Fable 2

[conmcb25]

The 16 year old gave it the thumbs up. I didn't get many details because he had to go to a banquet tonight for marching Band.

[Felch]

After playing for a few hours and seeing the first few towns, I have to say this is sweet. The areas are a good deal bigger and more open than the original, the dog is different in a very good way, and the balance seems all right.

Even taking a job in town is more fun than it sounds. You do a little "hit the sweet spot" mini-game and make money while waiting for dawn. And owning property is a lot better now that you don't have to collect money. It just magically appears in your pocket every five minutes.

I've got to work tomorrow, but I can see the rest of my week getting sucked away.

[DrSpike]

I read a few more reviews - it looks interesting but I'm pretty concerned about the easy combat and lack of progression mechanics requing meaningful tactical choices.

As I said above, I think I'll go for Fallout 3 first.

[Asher]

Still sold out here...

[conmcb25]

Originally posted by DrSpike
I read a few more reviews - it looks interesting but I'm pretty concerned about the easy combat and lack of progression mechanics requing meaningful tactical choices.

Bold by me.

After watching the game for all of 10 minutes last night while the 16 yr old played after he got back from the banquet, I believe you may have reason to be concerned.

It seemed like his character with a sword was easily killing multiple opponents with no difficulty whatsoever.

I honestly don't know if thats because he already had a lot of experience and was killing easy bad guys or not. But with a laymans eye and not much observation it looked pretty easy.

[Felch]

I'm hoping it's just early in the game. Things got a bit trickier in the first one, once the minions came out. Although it was never really hard.

[Boris Godunov]

I started the game with 69,000g thanks to pub games. It feels like a cheat, because I could easily afford the best weapons available so far, as well as buying numerous properties to rent out and get income. So I can't tell if combat really is too easy, because my weapons are better than I guess I would ordinarily have.

I'm having minor trouble with the controls. It's all to easy for me to accidentally set off a spell in the middle of town, scaring the crap out of the townspeople. Doesn't seem like the controls are as well-handled as before.

The dog is cool, but you can't target him for expressions. So if a bunch of people are around, it's tough to interact with him.

Only other complaint is the camera angles can get really wonky at times, and there's no way to really adjust.

[Felch]

Combat got a bit harder for me after I beat the Ritual quest. I think it just starts out a bit easy to let people get used to it.

I'm with you on accidentally scaring villagers. I keep pressing B as a cancel button, and keep winding up summoning undead. The Y button actually is used to look at villager's data, and sometimes I accidentally whip out my rifle instead. They should have mapped those to other functions when the safety feature is on.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Felch
I'm with you on accidentally scaring villagers. I keep pressing B as a cancel button, and keep winding up summoning undead.

Although, one must admit that's a pretty hilarious "oops."

[DrSpike]

Damn, is summoning undead considered a social faux pas?

[Felch]

I've got the "Fearmonger" title for doing it too much. I like how the game does reward you for goofing off like that.

[Boris Godunov]

Asher totally snubbed me online today.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
Asher totally snubbed me online today.

That was my SO playing actually, I was on the PC playing Fallout 3 behind him and I saw you floating around. I don't think he mentioned you sending an invite of any kind, but we did see your ugly-ass orb floating around. He was becoming a 5-star smith at the time and you and another of our friends was hanging around at the time too.

Did you send an invite or something like that? He says he doesn't recall seeing one.

[DrSpike]

So how are people finding this after a few days?

I saw it for £29 and was tempted, but want to prioritise Fallout 3, GoW2 and RB2.

[Felch]

It's good, but I can only play one awesome game at a time. I suppose once I get bored of Fallout I'll bounce back.

October was a great month.