that in Fallout 3 while also knowing roughly what the Fallout 3 setting is about and how it's relevant to what I do in my game. Fable's Albion is one I don't know much about. As a result, I don't feel a deep desire to go visit that world and run around in it. I care more about what I'm going to do with my dog in Fable 2 than what places I'll go and what things I'll see. I don't know if that's a misfire, or if Peter Molyneux knows more about what games I want to play than I ever would have imagined. After all, while Fable 2 is below Fallout 3 on my internal Stuff to Play list, it's undeniably there this go-round.

Fable 2 Gallery

Comments

As far as I remember, it's been stated that if you play a female and get 'waylaid' you automatically take the 9 months off to have the kid. As much as they talk about good and evil it seems like there's some areas they just won't go (And I'd have to say I agree with the way they did this point.)

 

9 full months? Oh, come on. A woman can be fully active at least through the first trimester, and possibly beyond. If that is true it sort of irritates my feminist place.

 

Welp, looks like I was talking out the side of my head. I probably misread something somewhere as I can't find anything that matches with what I remember. So I'm not *fully* sure how it works. But I know miscarriages are nowhere in there. They vetoed that very early on.

 

I would expect Lionhead to have better taste than to include miscarriages, I was just curious if you could go out adventuring in the last trimester. Making you take it "off" would be reasonably realistic if that's the approach, although most women these days work their day jobs right up until giving birth, then take some time off after delivery. It would also be reasonable to let your character stay active but maybe not let you go out doing strenuous stuff like setting brigands on fire for a bit.

 

The *last* thing I can actually find mentioned is that you could go out while pregnant. But they were working out what made sense for how long you could adventure while pregnant and what'd be allowable concerning the ESRB.

 

I'm guessing the storyline isn't particularly urgent if you're allowed to take 9 months away from adventuring for pregnancy leave.

Also, what is it with games lately having glowing magical veins on their characters? First NWN2, then Too Human, and now this!

 

Well, like most RPGs, Fable has an urgent storyline that does not actually punish you for taking twenty hours to just screw around, so I bet F2 isn't going to be much different.

The pregnancy thing has me rather uncomfortable, and I can't really find any solid information on what, if any, adventuring you'll be able to do. Considering how Fable 1's aging system worked, I suspect it's going to be something awkward.

 

The storyline in Fable 2 will be fairly short (12 hours), as Molyneux is far more interested in the world building aspect of the game. From his interviews about the title, he mentioned that you can build a world according to your liking, and then invite others to visit your particular town shaped by the choices you have made in the game. The idea being, obviously, that what we do in our lives has consequences and ultimately affects the world around us. Therefore to say it's little more than a pregnancy sim is a bit short-sighted.

What I loved about the first Fable was being forced to look at the moral choices we take for granted in fantasy games, look at them closely and decide where exactly we as a player will stand on them. It's the moral playground that makes Fable so brilliant, and knowing that the sequel will extend this concept to imprint not only your character's physical appearance but also the world your character lives in is a thrilling prospect.

 

No one's said anything about it being a pregnancy sim. We just want to know how the mechanic is going to be dealt with, since obviously it is the sort of thing that presents issues no matter how you choose to work around it.

 

So how does Fable make you examine your moral choices? All I heard was "You can be good or evil and your look changes as you go", so I assumed doing evil things was encouraged for replay value-- sort of a KotOR thing.

 

The simple fact that you have the option to take a good or evil path is supposed to encourage thinking about moral choices and consequences. Fable specifically was designed with a system of checks and balances so that no option was ever truly "right" - Every action had repercussions, even if you didnt see them immediately.

For example, completing a quest to save some slaves from their bandit captors would gain you "good" points, but would also piss off the bandits, which would then retaliate by razing the town. Did the lives you saved originally cancel out the lives lost in the town? Would the bandits have razed the town anyway, had you not interfered? The design concept of the first Fable was completely focused on that kind of scenario, and it looks like its going to be even more prominent in Fable 2.

 

@Koubon

The glowey magical veins effect was in Fable 1 as well - and its been around for a long time prior to that. Its just becoming more prevelent nowadays, mostly because it looks cool and its an easy effect to pull off.

 

@Arturis:

So why does Fable build itself around a binary morality system if no choice is really right or wrong? I.E., why is the game awarding you "good" points for saving the slaves if rescuing them is also not actually regarded by the game as a wholly good action? For that matter, why give you evil points if leaving the slaves to their fate isn't really bad?

The idea of cause-and-effect really mattering in gameplay is awesome, and it is something I really like to see in game design. What I'm not sure is how the cause-and-effect gameplay you mention benefits from rubbing shoulders with some very traditional and, at face value, simple-minded ideas about "good" and "evil". It seems like a system where there should also be "neutral" or "amoral" options, too, and as far as I know the game doesn't score you that way.

(Now, if it _can_ and I just don't know about them, feel free to educate me. This is all quite fascinating from my POV as a Fable n00b.)

 

Is the slave scenario described actually from either game, or is it hypothetical?
As described, it comes across less as an event from a well-done video game than as a passage from a particularly hostile Choose Your Own Adventure story.

 

I have to admit, I never really noticed any particular influence of my actions on the world at large in Fable. There were a few missions, mostly early on, where you might see a secondary mission activated by an earlier mission, but they were fairly few and far between. If anything, what you did seemed very black and white, almost to the point of frustration. Most of the choices seemed to be "Be a good guy" or "Be a bad guy" and I can't really recall any times when being a good guy had any ill effects other then the Sword of Aeons thing, which they changed in the expanded version anyway!

If you were a good guy, you got a halo, white clothes and butterflies flying around you, and if you were evil, you got horns and a glowing black aura. Your evil/good meter was even influenced by the color of the clothes you decided to wear, which always cracked me up. The game always seemed to be very very clear about what choices were good and what choices were evil.

 

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