Fable 2 - First Impressions

Been playing for a couple days straight now. Here's what I like and what I don't like. The things I like far outweigh the things I don't, but the things I don't like are major issues with the game. I thought they play tested these things? Sometimes I wonder....

What I Liked

• The dog. The dog is seriously awesome. It finds treasure chests, silver keys, dig spots.... And it growls anytime an enemy is nearby. Plus it's freakin ADORABLE. I love my doggie!
• Character customization. There really aren't a ton of different clothing options, but mixing and matching (with the addition of male and female versions of most things) creates some great outfits. The dye system (and there are a LOT of colors) adds a wonderful element of personal customization to the game, as everything can be dyed - clothes (with primary and secondary (like, fringe and hem) color options) and HAIR. Yeah, you can dye your hero's hair! Mine's blue. Plus if you're a girl (or feel like cross dressing) you can wear make up. Add to that tattoos, hair styles, beards, mustaches, etc. It's really great. You can even give your dog different collars. And you can upgrade the furniture in your houses.
• You can play a male or a female! And the game reacts accordingly.
  
• Tons of expressions. They really expanded on this. There's rude, scary, fun, flirty, social, and dog expressions (which are just for your dog). Plus your dog can learn tricks which correspond with some of your expressions.
  
• SEX. You can have sex again. If you use a condom, you get purity points and stave off pregnancy and STDs. If not, the opposite happens. Plus the sex noises are a bit dirtier this time around. And you can have sex with pretty much anyone. People in the streets have sexual orientation (straight, lesbian/gay, bisexual) as well as sexual morals (loose or prudish; meaning prudes insist on marriage before they'll get it on with you).
  
• Simple, quick combat. Remember in the last game where you had to switch out your weapons? Well this time around it's nearly instantaneous, as each weapon (melee, range, spell) has its own button, allowing you to switch quickly between them.
  
• You can buy anything. Stalls, stores, houses...even if people already inhabit them. You don't even have to kill them! You just have to pay them extra, because you're evicting them. You also have control over the rent. You can upgrade furniture in a house to raise its price, and you can also manually lower or raise the rent amount. You collect rent during the daytime every 2 minutes (of real time). So while it's not a lot of money, it adds up nicely.
• Jobs. There's a set of mini games that allow you to take on a job, get promotions, make decent cash. You can be a bar tender, chop wood, or be a blacksmith. There are also bounty hunting jobs, assassin jobs, slave trafficking. There's also the pub games.
• Amusing dialog from random passerbys. From, ehm, sexually healthy men letting you know they just had some sea food, people commenting that you'd be prettier if you'd just dress up a little, to people running away screaming from spell use, and masses of people of the opposite gender begging for wedding rings.
• No mana bar. Less potions to keep track of, less potions to use, unlimited spell usage. Fantastic!
• The quest trail. It's a yellow line on the ground that leads you straight to a quest's origin (and subsequent sections). You can set it for ANY quest, to lead you to story quests, store sales, jobs, spouses. It's extremely useful, especially since the game lacks an over head map.
  

What I Didn't Like

• The dog. It's a little glitchy. He froze on me in the very first dungeon. He also tends to get stuck behind trees, fences, people, corners. Most of the time he's running right along side you though. One thing I didn't like about the dog is that since it changes with your character (if you're good, the dog is beloved by all), people will stop to pet him. The dog will stop in the middle of the street and wait while someone approaches to pet him. So you either run off without him for a bit, or wait until they're done. Otherwise, he's incredibly useful and incredibly cute.
  
• The character is a little sluggish. Which you should remember from the first game as well. It's the same issue. They turn slowly, their movements aren't sharp. The upside is the combat refinement, which is faster; although the spells are a bit slower.
• There's no overhead map! This is my biggest and most prolific complaint. You'll remember from the first game that there was a small map in the top corner that showed you where your spouse was in the area, marked stores and merchants, demon doors and monsters, area entrances. Well, it's gone. There's not even a compass to tell you what direction you're going. It's very frustrating, because the world this time is much larger and more free roaming. You can access a region map from the menu, but it doesn't really show much on there. And the obvious problem there is you have to stop playing and access the menu screen to see it. This also makes the strategy guide pretty much useless. It has maps where dig spots (etc) are marked, but...what good does that do if I don't know where I am?
  
• Online co-op. Maybe they should have delayed it after all. It's...interesting, but I wouldn't want to play the whole game that way...or much of it at all, to be honest. It's very awkward. Neither player can manipulate their camera, which doesn't really make sense. You share one camera and essentially one screen...even though you're not using the same TV. Your henchmen, as the extra player is called, can interract with your citizens, but cannot shop from any of your stores or...really do much at all except expressions and combat. I'm a little confused as to why MY character cannot go into someone else's game, though I'm sure it's for simplicity's sake. You choose a pre-made generic henchman character - neutral, good or evil male or female - and then pick a set of weapons you wish you use (based on your level). You have access to your spells and abilities, and things like potions I think, but nothing else. You split experience and money between you. If you had control over your own camera I'd be more inclined to use this feature, but it's rather annoying.
  
• Bonus DLC for the collector's edition. Congratulations! You paid 10 extra bucks for some Halo Spartan armor (most of which looks fine, except the helmet; btw, make sure you're not wearing any of it at the end of the game, because it will probably cause a crash), an energy sword which becomes obsolete almost immediately (even the "championship" weapons from the pub games are pretty weak), and a dungeon I haven't even seen yet. So unless the extra dungeon is just fantastic (2-week-later edit; it was meh. Mostly hollow man killing and some weapon which I never used because you can't access the dungeon until Bloodstone, which is the last city near the end of the story), I gotta say, the extra 10 dollars isn't really worth it. I miss my nonexistent Hobbe figurine.
• Inventory management. I should clarify. The game lets you purchase multiple copies of items that it didn't in the first (like clothes). However when you go into shops, it doesn't inform you of how many copies of any item you currently have in your inventory. It leads to a lot of accidental repeat buys of books and things. Expression books can only be used once (and disappear if you try to use them again) and dyes do not disappear after use so you can keep coloring things to your heart's content. I'd really like it if I knew I already owned a particular dye so I didn't waste money on buying it again. Your personal inventory screen in the menu works fine, though it would be helpful if there were a couple more additional layers (like separate drink and edible foods under the food label). I also really miss the ability to access my inventory from the d-pad panel (which used to and still does perform specific expressions), and being able to customize this wheel.
• Enemies don't drop items. They don't drop money, food or potions like they did before. Wandering merchants are a bit more abundant, and you can teleport to any place in the game whenever you want (as long as you've been there before), so shopping is easy. But I miss not having to invest loads of money in healing items.
• Single Save File. This is both a blessing and a curse. By giving each hero a single save file, the game makes your decisions final and the consequences real. If you made the wrong decision and got a bad result, there's no reloading to try again. The game auto saves at the end of every quest (and other places). Unfortunately this means that instead of making the player FEEL like they made a real decision with a real consequence, it's forced on you through the save function. But it's biggest downside is simply that you only get one save file per hero. The game is full of bugs and glitches (some of them game ending), and if you run into one, well, too bad for you. You can't reload a back-up save and try it again. Which is horrible if your save file gets corrupted; wow, sucks to be you, man. It is a healthy gaming habit to create multiple save files, not for the purpose of cheating the system or whatever (though you can use it for that too of course), but so that you have a backup in case something happens to the file or the game. It's "healthy" because when these things happen, the anger and frustration it produces is not at all good for your body. Or likely your game system, controller, or game disc. :)
  

Bottom Line
The game is fun. There's a ton of stuff to do and lots to explore. It's what the first game should have been. So more than just a sequel, it's like Fable x 100. But, it IS a sequel. It takes place 500 years after the first game's story. Bowerstone is there, but it's completely different. There's a town called Oakfield, which I suspect was built over Oakdale. Your guide in the world is oddly suspicious, though (so far) it's not spelled out if she is who she appears to be (she'd be ridiculously old by now). There are books and items in the game that make reference to events from the previous game, and your character is supposed to be a descendant of the Hero (if I understood correctly). The guild is gone (remember, it burned down in the last game and everyone was killed), which has streamlined the game a bit. You can level up your abilities anywhere and anytime, and quests appear automatically in your menu instead of having to report back to a base to pick them up.
The graphics are better. It still has a cartoonish look to it, but there's a lot more detail, and the cut scenes have gotten a nice upgrade. The music is familiar but unobtrusive, though to be honest some of the sounds are a bit unbalanced (even after adjustment). The dog is a bit hard to hear sometimes.
But it's worth playing, and it's worth buying (though I'd forgo the LE unless you just really want to look like Master Chief...particularly since not all copies of the LE had the included DLC code cards, and it will be at least a week before there's a resolution to the problem). Don't bother playing online though unless you want to show off your Hero or homes or something, or you just want to randomly kill some bandits or something with a friend. It might also be useful if your partner is of a much higher level and you're having problems with an area; but overall it's not very well implemented. The full game though, is well done, and plays well, and it's entertaining. And in the end. what makes a game is if it's entertaining; if its positives far outweigh and overshadow its (relatively few) downfalls. And Fable 2 does that. It can be as short or as long as you want. Molyneux himself said it lasts around 15 hours. I've clocked in close to that already, and I'm far from being finished with the story or the game.

Eh....

Sorry for another really slow week. We just bought Dynasty Warriors 6, so I've been rather occupied. But I have been watching anime. I'm watching Beck Mongolian Chop Squad via the Funimation channel, which is fantastic. I've also been finishing up Black Cat (which I canceled on my Netflix after the second disc because it was so boring, but I figured I might as well finish it).
For DVDs, I'm watching Samurai Deeper Kyo, which is really hit or miss. Sometimes it's great, sometimes it's just really off.

So there's 3 reviews that will be up and coming soon(ish). Or four, as I'll talk about DW6 at some point as well. We're going camping this weekend though, so that's 3 days of no games, and Fable 2 comes out next week, so that's drop-off-the-face-of-the-earth gaming.

In general news, for the interested:
Konami's Yoshitaka Arai made mention of MGS4 and the Xbox 360 in the same sentence...in a (sort of) positive manner. His comment has since been edited within its accompanying article. I believe it'll see a 360 release eventually; they might as well just climb down off their tower and get on with it.
Some journalist reviewing the new Max Payne movie for the Orlando Sentinel dared to make the comment that "Nobody ever shed a tear over a video-game character's death." Now, the full context is: "Max Payne isn't the worst video-game movie adaptation, not so long as Uwe Boll lives, breathes and directs. The acting's not bad, overall; the shootouts work. But as good as a couple of its action beats are, Max still suffers from the heartlessness that makes games emotionally inferior to movies. Nobody ever shed a tear over a video-game character's death."
Did you catch that? "...that makes games emotionally inferior to movies." If you want to join in the obligatory flaming, you can see the entire article here.
Will Wright finally bought a PS3, thanks to Little Big Planet. That still hasn't convinced ME to buy one. There still isn't a single game I'm interested in playing on the console, and clearly there wasn't one Wright was interested in before LBP. But I'm one of those people who doesn't "get" LBP. Feel free to flame me now too, I guess. :) Sony fanboys is why I won't be going to the midnight Fable 2 launch; I don't want to fight my way through Sackboy freaks to get my freak on with Fable.
If you're a Portal fan, or have been interested in playing but have not taken the dive yet (what's your deal? Get with it!), next week marks the release of Valve's Portal: Still Alive game/expansion. It should have the full Portal game, plus the extra levels, so it's fine if you don't have the original game yet...though it sucks for people who already have it and now have to buy it again. I hope it's released as an expansion, too. Only 360 Portal fans need apply.
Also, the people who put DRM on their games don't even like the DRM they're using, but they're going to use it anyway! Hooray! It's great being a gamer.

Chocolate Underground

It's a really simple, short show so I'm going to do a really simple, short write up. The whole show (which is 13 episodes long) only takes about an hour to get through. Each episode runs roughly 5 minutes. So if you've got an hour to kill, I recommend it, because it's very cute and fun. Watching them individually, the story feels a little choppy as there isn't enough time in a single episode to really cover a lot of ground. Watching them all together should remedy this. It's not the most fantastic show, but it's a decent watch.

In Chocolate Underground, a political faction called the Good For You party has taken over. I'm not sure how they managed to get voted into power to begin with, but it's kind of irrelevant. The Good For You party has outlawed chocolate, and basically anything that isn't strictly health food. They've replaced it with government sanctioned recipes and food items. To hunt down law breakers, they have built giant robotic sensor machines called CACAO. They can detect chocolate (but not its raw ingredients), and they also serve as weapons when needed. The two main characters, Huntley and Smudger, love chocolate and want to bring it back to their home town. They believe that chocolate brings happiness and kindness into the world. With the help of their friends Louise and Blades they form an underground chocolate ring (sort of like underground bars during prohibition in the '20s in the US) and attempt to uncover the secrets of the Good For You party and expose the corrupt government to the world.

Told you it'd be a quick look. I've been working hard on my Fable 2 Pub Games to get all the goodies I can before the game hits next week. But I've also been watching a lot of stuff on the Funimation channels, which I would love to tell you all about once I've seen some more episodes. Also I'm just about through with the summer season, and I'm starting to get episodes together to decide what I'll be watching this fall. A few are a sure thing (Clannad After Story, Skip Beat, Vampire Knight Guilty, Nodame Paris Chapter), but the rest is all up in the air right now until I see some episodes.

Oh, and just for reference, CU is from Production I.G. It's based on a manga by Aiji Yamakawa, which was itself based on a children's novel by Alex Shearer.

Fable 2's Dog

I for one am pretty excited about the little pooch. I think it's a fantastic idea; it reminds me a lot of The Bard's Tale. Even in death that dog was all about helping you kick ass and digging up treasure for you. But maybe you don't like dogs. Maybe you don't want that adorable, loyal friend tagging along with you all over Albion. Well, that's fine. But you can't just turn him off. What you can do is leave him injured, whimpering and limping behind you. If you don't feed him doggy treats to heal him, he'll stay injured, which will slow him down. So he'll still be following you, but he'll be very far behind. And when he does catch up with you, you'll find him still injured, and still limping around, loyal to the end even if you abandon him, you cruel, heartless bastard.

Visit Kotaku to see Molyneux call you a big meanie.

Oh, and while we're on the subject of Fable 2, online co-op WILL be available at launch after all. It seems they're managing to get it out on time. I guess they just panicked before and didn't want to delay the game disc in case it wasn't quite ready. So when you pop the game in on launch day, it should immediately prompt you to download the patch.

Phoenix Wright Manga vol. 1

It's proper title is Official Casebook Vol. 1: The Phoenix Wright Files.

First of all, I don't recommend reading it if you're not a fan of the game. The jokes and references will go way over your head, and a lot of it will be meaningless. It might still be a good read regardless, but it's meant to be a companion to the video game series. What this book is, is a compilation of short stories and 4-panel gag strips that are drawn and written by various artists. Basically, each story has a different artist. Some are better than others, but they each have their own charm. The book was released here by Del Rey manga, for $14.95. It's actually two books; I'm not sure where the split would be, but it was published as two separate volumes in Japan, and one here. The second US volume will be an Edgeworth volume, so it seems Del Rey will publish them as character collections, which is good. I don't recognize any of the artists' names myself (and some of them are probably pen names anyway, and many are likely doujin artists), but I'll see if I can't find some links to go along with it.
Fans will be delighted to discover that a broad range of the characters are presented in the book, though many only make brief cameos (or just appear somewhere in the background). Phoenix, Maya, Pearl, Mia, Larry, Edgeworth, and Gumshoe all make plenty of appearances, along with the Judge, Oldbag, Godot, Ms. Von Karma, Mr. Grossberg and even Mr. Armstrong.

Progress Toward Tomorrow, by Tamako Yamauchi
Turnabout Inference, by Kei Nisemura
Turnabout Illusions, by Seventh Gear
A Small Case in a Small Office, by Wataru Yamasaki
Kind Lies, by Tsubaki Mikage (seems to be a doujin artist, mostly BL I think)
Turnabout Misunderstanding, by Kaname Uchimura
Motive Power, by Naruzou (doujin artist, likely)
Turnabout Day Off, by Yuya Kurogami
Turnabout Kitten, by Natsu Otono (possibly)
Spirit Medium or Bust!, by Kaoru Osada
It's Not Easy Being a Defense Lawyer, by DAIGO
A Turnabout Day Together, by Masao Aona
Turnabout? Food Fight, by Yorozu
Car Life, My Life, by Tamako Yamauchi
Ball Search Team, Head Out!, by Tomo
The Legendary Defense Attorney, by Kikuchiyo Anko (likely doujin artist)
Maya's Blue Skies, by Wataru Yamasaki
The Mystery of the Missing Manju, by Tsukapon
Encounter with the Unknown, by Rin Hashiba (maybe)
Turnabout Big Turnaround, by Shinosuke
Four-Panel Comic Strips, by Kikuchiyo Anko, Aira Kanou, Kiyono Shimanda

I enjoyed all of them for the most part. The art styles vary pretty drastically, and the only one I really had any sort of problem with was Kei Nisemura's piece, because the characters all looked like they were constipated through the whole story. There were a couple of bizarre stories, and the language/writing/translation was really off on one or two of them. The characters are captured exceptionally well though, and the stories are a lot of fun (though there are one or two that are a little on the serious side). The stories range from ghostly clients and lost kittens to quests for food and missing toy balls. If you like the games, and if you're like me and are always left wanting more stories when they're over, then it's worth picking up.

Fable 2 LCE not so Collectible

Via Kotaku

If you pre-ordered the limited collector's edition of Fable 2, go get back 10 of your precious dollars, and watch your snazzy collectible items vanish. Due to "supply chain issues," whatever the hell that means, you will now be out the tin box, the awesome Hobbe figure, and the beautiful printed fate cards. Now I could understand problems with the figures (as it's happened to other companies before), but the cards and the box? Geez, Lionhead (though I guess it's really Microsoft's fault). First no online co-op at launch and now this? I half expect the game to come out with an apology along the lines of "Due to 'development issues' this game only includes one town and one dungeon, and will only take you about 10 hours to play. The only thing we promised you that you're going to get is the dog."

To clarify, what you will still be getting with the limited edition is the making-of bonus DVD (whoopty-freakin-doo), bonus in-game content with LIVE (unclarified), what I guess is an extra dungeon, an extra weapon, and the Halo Master Chief Fable-fied armor set.

Oh, and an update came as I was working on this. It appears that the cards aren't out entirely. You'll be able to download them as a pdf file and print them out on your own. So...they're made but they won't take the time to print them out on some card stock? Good gracious.... That just seems lazy, really.

The DLC might become general DLC eventually, so...not really seeing a reason to even bother with the LCE now. The price is dropping 10 bucks, but it's still 10 bucks more than the regular edition. The only thing I could see not going to general DLC is the Spartan armor, and maybe the sword. And if the making-of DVD is just a compilation of the developmental diaries that you can download for free online or on LIVE...what's the point? This has seriously killed a good part of my excitement for the game and leaves me really worried about what the finished product will be.

Not cool, Microsoft. Not. Cool.

Update:
It's Friday and now there's more news of even MORE things being cut.
Now both the developer diary and soundtrack are being removed from the bonus disc.
With just a few weeks left until the game hits shelves, I wonder what else is going to be removed. Hopefully it will come with the game, at the very least.

In the News 9-30-08

The biggest news obviously is OMG America's economy OMG. But as I'm a complete dunce when it comes to money and the economy, I can't really comment. I have NO idea what's going on, or how it should be fixed, or if what they're doing will fix it or not, etc. I wish we could let the banks fold, because they put themselves in that situation, willingly, knowingly, by handing out loans that they knew would not be repaid, for their own greed. If they wouldn't bring the entire nation down with them (or possibly the world), I'd say let them implode.

Now on to far less serious things.

A rumor about a new DS unit, complete with camera and music player, has surfaced. Nintendo essentially has no comment, but anyone who pays attention to Nintendo knows that that's usually the response they give for...anything. Something along the lines of "We're always developing new things." On the other hand, anyone who pays attention to Nintendo also knows that they have stated on several occasions that they would not bring out a new version of the DS until the current DS Lite slows in sales...which it has not. Sales of the DS Lite are still going strong, and several new colors are being released soon. I'm of the opinion that the rumor is pretty much bogus, and since the original report cites no sources, and indeed never even talked with Nintendo, I'm willing to believe that I'm right.

For Fable 2 fans, I have some slightly disappointing news. Despite Molyneux's comments at E3 that Fable 2 was finished, and another comment a week or two ago from Molyxneux that Fable 2 had "gone gold," the game will not launch online co-op ready. One of the top marketing points of the game is the ability to play the game online with another player, so it's rather odd that this won't be available on launch day, especially since it's not due out for another month and yet is "complete." They have stated, however, that an update will be released within a week of the US launch that will put this back into the game. I don't really understand how a game that is still a month from launch won't be a complete game, but, well, it's hard to complain when it will arrive almost immediately anyway.

Did you throw a party on September 25th? Did anyone you know mysteriously start rejoicing on that day? Well, they had good reason. On September 25th, 2008, anti-game lawyer Jack Thompson was officially disbarred by the Florida Supreme Court. Now, it doesn't take effect until the end of October, but once it does, Thompson cannot practice law and will not be allowed to apply for reinstatement.

Do you like Gears of War? Do you like to play shooter games on your PC? Too bad these two things will never go hand in hand for you. Gears 2 will never come to the PC. The reason? Apparently any person who is good enough with computers to upgrade their unit to the specs required is also good enough with computers to know how to torrent games, and would therefore simply download the game illegally rather than buy it. It's so nice how PC gamers get treated like criminals on a regular basis.

Love Google? Think it's the best thing ever? Well now you can have a Google phone! Called the Android, Google's iPhone-esque phone will launch with T-Mobile in October at about $180USD.

ADV has announced that they have acquired a Clannad license, though I don't believe there is any confirmation on whether this is for the movie or either of the TV series. Still, any Clannad is still Clannad, and one version could lead to the others if it does well.

Well, that's it for today. The all new Phoenix Wright manga is out, and I'll be picking up my copy later this week when I go to get my comics. Expect a review of that. I've read good things so far, so I have high hopes that I'll enjoy it.

Have a good week!