gamingforgirls

For the last several days, I have been a slave to our Xbox 360.  I use the term “slave” loosely, of course, because it is a wholehearted choice to play Fable II until my head explodes.

Now, I never played the original Fable because I didn’t have an Xbox at the time (I never had a real desire to own a giant doorstop), but now that we have an HDTV and–logically following–a 360, I finally know the joy of dancing for villagers and then promptly blowing their heads off with a crossbow.

Fable and Fable II, the brainchildren of Peter Molyneux (kind of full of himself and his own games, but I’m over it), are a duo of role playing style games strongly rooted in character creation, player choice, and resulting consequence.  Your appearance and your environment actively and constantly change in response to the choices you make as you play.  For instance:  eat a couple of crunchy baby chicks, you’re suddenly a lot more evil.  Give 200,000 gold to a beggar, and you’re practically Jesus.  If you invest in a town by purchasing shops, stalls and homes, you can set prices and rent low or high, making you more pure or more corrupt, respectively.  I won’t give away the details, but your looks will shift with your alignment and abilities as well, making your choices all the more relevant and important to you–because, come on,  you know you’re going to be just a little shallow.

Now, there are a couple of bugs and drawbacks to be concerned about right now, but with some patience there should be a downloadable patch released to clean it all up.  For now, though, be careful.  If you are already a skilled and seasoned adult in your game, and you and a friend plan on trying couch multiplayer (where both of you are in the same room),  DON’T join up in the new game while his or her character is a child– once you reach the adulthood point of the story, the game will ask you to autosave, thereby wiping out all your character’s skill, experience, and abilities (because, apparently, children have none of that stuff).  There’s also another weird glitch at one point in the storyline where if you exit a building ahead of a monk who asks you to “walk” with him, you won’t be able to complete the story mode.  Strange, but if you know about it ahead of time (and now you do) it’s easy to avoid.  As long as you remember.  The only other thing I can think of now is a hilarious glitch in which practically every NPC has trouble with going through doors.  They’re… just idiots, I guess.

A few other pluses, though, to get you out of the dumps:  the graphics are beautiful, weather is realistic, NPC mouths move when they talk, and–oh yeah– YOU GET TO HAVE A DOG.  A dog whose appearance ALSO changes with your alignment.  And as if the praising and playing with him options in the game weren’t enough, he can learn tricks (to be expressed when you express something) as well as train to be a better treasure hunter and combatant.  Plus, just like with all the other NPCs you come across, you can name him whatever stupid thing you want. Who’s a good boy??  WHO’S a good boy??  D-bag is!  Yes he is!  C’mere, D-bag!

Ladies of the internet, if you or someone you know owns an Xbox 360, at least rent this game.  If you can avoid the major glitches in the functionality of story mode and co-op, hours of amusement lie ahead in the treasure-hunting, dog-praising, orgy-having (oh yes! It’s true!) nooks and crannies of Fable II.

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