Press A To Jump: Fable II

I play videogames fairly often. So, I figure, why not try a review? If you don't care for gaming talk, just skip this post

Fable II

Plot: The game begins with you as a child (you choose the gender) in the town of Old Bowerstone. You and your older sister Rose are dirt poor, unable to even scrounge up five gold to by a music box a peddler is selling. So you take various jobs around town to get the gold, while the game gives you basic instructions about gameplay. Boring, except for the few choices you are forced to take, which effect the game later on. And you find a dog.
You get the gold, you get the music box, and you get to make a wish! Rose does this for you, wishing you could live in a castle, like Castle Fairfax. And what do you know, that night some of Lord Lucien's guards come and take you to the castle! But you don't bring your dog.
With a name like Lord Lucien, he just has to be evil, right? Hell yeah! He kills your sister, and shoots you as well. You get thrown from the tall tower, where you are rescued by the blind gypsy seer, Theresa. And your dog.
Fast-forward ten years. Theresa tells you of Lucien's evil plan to destroy Albion. It's up to you to stop him! But you need to enlist the help of three other heroes to do so. And with the exception of the second one, they suck. Sorry about that.
Overall, the plot is interesting, and your decisions at various points make you in charge of the storyline.

Gameplay:
Combat: Oversimplified, to the point that button mashing works. X is melee, Y is ranged, and B is magic. (Sorry! Will! Not magic!) That being said, it's fun. Wading into a scrum of bandits, cleaver swinging is very rewarding. My character was a mix of melee and will, and it was awesome.
Other: You can interact with everyone, almost everything, and you really get to make your character however you want. You can be super good and pure, have everyone love you, and get rich easily. Or you could kill everyone, steal their stuff, and capture others and sell them into slavery. Or you can be some of both.
There are tons of non-essential quests to go on and treasures to uncover. You could just play plot-related quests and finish the game in a day or so, but I've stretched my first game to last over a week. (Granted, I had maybe 4 sessions during said week, but I want to buy all the real estate in the game, just to say I did.)

Graphics:
Bright, lovely maps and areas. The non-essential characters are cookie-cutter though. And if you eat anything but celery, your character gets fat and ugly.

Audio:
The music is not memorable. The voice-acting is good, but the non-essential characters talk WAY TOO MUCH.

Re-Play: I'll play it again, make all different choices, and be evil. It's fun. Besides playing once as good and once as evil, I don't see much point in playing multiple times. By doing all the quests, you stretch the game out, but I don't see myself going back to play it again and again.

Overall: A fun game, worth checking out, especially if you liked the first Fable. With the over-simplified combat and the interesting story line, would be a good game to get a non-gamer friend to try.

Next up: Mirror's Edge, sometime next week.

Don't pick the sacrifice card. It's not worth it.