Fable II (Xbox 360)

Albion is a world that won't remain static either, based on your actions at certain pivotal moments in the story, you can transform a gutter town into a thing of beauty or let it rot like the cesspool that you want it to be. You can help or hinder the guards by taking Bounty Hunting jobs or Civilian Displacement missions. You can be a true hero or just an angry anti-hero with a score to settle using people as tools to get to the final goal. There really is a fair bit of choice even if it's simple stuff. You can transform an area by spending lots of money on it, raise the economy and you'll change the way the traders price their wares and the quality of their goods.

You can influence people in a similar way, perform the right expressions and they'll be putty in your hands. Of course this can lead to a lot of people falling in love with you, following you around Bowerstone with doe-like eyes and twittering incessantly about how they really want a ring. As your life transforms you can live it how you want, a free spirit on the road with just you and your dog. Or you can choose to raise a family, marry a man or a woman (no matter your gender) or just sleep around (having protected or unprotected sex).

Fable 2 allows you to play as a male or female character too.

Fable 2 is a nice looking game, it's got some gorgeous vistas and because it has a day/night cycle there are some stunning visual moments (there can be some frame drop from the special effects, but it's minor). The main character graphics aren't bad at all and as expected from PM and Lionhead, the animations for the game are top notch. The combat is well animated and becomes more fluid when you gain flourishes and learn the tricks of the combat system. The architecture and model design is also top-notch, there are several unique characters to look out for and some of the models are amusing. Visit Bloodstone for instance and look at the male prostitute there.

To marry with the visual aspect, the audio aspect is likewise excellent with some beautiful spot effects and ambient sounds. Lionhead has taken a great deal of time and effort to reward the player who explores or loiters around a camp or city at night. There are some truly choice moments of dialogue that can be heard only when folks are sleeping in their beds during the late hours of Albion's night time. The voice acting is quality along with performances from the likes of Stephen Fry (Reaver) and Zoe Wanamaker (Theresa), even Ron Glass is along for the ride (Shepherd Book from Firefly) as Garth the magician.

There are some moments where the dialogue gets repeated from the various minor npcs, but for the most part they offer different speeches. It's usually when they desire a good time or marriage that things repeat, or when you perform an expression that they like. I can forgive Lionhead for this since the game is pretty massive to begin with and the voice acting simply lends even more life to a world that could be extremely barren without it. As for the music, the Danny Elfman Fable theme is there in all its glory and the rest of the music compares favourably to that and matches it nicely.