Schizophrenic RPG-ing.

I've been playing a lot of Fable II this week.

Ok, there is no way to not say it. The game is magnificent. In many ways it is everything the first game promised us it would be. Every action has a consequence, truly. Even the accidental discharges of magic can lead to unwanted effects. I fired off some blades in Bowesrtone Old Town, and was charged with the crime of 'Vandalism'. This bought the law to me, who asked for a 10 gold fine. However, I also had the opportunity to do Community Service, or to even resist arrest! (I chose the Community Service, but when I fired my first spell I violated my parole, and was given the same choice again.)

I like this. It is no longer a case of 'Good or Evil' at key moments, it literally follows you through your entire life. And, you are rated on more than one scale, too. Goodness, Purity, Attractiveness, and some other hidden ones. Buying clothes can give you bonuses in Ridiculousness and Cross-Dressing, and foods have a Fatness component. All the NPCs in the game respond to different things, so some of them like you to dance for them, while some of them are flirty. Usually, any action you do attracts a crowd, and this can lead to entire cities being madly in love with you, hinting that their finger would look so much better with a ring on it. So much so that the freaks will literally follow you into your house when you go to get your nookie on!

And yet, with so much epic going on, it still manages to mess up on some of the most basic levels. Like the menu system. If you use any item, it kicks you straight out and back into the game engine in order to show you any changes. I get that, I completely understand the point if, say, you were changing clothes. But, if I just read a book? Why should I need to see the effect it has on my dog? It is overly annoying, because generally you find a whole bunch of books at the same time.

I adore the combat! Mapping all your melee onto X, ranged attacks onto Y, and Magic (skills) onto B sounds like a way to oversimplify and dumb things down. Far from it, it actually allows for some intricate combos, particularly with skills. Risk vs reward is an overlooked game mechanic these days, and it is nice to see a game implement it so very well.

And, the game is just fun. Often lol-worthy, always at least amusing. The inclusion of co-op via Live AND local is the icing on the cake! Or would be, had they not gimped out the local co-op so. Basically, all action takes place on the same screen, which makes sense. What doesn't make sense is that player 2 can only be a henchman, and not their own character. Probably there are just too many variables to track, and it would be silly to have players 1 spouse cower in fear every time they saw player 2, so I guess that is forgiveable. What is NOT forgiveable is that the only person in the entirety of creation that I can not give a gift to is my own girlfriend because she does not have a seperate 360 to play the game on. I can give a gift to ANYBODY over Live, even random freaks who just happen to be in the same town as me. But someone I care about? Apparently not. Who thought this was a smart move, huh?

The Live system is a good one, actually. It is like an MMO, only not exactly. What happens is that every player has an orb, that shows where they are and their gamertag, and you can highlight them to check them out as if they were an NPC. You don't see the player, just the orb. If they have a headset, you can hear them talking within a certain distance. There is one fairly massive drawback to this system.

It reminds me that Fable II is NOT an MMO, and gets me thinking about MMOs again. I now have a hankering to play one!