Tag Archives: fable 2

Shack‘s posted up some new shots of the Fable II DLC, Knothole Island.

Players adventuring to Knothole will “undergo the trials of the three shrines to bring the dying island back to life.” Fancy.

Yours for 800 MS Points later this month.

Lionhead Community Manager, Sam Van Tilburgh, has told Kotaku that the glitch the borked the Abbott quest if you walked away whilst the cut-scene played was now fixed.

“We’re keeping a close eye on our forums, while a lot of the issues reported are not issues with the game necessarily, some of them are (like the two examples mentioned in my blog) however and so we’re looking at those, plus some (like the Abbot Quest) have been fixed already,” said Van Tilburgh.

“The biggest issue is when people report a show stopping issue on our forums without enough information for us to reproduce it. Regarding the ETA for said patch, there is no news yet.”

However, he did reveal to those of you who didn’t get a DLC code with your Limited edition Fable II, that the issue would be fixed “tomorrow.”

More through the link.

By Mike Bowden

Speaking to CVG, Lionhead boss Peter Molyneux said that the Fable II review scores left him feeling “incredibly emotional” as he read through them, and thanked reviewers for their “patience and belief.”

“I found myself becoming incredibly emotional as I read peoples reviews and saw how differently the reviewers were reacting to Fable 2, “said Molyneux.

“Some reviewers played good, others evil some enjoyed the combat more than the story. Some ended up rich and others poor and it’s the sheer variety in how reviewers have played the game which has struck us most.

“Fable II must have been one of the hardest games to review. The world is so big and the story and gameplay are enormous. How reviewers manage to distil such an experience into a few pages is incredible,” he went on.

“I’d like to say a personal thank you to every reviewer out there for their patience and belief.”

Go Pete.

By Mike Bowden

Eurogamer has awarded Lionhead’s Fable II 10/10. Peter Molyneux said previously that this game will define his position in the industry, so a 10/10 isn’t bad start, you could say.

From the review:

Fable II’s generous and forgiving template isn’t one that many games choose to follow, but it proves convincingly that if you’re clever enough, you can create a consistent challenge without resorting to mindless punishment, and you can craft a sharply told story that still has room for the player to express themselves within. Inclusive and often thought-provoking, this is a daring portrait of a game-world with all the failure cut out, and it’s hard not to love a game that loves you so much in return. Fable II will charm you, thrill you, and leave you very, very happy.

Now go read the full thing.

Update: OXM has given the game, 8/10, GamesRadar says 9/10, as has StrategyInformer. CVG reckons it’s worth a 9.2 and Videgamer.com says 9/10 too. Last but not least, IGN has awarded the game a formidable 9.5/10.

The rest will be over at Metacritic in due course.

By Mike Bowden

Lionhead has updated its blog announcing that the Fable II online co-op patch is finished and will be available for download when the RPG launches this Friday.

Remember, Peter Molyneux said Fable II will define his position in the industry, so we obviously can’t wait to see exactly what that position actually is.

By Mike Bowden

After the break. It does look good, no doubt, and indications in the last few days from the UK press suggest it’s going to review very well.

It’s out later this month. Take a look.

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Fable II review code is in the hands of journos now, and this is the result: Master Chief is shown in these DailyGame.net shots as being a playable character in the RPG.

We already knew the Halo protagonist was going to be in the game, but, well, now we know you can play as the funny green spaceman.

Take a look. Game’s out at the end of the month.

After the break. It goes without saying that this is a “spoiler,” so don’t watch if you want to stay clean. It’s the first full first minutes of play from the Polish version of Fable II, and it does pretty much give the game away, so to speak.

Looks lovely, though. Watch if you dare. Game’s out at the end of this month.

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And here it is. There’s a great trailer on there for the game’s launch, and links to screens, stuff about the Pub Games, and so on. Take a look.

Kotaku’s posted up a video of Lionhead boss Peter Molyneux explaining the combat system in Fable II, and it’s all looking very swish. We feel as thought we’ve been writing about this game for our entire lives, so it’s good to see it’s working, and all.

Take a look.

After the break. There’s no gameplay to speak of, which is a shame, but it does get the theme of choice across quite well we think.

Game’s out later this month. We’re all giddy with excitement.

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Speaking to VG247, Lionhead boss Peter Molyneux has listed a string of minor imperfections that niggle him about Fable II, saying previous statements about elements not being perfect in the game are merely borne from honesty.

“When someone says to me, ‘Are you completely happy with Fable II?’, I have to turn round to them and say, ‘I’ve got a list in my own head, and indeed on bits of paper, of things that fall below a bar in my head.’

“I wish we had two more bones in the top lip of each character so their mouths could form the words a little bit better. I wish they blinked more. I wish the sun’s God rays were a little less harsh in the early sunset. I wish the leaves were just fractionally smaller, because they tend to be a little bit large for trees,” he said.

“It’s a list of trivial little things where, perhaps if you bring them all together it brings down the game a fraction. And that’s what I mean by that. I don’t think anybody in this world, whether you be a reviewer or someone who’s [worked in the industry for a long time], can sit looking at Fable [II] and say, ‘That is a perfect game set in a perfect world.’ Because it’s not.

“And I don’t know many games that are, or any games that are. And this is me being quite open and frank and honest about it.”

The developer said he’s being open about what he perceives to be as faults with Fable II as he caused “hype” in the run up to the first game.

“I’m not a PR person,” he said. “I may seem like a PR person because I’m in the press a lot, but I’m not. And when people like yourself or fans ask me about the game, I try to be as honest as possible.

I think especially after Fable 1, where to a certain extent people were right in believing that I got too excited about the game and that excitement came through as hype. It wasn’t meant as hype, and obviously the result was hype, but I didn’t mean to be dishonest or anything like that: I truly believed what i was saying.

I think this time round, I need to be more balanced.”

Fable II ships on October 24.

Speaking to Videogamer, Lionhead boss Peter Molyneux has all but confirmed Fable II DLC is on the way.

“Without any official announcements, I would say that we’d be pretty dumb not to plan it,” he said.

“What I would say, if we’re going to do DLC then I definitely don’t want it to be just a whole load of new weapons and armour. I just don’t want it to be that.

“It needs to be something a bit more tangible and it would be nice if you didn’t have to wait months and months for it as well.”

More through the link.

Peter Molyneux’s sent a letter to those reviewing Fable II in the US asking them to play the title with a person that “doesn’t play games” to see how they get on.

“I have a favour to ask you — we build this game not only to appeal to gamers like yourself, but to appeal to anybody,” he said. “So please, please, please, please, please find somebody who doesn’t play games, watch them play it and see how their world turns out, because I think it’s only when you see those differences that the unique experiences comes through.”

The developer also devoted two paragraphs to explaining that journalists won’t be able to review online co-op until it’s patched into the game, hopefully in the first week.

More on Variety.

Lionhead boss Peter Molyneux has told VG247 that all Fable II single-player saves are to be horded on one server for the purpose of filtering them back down in the game’s intriguing co-op “orb” system, that allows you to let players into your game through floating balls of light in your version of Albion.

“All the single-player games are accumulated up to this one server and then filtered back down to you,” said the developer.

You can filter the orbs you see in your game in many different ways, meaning you can only see people from your Friends List should you wish.

“There are a number of filters that filter down what orbs are seen in your world, and you can have up to 64 simultaneous orbs in your world at any one time.

“And they can be filtered down by region, so you can see the people that live locally and close to you, they can be your friends from your Friends List, they can be people with a similar game ranking as you, or I think there’s one – this is purely from memory, so I may be wrong here – for people in a similar state or progress in Fable II.”

Additional orbs filters may be added further along the line, too.

“If we could patch the code we could add any filter we liked,” said Molyneux.

“So we could, if we wanted to – not that you can – say everyone that likes the colour yellow, or everyone who dresses the same as your hero, or everyone who’s a woman: we could filter it down in a whole host of different ways.”

So, in answer to your question, Psychotext, if no one on your Friends List has Fable II, you just pick another filter and play co-op with someone that has.

The question in full was: “We know about the co-op orbs for people on your Friends List, but how does co-op work if you don’t have friends with the game?”

Few more to go yet.

Oh. Dear. According to this Kotaku piece, Game’s sent out emails in the UK informing that “the developer diary and soundtrack are no longer going to be available on the bonus DVD” of the Fable II Collector’s Edition.

This comes after Wednesday’s news that the “premium box, five printed fate cards, and Hobbe figure will not be available” as part of the pack.

So. If you’re buying the CE, this is what you’re going to get:

• Bonus DVD with new ‘Making-of’ Feature.
• Bonus in-game content (requires Xbox LIVE) including:
  . The Hall of the Dead Dungeon
  . The Wreckager Legendary Cutlass Weapon
  . Spartan armor and energy sword

And that’s that. More through the link.

After the break. It’s Peter and pals talking about jobs, money, clothes and getting married in Fable II. There’s a lot of detail in there about expressions and personality, and some bits about making evil kids.

Game’s out on October 24.

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Speaking to Videogamer, Lionhead boss Peter Molyneux has claimed that Fable II’s online co-op has only been possible because of the way Live’s structured, and that PS3′s online offering isn’t as “mature” as 360′s.

“The thing I love about the 360 more than anything is nothing to do with the hardware, it’s all to do with Live. Live is still underexploited for a game mechanic,” he said.

“Some of the stuff in Fable II we’re doing with co-op is only possible because of the way that Live is structured. I love playing around with that stuff as a designer.

“Whereas PS3 doesn’t seem to be quite so mature on that side. They haven’t got quite the same infrastructure and service but, you know, yeah, I’d love to get games on every platform.”

More through the link. As we reported this morning, Molyneux’s aim is to have online co-op patched into Fable II on its launch day.

Lionhead technical art boss Ian Lovett has told Eurogamer that Fable II’s original “visual mission statement” was that it was to be like Fable, “but done by Ridley Scott”.

“The idea behind that is that Microsoft understand Ridley Scott, they understand that this means that we wanted to mature the franchise a little bit. Not losing its charm, but basically trying to grow it up ever so slightly,” he said.

There’s more through that link, and a full interview here.

Peter Molyneux’s said that frankness over Fable II’s flaws has landed him in hot water with Microsoft, but defended himself by saying he’s just being honest.

“The point is I’m not a PR man,” he told Videogamer. “I’m just a developer. And when you sit down opposite people, people like yourself, and they look you in the eyes and they say ‘are you happy with absolutely everything in Fable II?’, I can’t hand on heart say that we have got a state of the art animation system. I mean our animation system’s pretty good.

“If I compare it to any other game we did before it’s stellar but is it the best it possibly can be? No. And we’ve got lots of excuses for that. Our animation is going on all over the world simultaneously and that’s why we can’t focus on one character.”

Microsoft was apparently less than impressed with his comments about “low points” in the game.

“I get into an awful lot of trouble for that,” he said. “Now Microsoft has put these PR policemen in the same room to make sure I don’t trip over myself. I do feel a sense of responsibility to people.”

More through the link.