Fable 2
Preview
Will this one deliver the promised goodies?
by MarvellousG
previewed on X360
Co-op
The third innovation Molyneux announced is co-op. At any point in your game, a friend can turn on his wireless controller, press start, and he’s in. This jump-in jump-out play, reminiscent of Lego Star Wars, has never really been tried in an RPG before but it looks it will work extremely well. You and your friend can run around each other’s game worlds, killing each other’s families if you so choose (come one, you know you will), and generally wreaking two times the amount of havoc you would experience on your own. One thing that’s been dropped from the cooperative play is the dog, so you won’t be able to see whose pup can fetch the best. Lionhead says this is due to the frame rate hit the game would take. Co-op was a feature planned for the original Fable, and was playable at one point. It is good to see all of the best ideas that didn’t make it into the original finding their way into this game.
Love
The fourth and final innovation revealed so far is love, simple as that. What, you cry? Love? Well, yes. At some point in your game you will find a lady friend, and have the routine that we have in real life: appear pleasant, go out on dates, become close, and then hopefully marriage. And then, hopefully children. Yes, there is sex in Fable 2. No, you don’t get to see it, but you will see the results. When that mini-you pops out, you’ve got your very own virtual family to take care of. Joy.
Your child will then, much in the same way as your dog (stay with me), emulate how you yourself behave in the game. Be good, and little Sam or Samantha will be coming home with good grades and praise from all of the teachers at their school. Be bad, and you’ll be getting letters home asking for your ray of sunshine to ‘please leave our esteemed educational facility’. Maybe it won’t happen quite like that, but your family sure will take after you. Molyneux also talks of Fable 2 forcing you to make decisions that may linger with you after you stop playing, much in the same fashion as Mass Effect so triumphantly succeeded in doing.
“There will be a moment six hours into game where you walk into room and someone will ask you to do something and you will have to sacrifice something precious to you as a gamer. You will put down the controller and ask, what am I going to do?” So, what are you going to do? Is Molyneux hinting at maybe killing an innocent to save the world, or something maybe smaller in the scheme of things, but a little closer to home? Will you have to say goodbye to one of your children? It would seem so, and that’s where ‘love’ comes in. Molyneux promises that you will get to know your virtual family as if they were your real one, and that you will truly have deep feelings of affection for all of them. Big claims indeed.
Can’t come soon enough
If this article seems a little sceptical of Lionhead’s epic, it is because of all the features promised for the original Fable but were never delivered. If anything, I’m simply trying to contain my own excitement by believing everything Molyneux says to be cruel lies. But if even half of what he says makes its way into the game, then we may truly be in for an RPG revolution. Q3 2008 can’t come soon enough!
