I’ve finished Fable 2 recently but I’ve still got a few quests left, so I might as well give a little review.

Fable 2 is the expected sequel to the first Fable (duh) game which was released on Xbox and Pc. At the time, there were high expectations (in many ways thanks to Peter Molineux’s interviews) about the game which were shrouded completely when the game was released. So is Fable 2 any better?

Well, yes. This time, expectations were managed much better, in a nutshell, Fable 2 is a very good game, it takes inspiration from Zelda, the Sims,  European middle age and the first Fable of course and manages to deliver an entertaining action-rpg game.

You follow the story of a boy (or girl) who in the beginning of the game watches his sister get killed by the game’s villain (who doesn’t appear that much, really) so having faced almost death yourself, you set out to get your revenge (or not). There’s a main storyline and a dozen sidequests and jobs you can take on your way to good or evil but don’t expect a big gray moral area like Fallout 3 or different ways to solve your quests.

Most characters in the game look the same and have the same lines but the voice acting is top notch. The environment is rich in green areas and open fields but expect to find a few repetitive dungeons or caves.

In this game, you’ll need money to improve your equipment, buy new clothes, haircuts, tattoos or furniture for your house but you won’t find any money on bandits or creatures, you’ll have to either take a job or buy shops/houses which will guarantee you a rent every 5 minutes. This makes the game a bit more interesting so you can become a real-estate tycoon.

As I mentioned, you can customize your character with different combination’s of clothes, hairstyles, tattoos or dye your hair. You can even cross-dress if that’s your wish…

You can also vaguely interact with the population around you in order to get more renown, you can use an expression wheel (which resembles the Sims) to show your middle finger or sing or show your trophies. You can also get a wife and kids.

Oh, right from the beginning of the game you’ll have a dog that follows you and helps you in battles or find hidden treasures. It’s a nice addition, you can pet him or play catch ball but… that’s it.

Through the game you’ll face different enemies, ranging from beetles to trolls, generic henchmen, pirates and the classic undead. Your character has 3 different abilities:

• strength which symbolizes your health and damage you deal with your sword, axe, etc (and your muscles)
• skill which is related to your weapons (pistol, crossbow, riffle);
• will symbolizes your magic powers.

You can upgrade your abilities with experience points left by the enemies you defeat, the more you use an ability the more experience point for that kind of ability you receive.

The interface simply is a mess, it’s a pain to use items and food, because there’s too much sub-menus and they’re usually slow.

You can also play with another person on the same console or on Xbox Live, although the other player will have to choose a generic henchman but it’s a good step in the multiplayer direction for console rpg’s.

There’s alot of tiny, excelent details in Fable 2, the game isn’t very big but it’s classic entertainment, and there’s a DLC which gives you 2 more hours of quests and new equipment.

The integration between online and the xbox interface is more tight, it’s much more usable, there’s more information before you buy a specific item on the marketplace and a bunch of new features making the experience very worthwhile.

You can now install games on the hard-drive, thus cutting down on loading times and making the Xbox run quieter.

The new avatars look cute but they don’t add much value yet, I guess it’s the natural response to PS3′s Home and the Wii’s interface with the Mii’s. So far there’s only two games that take advantage of the new avatars but I guess more will come in the future.

There’s also new “premium” themes which look impressive but cost more. I don’t understand why there isn’t an option to preview a theme yet but some nice folks have been taking photos and screenshots so you know what you’re buying beforehand.

G4TV also posted a nice preview video but if you have a Xbox 360 the best thing to do is just connect it to the web and update.

Gizmodo also has a great article: 10 things you should know about the new Xbox Live Experience.

The current dashboard although not being too bad, has a few problems which sucessive update haven’t fixed, such as  too much information on screen, a bit of lag, hard to navigate in so much content (you have videos, games, addons, music,etc) and some areas were simply over-complicated.

Old Xbox Layout:

New Layout below:

With this aproach I think Microsoft is going the “Apple way” and going for a more simple, less complicated but coese design. On the other hand, with Sony releasing it’s “Home” pseudo-Second Live world/dashboard and given the Wii’s success with the Mii’s, Microsoft felt the need to introduce some sort of Avatars into the console.

Joystiq has posted a video walkthrough of the new Dashboard and Xbox Focus has detailed information on the new features. Now it’s all about waiting for the next system-update and experience the new dashboard hands-on.