all games are not created equal

I gotta say, Fable 2 has taken the formula that Fable had setup and expanded on it. I never really got into the first Fable because I felt like there just weren't enough things to do as a character that was supposed to interact with their community. So for the most part, I ran around killing enemies and getting experience. Fable 2 though somehow connects with me more than the first one did and makes me want to be a good person in the game. I feel like everything I do really does matter, which I think is pretty cool.

The fighting is pretty much the same between the two, but I wanna say that the new one is a little harder to just wipe the floor with all the enemies for some reason.  The first one did limit will usage with a mana bar, which made using will more skilled than just spamming spells when enemies are around.  Maybe because of that, will became a little less powerful in the second one?

Worst part of Fable 2 though is the voice acting. Everyone has these waaaay over the top accents and the dialogue also tries to be funny and sometimes is just kinda tiresome for me.

Overall, Fable 2 is awesome and if you liked the first one, you should definitely give the second a go. If you didn't play the first one but thought it sounded interesting, now is your chance to pick up the second one and try it out.

This is tricky.  Since both games are from Lionhead Studios, there are many similarities between them.

In Fable 2, you control one man and your actions affect people's opinion of you.  Kill a villager and people will begin to be scared of you.  Play the lute for a group of people and they will love you. 

It's very much the same in Black and White.  You are a god and control a creature.  You can do good things like give wood to villages or bad things like sacrifice villagers for power.  All of these things will affect the villagers belief in you.

In the end, Fable 2 took the formula they began to set up in Black and White and the first Fable and expanded upon it.  Both games do have their flaws, like doing tedious things in order to change people's opinions of you.  However, Fable 2 was always enjoyable.  If one thing got boring, you could always find something else to do in the game to keep you going.  In Black and White, when you got bored, there weren't other things to do, so you were just stuck with grinding it out.

I gotta be careful with this comparison because these two games are kinda similar, yet totally different.

Ok, first, imagine that WoW, instead of being an MMORPG, was a single player game like Fable 2.  Also imagine that every non-NPC in WoW wasn't there anymore, so no multiplayer aspect.  Assuming that, I can try and compare these two games.

Both of these games involving questing and gaining XP in order to enchance your character.  However, F2 doesn't have any levels at all, it just has the ability to spend your XP on stuff like physical abilities and spells.  Now with WoW, you gain levels as you gain XP, in addition to being able to aquire new talents, such as spells or enchancements to your character.  WoW gives you a feeling of progressing towards something with every kill and something to look forward to.  There weren't many times in F2 where I was looking forward to being able to do something once I gathered enough XP for it.

One thing F2 does better than WoW is the feeling that your actions affect how the characters in the game see you.  If you're mean to people, they will run away from you.  In WoW, you kind of have this with factions.  You do a lot of stuff for a faction and get rewards when you build up their trust.  In F2, you can make people love you and sometimes, you'll even receive gifts from them.

The biggest negative against F2 though is the lack of skill in battling.  You can easily mash an attack button to kill off the majority of the enemies in the game and not even worry.  But then if you really do find yourself in a situation where you are kinda overpowered, there isn't really much you can do.  You can cast your spells, swing your weapon around and take your potions, but if that isn't enough, you're done for.  With WoW, there are many ways to be skillful in the ordering and selection of the actions you perform.  Sure, there are cases where you can just attack away and have it be easy, but most of the time, you'll probably be doing stuff that is a little more challenging.

In the end, WoW wins by a lot because of the skill it takes to play the game well.  The difference between a skilled and unskilled player in WoW is huge, but in F2, that difference isn't nearly as clear.  Also, WoW has a sense of accomplishment that F2 is lacking on.

Both of these games came out at the same time, so some people had to figure out which one to play first.  I played Fable 2 first.  However, after starting to play Fallout 3, I wish I had played that first.

The weird and great thing that Fallout 3 makes me do is talk to the people that inhabit the world.  I find out about their backstory, why there are here, how they feel about things and whatever else I can ask them.  This level of depth was totally missing from Fable 2.  I actually care about characters in Fallout 3, including the small ones.  In Fable 2, I could care less about every single character in that game.  If they died, oh well, I'm sure there will be some other character with the same exaggerated accent talking to me later.

I have a thing in my heart for turn-based combat.  Fallout 3 does cater to this need with the VATS system, which is totally awesome.  You can fire your gun at someone in real time like a FPS if you want, but if you really want to aim for a specific part of the body or see your chances of hitting an enemy, just activate VATS and the action stops so you can figure out what you want to do with those action points of yours.  I always end up aiming for the head, but aiming for their gun, arm, or leg could be just as beneficial in certain situations.

Fable 2's combat system mostly consisted of pressing a button over and over until everything on the screen was dead.  Maybe cast a spell or two.  No depth or skill to the fighting.

Fable 2 was enjoyable while I played it, but afterward, there is nothing memorable about the game.  There wasn't much I would talk about to a friend who had also played the game, aside from "that game was a little too easy". 

Fallout 3 has so many elements and choices to make that impact the world around you.  A village is build around an atomic bomb you say?  How interesting.  So you can disarm it for one person or receive money to detonate it for someone else? That's a pretty big choice to make. Fable 2 had the same concept, but it was a lot of the same little thing over and over again to get people to like or hate you. 

Depending on the type of gamer you are, Fable 2 might be more you're cup of tea.  It's still a pretty decent game for what it is, but for more mature gamers, I would highly recommend Fallout 3 over Fable 2.

While Fable 2 is better than the original, I do not think it wins by leaps and bounds. There are several aspects in which the original is better, namely ease of will casting and controller response time. That being said, Fable 2's innovation drives it ahead. The abilities to work, play, fight, drink, bone, and buy everything in sight gives the game a unique and entertaining feel. Fable gave a lot of freedoms and Fable 2 very successfully exceeded that.

 

While I recognize that the story is not as strong as it could be, I think they have done a great job making the game fun absent of the main quest. You can simply live your life, amass a fortune and entertain yourself as you see fit.

Mass Effect has a wonderfully enthralling story that makes you want to continue playing despite the weak combat system.  Fable 2 has nearly no story at all and derives all of its entertainment from capabilities outside of the main story line.

Both games have significant weaknesses in my opinion.  However it is fable 2 that really fails in my mind to live up to expectation.

Fable 2 allows for the exploration of a world and gives you the ability to become whoever you want to be.  Kill innocents, bad points.  Kill bandits, good points.  The problem is this formula is too simple.  There are no complex decisions in Fable 2 whatsoever.  Instead the game stays shallow.  This is not to say that it isn't fun.  Fable 2 is very entertaining for the first 8-10 hours, but after that you realize the simplicity and stop playing there.

Mass Effect on the other hand has a very deep story that keeps you guessing.  The management of your characters status (good/evil) relies on making complex decisions and, in some case, forces you to make a decision in which you don't know if the outcome is for good or evil.  However, the combat system is so weak that it makes fighting nearly no fun at all.  If you are all about action and don't care much about the story, ME will bore you instantly.

All that being said, ME has replayability that F2 just doesn't.  Both games needed 8-12 months more in development.  But in the end, it is F2 really disappoints. 

Fable 2 was promised as an open world game full of world changing choices. Instead, what I got was a couple of closed off, linear levels with a Sims like slider configuration for every choice I ,ade. The quest almost always boiled down to "hunt all the bad guys down." However, the combat and spell casting are smooth and intuitive and work very well. And the quest that didn't fall under the hunt configuration were fun and interesting (I especially enjoyed the Captain Dread quest, and the Tomb of Twinblade in the Love Hurts string).
Oblivion is an open world game, were I am free to explore anything and every thing in my own time. The amount of countryside to explore was amazing, though rather bland. The combat was plain; by end game I was doing the exact same combat moves since level 1. Also, the scaling up of enemies made it feel like I never got any pay-off for leveling. However, the quest were fun and varied.
Now, the only reason I say Oblivion is greater than Fable 2 is because of the difference in content. Fable 2 has a far more superior combat system, but the entire game is linear. Also, I only clocked about 20 hours before I finished the game. It took me 10 hours of game play to remember that there was a main story line in Oblivion that I was supposed to be working on. I have played over 150 hours of Oblivion, and I still love the game. I continue to play Fable 2 (I'm really trying to buy the Castle Fairfax) but I feel that the lasting appeal will quickly wear off.

These games were both pretty hyped, wayyy before their release. But Fable 2's hype was definitely less misleading than Spore's.

Spore was probably the biggest let down I have ever experienced ever. Maxis bragged about complex civilizations, having fun as an animal lad, slowly taking over your planet, and then taking your space craft to visit and/or invade other people's worlds. But there were so many let downs.

To start off, Cell Stage was absurdly simple, just requiring a few clicks and stuff. They cut more than 30 parts before releasing this stage: There were multiple types of cilia, spikes, etc, with which to customize your critter.
Next, the creature stage involved just two main things to do: play Simon to make friends, or just kill them. (I guess you could wander around and stuff, but really.) The game seemed to want you to just rush to the next stages, as there was nothing to do if you intended to stay in the creature stage for a while and have fun.
Then, tribal stage was a big of an extention of that, making it into a simple strategy game. I can't really complain much, because my vision of tribal stage was just all the creatures around a campfire building huts, which wouldn't be too interesting either.
Then, Civilization stage was one of the first really entertaining moments. It was pretty fun building cities made around a certain theme, and then building armies/religious mind control rays/trade vehicles and taking over the world. I guess they could've done some more with the actual civilization, such as having different buildings to construct, or being able to organize events or something.
Finally, the Space stage was a lot of fun, but it was a complete let down. First of all, they completely did away with the multiplayer aspect of the game, or perhaps I just misunderstood that interview. However, exploring the galaxy and getting the various medals and ship upgrades was quite fun, except for the single-use items, which is just mean. (Specifically, the T-Score contraptions.) Lets not even talk about the ecodisasters and pirates.. There were some other miscellaneous let-downs that occured, but this paragraph is way too vast.

When I borrowed Fable 2 from a friend, it was a pretty fun experience on the whole. Perhaps I am just partial to these sorts of choose-your-destiny RPGs, but it was really great. I only got up to around the point where the large mammoth-woman is recruited, so I am probably not correct, but the story seemed to get slightly 1, 2, 3-ish, similar to Zelda with its "Get the fire gem then the water gem then the leaf gem then the..." plot. But Zelda did it well, so who says Fable can't.
However, my favourite part of the Fable series has always been how you can just go and ignore the main plot and just have fun. You can do odd jobs, (which were a bit dull, but not completely awful) get married, get in trouble with the police, get new weapons and armor, kick chickens, get everyone in town drunk, go hunting for treasure, rock out on the lute, and all kinds of things.

Mainly because Spore went all the way for "main storyline" part of the game, as opposed to how Fable has an extensive "do silly, unimportant, fun things" section, Fable 2 is a better game.

Maxis will completely redeem themselves if they make a more mature, complex Spore-esque game.

When looking back through the ages of fantasy RP gaming and the different plot lines/ideas, alot are similar.

 

WoW is not any different than most fantasy games and the characters are quite bland. The typical races, troll, elf, human, do have their different quirks but all-in-all they are following the mold which was set.

 

Fable II, although more about following the storyline then meeting and fighting people online, I found was more adventurous and more fun due to the multiple expressions and quests you can complete. The baddies are not necessarily well-thought out but along with some of the usual villians, there are new ones such as the Hobbes and Balverines.

 

Also, I have never played a game until Fable that dealt with Banshees. I thought that was cool. The trolls looked more organic to their environment instead of their clothing matching their territory and the Hollow Men were a little creepier than the typical skeletons.

 

I was surprised to hear British comedian Stephen Fry's voice as one of Fable's characters [Reaver] and laughed quite hard at the end.