Fable 2… Oh dear Peter… What have you done…
Well after getting Fable 2 for us all to play over the christmas holidays we managed to sit down yesterday and give it a whizz.
Now ive played Fable 1, and although i didnt think it was the slice of fried gold that Peter Molyneux (Hereafter refered to as Peter) told us it would be an preached about, i still liked it quite alot. It felt like Zelda and Neverwinter Nights had a love child, and although it was a bit dull in some areas it was an entertaining game as a whole.
I was expecting Fable 2 to be just as charming and fun to play as Fable 1 but with better graphics and hopefully a slightly better storyline with some more fun stuff splashed throughout... I hadn't read/heard any of Peters preaching about this game, although Jode and Mez told me that he said it was going to be the best thing he had ever made and was going to revolutionize the way games were designed and how people played RPG games...
Now so far although im going to rant alot, i dont want to make out like i dislike the game, im finding it great fun and would recommend it to anyone to play. Although that doesn't mean the game is as good as it could or should have been. Now let me begin my rant about what has made me want to walk into Peters offices, scream, then leave a pile of poo on his desk.
The Menu/UI
Right im no UI designer, but i can always appreciate a good and easy to use UI in games. Neverwinter Nights 1 i thought had a brilliant UI system and UI the way you could use the radial menu. I also like WoWs UI and the way things flow... As this is a console game i understand it cant be as easy as you will be using a controller not a keyboard and mouse, but it feels sooooo painful whenever i have to do anything relating to any menu.
If i want to select an item to use i have to load up the menu, then select item, then scroll down to it, then use it. Doesnt sound too hard, but as the menus can be a bit laggy and there are points where you may want to use more than just 1 pie or drink, it keeps throwing you back to the main screen, i can kind of understand it so you can see your HP being altered but its a pain.
Now the main problem i have with the UI is the damn Minimap... THE WHOLE POINT OF A MINI MAP IS THAT IT CAN BE PUT ON THE MAIN SCREEN GIVING YOU AN INDICATION OF THE CURRENT AREA... IF YOU HAVE TO GO TO A MENU EVERY TIME YOU WANT TO SEE THE MAP... ITS NOT A MINI MAP... ITS JUST A MAP... So why bother???
It's all well and good running around following the yellow fart trail of the all seeing and all knowing quest guider (i like to think its Peter running ahead of us sprinking golden breadcrumbs for us), but when you want to go somewhere else off the path you are constantly having to load the menu to try and work out where you are and where you have to go... it just feels a bit of a waste of time and hard to work out where to go.
The Jobs
Now dont get me wrong, i like the fact there are jobs, and i quite enjoyed some of them... although the ones that require fast reactions such as woodcutting and blacksmithing are bobbins. This isnt due to the mechanics, or the reqards, it is due to the sporadic white dot that zips around the screen juddering everywhere, we also seem to have a small amount of lag frequently, so it could just be us. However the juddering paired with the lag means its a game of chance, you have to press the button ahead of time and pray that its next judder puts it into the green area. There are so many times where we have hit it spot on and it just misses and we go from a chain of 8 to 1 again... Apart from this they are quite good although I wish there was some other way to make money... like adventuring... god forbid you would kill a bandit and find some gold on his persons, it appears that anyone with any intelligence stashes their gold in the ground... unlucky for them your dog can smell lots of special buried items, we have currently had him sniff out Condoms, Coins, Potions... who would use a condom they dug up from the middle of a forest?
THE FAT SYSTEM
I like the idea that when you eat crap you become fat, it happens in real life so why not in the game. However it is EXTREEEEEEEEEEMELY badly implemented and designed and is a major frustration when playing a game where you are supposed to enjoy playing the role of your character.
You get fat in this game by digesting pretty much anything that isnt a potion... water...apples...pie (well of course pie). When i say you get fat i dont mean you eat a pie and you have a stat somewhere that goes up and you never need to worry, i mean you basically go from being a normal person to an obese person in 2 pies or a couple of bottles of water.
This wouldn't be too bad if there was some way to remove the excess fat, however the only way i have found is to eat celery that only restocks every night and even then you only get one or two pieces. Surely it should factor in when you are cutting logs, or blacksmithing or doing some strenious exercise such as fighting that you are losing weight. However nothing seems to shift it apart from the wonderful celery, so im pretty sure that every person to play this game so far has ended up with a fat character.
The Gormless Character
The character never seems to have any emotion, he always seems to have a gormless expression on his face, he reminds me of what i thought Lennie Small would have looked like. A beefy gormless guy with an uneasy smile slapped on his face, and thats pretty much how your character looks during every situation. Also its only a minor thing, but when you are woodcutting or blacksmithing, hes just staring off into space, hes not looking at the wood or the metal hes bashing, he just seems spaced out 24/7. Considering there is sooooo much interaction between characters and emotes in the game the characters face never seems to live up to the standard you would expect.
The game is basically Fable 1 with a face lift, its a great game but has ALOT of annoying little things that wouldnt have taken too long to change (Well maybe the minimap would have taken a while to have a fully implement a live one), but hey when you preach this much about a game like Peter has and make out like you are making the best thing since sliced bread you are going to have to make sure the foundations are solid before you start putting on the fancy stuff, and it feels like alot of the underlying parts to this game are lacking... oh well im sure Peter's next escapde will give me more stuff to rant about... WHERE IS DUNGEON KEEPER 3 AND A NEW MULTIPLAYER BLACK AND WHITE MY GOOD MAN!