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Whats good, bad and indifferent about the new Fable?
I didn't have a problem with the game freezing up my XBOX, and I'm sorry to hear it happened to (seemingly so many) others. The story isn't the best, and the inventory system is clunkier than the original. But a lot of improvement has been made. And you have to play it for a while to notice the better differences.
The good
There is no Mana bar anymore. If you are a primary Will user, this will be a godsend. No more having to worry about how much juice you have left. If you have the spell, you can use it as much and often as you want. I loved that. To extend on this, Magic is better balanced against melee weapons, so you don't feel like I did in the first one, that the spells were a nice addition, but not typically too practical in a difficult fight.
The game has a fairly complex economy system. Much more complex than I've seen in any other game. You can buy nearly every building in every city. There are exceptions...but not many. And when I say that, I mean it. You could probably count the buildings/structures you cannot buy on one hand. Which leads to the next thing I liked: When you rent out houses or buy vendor stalls and shops, you accumulate wealth without having to work for it. And, as is normal, you can regulate how much you charge. More than the town average will corrupt you, less with make you more pure.
After the main quest, there are still jobs and quests available that take a while to complete. I've probably put a good 30 hours into the game, and I still have a lot that can be done.
You four-legged friend. I think it's the coolest addition to the game. He will help you somewhat in fights, he will sniff out treasure for you to dig up, and he will growl when you approach an enemy, before you see them. As well, he/she has a number of expressions to compliment your own...which are adorable.
The graphics are really great. They are similar to the first game in terms of coloration and...well, Fableness. It's colorful and there are lots of ambient noises out in the open.
The leveling system is improved by default. Since in this world 500 years after the first, the Heroes Guild is utterly destroyed. The Chamber of Fate is the most intact piece that us left. But this means that there are no experience portals for Skill, Will, and Strength. So as soon as you build up enough experience, you can immediately go to the Abilities section in your options and upgrade you skills.
The music is pretty, and similar to the first. It's a perfect compliment to the environment. No long explanation needed. It's just well used.
The Okay
To be honest, I was disappointed in the guns. The rifles/pistols/crossbows. I didn't find them as evenly balanced against all of the others. They are nice from long range, but I didn't find them as useful as I found the bows in the original game. Not bad by any means, but I think if they caused more damage in relation to the other types of skills you possess, I would have used them more.
The "free roaming." On the back of the box it's said that "Roads are for suckers" accompanied by a picture of someone hopping a fence. Well yes, this is possible. However, what is not possible is multiple paths to the same destination. There is more substance -around- the roads, and there are more caves, but you cannot, for instance, leave the road and go up and over the mountain to get somewhere faster.
The new mapping system. I remember about a year ago, Peter Molyneux told us all that the original Fable was too easy. You could play the game by looking only at the displayed Mini Map. And he was right. But their solution? Now instead of a Mini Map, you have a glowing golden trail to follow. You -can- turn it off, but to be honest, I didn't really see this as a solution. It's just a different version of the same thing.
The bad
The story, I have to say. It's not that great, and it's not actually that long. But, I suppose I couldn't expect something on the scale of Oblivion or Lost Odyssey after the first one was so short as well. There were really no twists. The beginning really had me intrigued, with the box and such. But then it kind of went exactly how I expected it to go. There was no...substance, to any of the characters. Except between you and your dog. At the end of the game one of the characters calls your characters the best friend she ever had...and it's meaningless. You don't spend that much time together, and are absent for a long time. You don't know that much about them.
The Inventory system. Like the last game it is nicely divided into subsections. Weapons, Clothing, Food, Potions, Trophies, Books/Documents, etc. However, when you choose, for instance, to consume a potion that will give you more Strength Experience, it closes the menu and you go back to the game. So if I want to lose weight by eating celery, I have to press Stars>Items>Food>Celery. And then repeat it. It just gets to be a hassle. I wish you could do what you need to do, and then unpause the game yourself.
Weight. If it's your first playthrough, you will probably, like me, end up overweight. I didn't even realize it was happening, because when you first play through you probably don't have that much money, so you buy whatever will heal you. This seems necessary because, 1. If you get knocked out (killed), you get a new scar, and 2. Potions and Food are a lot less plentiful than in the last game. So when you get badly injured, you eat whatever comes up on the D-Pad. There are lots and lots of things that can make you fat. Cheese, meat, pie, some beers. The only normal item that makes you lose weight is celery. The ONLY. It took me about 5 hours of interactive game play to finally get back to even with my weight. Sleeping for weeks at a time to give the produce vendors time to restock on celery, buying and eating it, sleeping again. It got tiring, very fast. So my recommendation to you if you haven't bought the game yet and are reading this...stick with potions, apples, and carrots.
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