Video games are all about making choices and sticking with them.  When making choices in most video games, the scenario doesn’t play out unless you follow a strict guideline presented to you.  Fable 2 throws this idea out the window and presents you with an immense selection of choices.  While players might still have a guideline to follow, your choices greatly affect how the story is told.  Do you help this guy in need, or do you kill him and steal his belongings and possibly his wife?  This concept along with this magnificent world ranks Fable 2 as one of the “must-have” Xbox 360 titles of 2008.

The world of Fable 2 is set in Albion 500 years after the original Fable.  You’re a hero who has to bring together the heroes of strength, skill, and will to take down Lord Lucien who is the main villain.   You start out as a small child with a couple of minor tasks to complete;  how you complete these tasks will determine how Albion will develop once you grow up, which is where the meat of the game takes place.  When you grow up, you also get introduced to one of the greatest sidekicks in video game history; your dog.  While your dog never actually attacks enemies, he provides a strong nose for finding items out in the wild.  You can teach your dog tricks which can help him level up and find more hidden items.  Your dog is not invincible though, he can get hurt but healing him is as easy as showing him some attention.

You can go through Fable 2 as a good person (guy or girl) or a bad person and a wide range of in-between.   Your actions within Fable 2 affect your appearance, your dog’s appearance, and how people act if they see you.  While going through the first Fable, it was hard to be a completely evil person, but that was fixed in this game.  You have the choice of getting married, having children, having multiple spouses, or just killing everyone that you come in contact with.  If you want to take on a wife/husband, you have to woe them to liking you.  This is where the expression wheel comes in.  You have a series of expressions that you can communicate with other people; some are given to you at the beginning but others you will have to find.  I definitely like this feature because it provides a significant amount of depth to conversations.  I love when women find me more attractive when I fart around them.  There are tons of options but I want to leave it as spoil free as possible.

Going through the world of Albion, you will discover that basically every piece of property could be yours for a price.  You have to make money to spend money, so getting a job was high up on my priority list.  You have slim pickings for jobs which includes being a blacksmith, a bartender, woodcutter, etc.  These are simple mini-games where you have to time your button presses at the right moment to earn your gold.  While this is an easy way to make money, these jobs become incredibly repetitive not worth spending more than five minutes on.  You also earn money by doing missions for people and renting out buildings that you have acquired.  You can set the price of rent to whatever you would like, but beware, setting it too high will make your corruption level rise.  You can also buy businesses which bring in revenue every five minutes, so even if you don’t play the game for a couple of days, your money still builds up regardless.

It’s unclear what time period Fable 2 takes place in because there aren’t machine guns but you have access to old looking muskets.  The combat was a concern to begin with but I feel they pulled it off perfectly.  You have a button for sword attacks, a button for ranged attack, and a button for magic.  You can chain different attacks together which provides a pretty robust combat system.  The game is a little on the easy side because if you die in combat, you resurrect right where you were taken down where the only loss in some experience that you picked up.  While hardcore gamers might laugh at its easy gameplay, I feel it’s the perfect balance for the hardcore and casual gamer to both play.  Trying to go through the game without dying is in fact a really hard task and dying in the game affects your character’s appearance.

The graphics look amazing making Fable 2 a stunning success.  Looking at the trees shows incredible detail where each tree sports approximately 120,000 leaves.  Albion is a massive world filled with multiple paths and many different places to explore.  You have the option of using a gold trail to lead you to your next destination, but you have the option of turning it off.  I sometimes turned it off when I wanted to wonder around looking for other missions to complete because I felt it was a bit distracting, but once I was ready to go through the story missions again it was right back on.  The writing was also top notch filled with many hilarious lines.

The biggest letdown was one of the highlights of Fable 2 during development; its co-op feature.  While it would have been a blast to take your own character into other people’s worlds, you are forced to use a stock character which was this games major disappointment.  I never once enjoyed this feature because it didn’t feel right and there never was a point to even partake in co-op.  I did like that I could turn the orbs on and see people in my world.  While it wasn’t their actual self but an orb, I really enjoyed the feeling watching other people doing the same task I was doing; you even have the option to chat with these orbs when close enough.

Fable 2 was a blast to play from beginning to end and beyond that.  While some features were hit or miss (co-op, I’m looking at you) the overall polish in its entirety felt great throughout the entire game.  The adventure doesn’t stop once you beat the game either; you can still go through and complete stuff you might have missed.  DLC has been announced expanding the scope of Albion. Do yourself a favor and find somehow to experience this game, whether that being buying, renting, or just seeing it over your friend’s shoulder.  While I would love to see them patch in actual co-op play, I feel it will have to wait until Fable 3, which I’m already ready for.