You will find that every year there are a few titles amongst the heaps that have one hell of a lot of hype following them through the depths of the development process. A few of those titles have made an appearance this year; to name a few: Spore, Grand Theft Auto IV and Fable 2. Part of me is a little irritated by this, because as soon as a large amount of people begin to show an active interest in a game that is in development, every fragment of the game’s existence is tested against your expectations, which can – more often than not – ruin an experience.

Even though my only encounter with its prequel occurred whilst intoxicated, when a few mates and myself thought it would be a laugh to have a bit of a digital-homoerotic experience, I was absolutely delighted when Fable 2 was announced. I followed the development from time-to-time, and regularly spoke to a developer who was working on the sound team, who I ran in to completely accidentally.

About a week before the UK release, obviously I saw reviews of Fable 2 appearing on the Internet, and the Wikipedia entry gathered more and more content. I avoided reading as much of this as possible, so that nothing would cloud my judgement. I think I did quite well.

Fable 2, without spoiling anything, is very Oblivion-esque, in that, you can stick to the path and finish the story relatively quickly; but during the game, and even after you’ve finished the story, there are plenty of side-quests to complete to further your fame. In honesty, it took me about 12 hours to complete my first run-through, during which I spent some time doing a few side quests and jobs, getting a family together and everything else. I think if I dedicated myself to it, I could have finished the story in 9. However, after finishing that run-through, I won’t deny there was still plenty to do.

Unfortunately when you read the words “hours of re-playability”, those words actually mean “you’ll be doing pretty much the same thing again, only you might make some slightly different choices”. Indeed, you can play as good or evil, and if you are going all-out achievements, then you will have to play the game through three times, as you can only get one of three achievements when you finish the game. This may not bother some people, but I found when I went through it the second time, I got rather tired of not being able to skip cut-scenes, and having to do the same quests again.

Gameplay-wise, Fable 2 is fun to play. The controls are simple enough, and there aren’t really any camera issues that make running around difficult. Occasionally it is a bit difficult to spot something, or jump off of something, but that doesn’t really detract from the overall feel.

The melee combat system is somewhat similar to Assassin’s Creed, or rather, how a polished version of Assassin’s Creed would be. Later on in the game, when your fighting skills progress, you begin to get cinematic cut-scenes each time you unleash a flourish attack on your enemy. When these get chained together, Fable 2 really does get exciting, as you begin to make your own movie-styled fight scene.

Ranged combat could use some work, as targeting things quickly is a little difficult, but you do adapt to it. It also takes a little while to learn when it is best to use your ranged weapon when in close-combat. Without the skills to improve your ability with the bow or gun, it becomes almost useless, but if you stay on the ball with finishing enemies off with a bullet in the face, you soon begin to rack up the Skill experience points you need to be able to make ranged weapons worth using.

The re-vamped spell system, however, I do not like. The whole “charge to use the spell in the level 1-5 slot” is a good idea, but doesn’t really offer a lot in terms of changeability, in fact, it makes it seem as if Lionhead tried to use as few buttons as possible. If I assign level 1 Shock to my level 1 slot, and level 2 Vortex to my level 2 slot, if I want to cast Vortex, I have to charge my spell-power to level 2, and then Vortex is cast. If I wanted to cast level 1 Vortex, or level 2 Shock, I would have to bring up and navigate the spell slot menu, and change them around, which can be very tricky during combat, especially as there is some menu lag. It would have made much more sense to simply assign spells to buttons by using a combination of the right trigger and another button, and then simply select the spell to cast after charging up.

The addition of a dog is quite nice, however, part the customisable name and the handful of tricks, your faithful companion doesn’t really have much of a personality compass. It does, however, have a crazy treasure-sniffing nose, which works in very odd ways. For example, there’s a quest where you have to find a buried scroll, and upon entering the zone, your dog immediately barks at you to signal it has sensed something, and begins to lead you down winding pathways and through alleys to the other side of the map, and then tells you to dig. However, at another point in the game, you’re looking for a few chests scattered around, and your dog doesn’t even give a feeble sniff.

Graphically, Fable 2 is quite stunning. Well, I say that; to begin with I was playing it on the wide-screen Samsung TV in the lounge, and I was very impressed. Visually, everything looked stunning. Water looked very well-rendered, and gave that satisfied feeling you get whenever you see a good water effect in a game. Landscapes and scenery looked crisp and detailed, with no noticeable glitches or anomalies. Yet, when I switched to my BenQ monitor/HD-display, everything looked very saturated and low-budget (if I can use that as an adjective). On the Samsung, using the component input, the game looked really new and stunning, but when I switched to the BenQ, using the HD input, Fable 2 looked a lot like a glorified book/movie-ported game like Harry Potter or Spiderwick Chronicles. Notably, an occasional spot of slow-down does occur, but this only really happens when there is a lot going on. Standing in a waterfall is a prime example of this.

On the sound front there are a lot of different styles of music, which tend to fit very well with what’s going on in the game. Rustic environments tend to be complemented by music similar to that of the Afro Celt Sound System, where as fight scenes often sport music similar to that produced by the London Philharmonic Orchestra (Lord of the Rings). All in all this gives the game quite a cinematic experience, although there is the odd occasion when everything goes quiet, which is where some more ambient music could come in.

Overall, Fable 2 is a fantastic game. It has a lot of gameplay to offer, regardless of the length of the actual storyline, and I thoroughly enjoyed playing it. There are reasons to play through it again, and reasons to keep playing it. Unfortunately there is a shopping list of niggles, which on their own don’t really make a huge impact to the overall experience, but, like with a shopping list, it doesn’t really matter if you forget to buy the tea bags until you want to make a cup of tea. Fable 2 does a lot to highlight the advancement of RPGs; with the anti-death system and the separation of storyline quests from side quests, it certainly is a game that deserves your time and praise. I think if the spell system had functioned slightly differently, and Lionhead worked on the high-definition output a little harder, the game would have got a full 5/5, but today it’s going to have to go one step down.