Fable II takes place roughly 600 years after the events in the first Fable, with the implication being that your hero from the first game chose the path of Good. Time has not been kind to the land of Albion: The Hero's Guild is only a faint memory, destroyed by the people of the world after the heroes fell into corruption and decadence. Technology has advanced, firearms have replaced the bow and arrow, and photographs have started to replace the portrait. You come into this world as an unnamed orphan, either male or female, the last descendant of the Heroes of Old. You are attacked and betrayed by Lord Lucian Fairfax, ruler of the town in which you live, who has a plan for world domination. It's up to you to stop him by reviving the old Hero's Guild and returning to Albion the ways of Strength, Skill and Will.

As in Fable, you're give the ability to influence the moral path your character takes. In addition to the classic Good and Evil, you also have a choice between Purity and Corruption, which comes across as a bit odd. Purity involves doing things like selling items at a discount, eating tofu and drinking spring water, and generally living a chaste life of goodness and sacrifice, while Corruption involves price-gouging, eating meat, and looking out for yourself. It's possible to be Good and Corrupt or Evil and Pure, although that is pretty unlikely. In the end, it basically comes across as two Good/Evil meters, except one bizarrely implies that you're corrupt if you eat meat. As with the original Fable, it's really quite easy to get your meters maxed out, so it isn't really something to stress about.

One of the most surprising things about Fable II is that it is one of the few games where making a choice to be good actually has an influence on your character that isn't wholly positive. In most modern games, the choice between good and evil is without any real bite. You can be a saint of saints in Mass Effect, and the only real difference is that you might get slightly less cash out of the deal, and you'll usually get rare items to make up for it. This is not quite the case in Fable II. Being selfless and good in Fable II requires actual sacrifice, both by the character and the player. While there are a good number of "good or evil" choices, a few revolve around the concept of sacrifice. If you want to stick to heroic morality and be a good guy, you're going to have to permanently lose some things. It's surprising and interesting to actually be asked to make a real sacrifice instead of the Bioshock method of delayed gratification. If all you care about is the Good meter, however, it's pretty easy to dump a boatload of cash to the Temple of Light and get it maxed out again, so the choice is a bit dulled.

With that out of the way, the main quest in Fable II is easily the game's weakest feature. It's exceptionally short, and if you're just trying to get through the plot, which is slightly boring and sort of incoherent, you could easily do it in a day. The amusing characters and a few strong moments help keep things clear, but they're few and far between, and the final boss fight is anticlimactic. If you're buying the game for the main plot, you're going to be disappointed. Fable II is more of a sandbox, with the plot existing primarily to introduce you to new areas in which to play around. The side-quest plots are amusing and enjoyable, often involving eccentric characters who are doing goofy or silly things; while the humor is a bit juvenile, it maintains such a cheerfully silly atmosphere that I found myself doing more side-quests to see how the characters would be. You receive prizes of cash or items for doing the side-quests, but the primary reason to do them is for fun.

Fable II's combat is slightly simpler than it was in the last game, and it's easy for anyone to pick up and play. It uses a simple four-button combat style, where each of the face buttons is bound to a specific kind of attack, and everything involved in that attack comes from using that one button. The X button, for example, is for strength and is used for close-range melee attacks. Pressing X attacks, holding it blocks, holding it and aiming toward an enemy performs a flourish attack, and so on. Pounding the enemy with your sword is a quick way to win fights, although it starts to become less useful as the game progresses.

The Y button is bound to your skill weapon, which is a ranged combat weapon. The world of Albion has advanced technologically since the first game, and bows have been replaced with various kinds of firearms. Your hero can equip pistols, rifles, or Blunderbusses, which function as the game's shotgun, in addition to old-fashioned crossbows. Pressing Y fires your weapon at the enemy, and as you level up your character's skill abilities, holding Y will put the game into an over-the-shoulder third-person view, where a crosshair appears and you can manually target enemies. Further advancements allow you to zoom in and target specific parts of the enemy's body so you can decapitate an enemy or blow off a zombie's body parts. Zooming in is kind of worthless until you get the ability to target body parts, at which point your skill weapon becomes absolutely devastating.

The B button is bound to your will powers, which are easily the biggest change from the last game. Fable II has done away with any sort of limited magic bar, so you can cast magic to your heart's content, although that doesn't mean it doesn't have its weaknesses. Magic is now charged; you equip a specific spell from the menu screen, and that spell is bound to your level 1 charge. Pressing B instantly activates the level 1 spell, which is weak but fast. When you get a level 2 spell, you can begin to charge magic; holding B slowly charges your spells, which allows them to reach up to level 5, with each charged level being substantially more powerful than the last.

Combat in Fable II is significantly more balanced than in the first game. It's really quite possible to play a skill-based or will-based character now, although in any build, you'll be using a lot of all three groups anyway. Will powers get pretty ridiculously powerful once you begin getting higher levels and chaining spells together. While you start off a bit weak, once you start developing a good set of tactics, you'll tear through most enemies without any real difficulty. Combat near the endgame is a bit too reliant on casting a super-powerful spell and watching every enemy die. Death is almost never a concern; I had to intentionally let an enemy kill me to see what death did, since not a single fight in the game put me at risk, especially once I gained easy access to resurrection vials.

One of the more interesting parts of the game is how leveling works. Your stats are raised by spending experience orbs, which come in four colors: blue, green, red and yellow. Blue, red and yellow correspond to strength, will and skill, respectively, while green is "generic" experience that works for all three. The kind of attack you use to hurt an enemy determines the kind of orbs you get. Magic spells cause enemies to drop red orbs, pistol blasts yellow orbs, and so on. Once you've got enough orbs, you can spend them to level up that particular stat, which influences your character's combat abilities and his looks. Strength characters become beefier, will characters get glowing blue lines of magic on their skin, and skill characters get tall and lanky. A nice change from Fable is that you can level up anywhere now, instead of having to return to the guild. In addition to that, you can also "unbuy" skills, which returns half of the used experience orbs to your inventory, so if you end up focusing in something you don't like, you're not completely doomed.

Perhaps the biggest disappointment in Fable II came from the much-hyped dog. Early in the game, your character rescues a dog from a bully, and from that point on, the animal remains a constant companion. The dog doesn't really do much, though, aside from following you around, occasionally barking at treasures, or telling you where to dig to find a treasure. That's about the sum total of its usefulness. It sometimes fights enemies in combat, but nothing that is particularly helpful, and you won't miss it during the periods of the game when you're dogless. You can give it treats or teach it tricks, but they mostly exist for your own amusement and don't really help out at all. I never really grew to care for it, and I'm someone who is easily swayed by cute animals in games. It never acted like a real dog, and there was no illusion that it was anything but a gameplay element, so the game's attempts at making me care for it didn't work.

The actual RPG adventure elements of Fable II are a bit lacking. The main quest is lackluster, the combat quickly degenerates into simplicity, and it doesn't feel really necessary to perform side-quests for money and items when you can get by with the most basic weapons and a strong magic spell. Where you'll have the most fun in Fable II is exploring and fooling around with the game elements that don't involve your dramatic quest for justice or vengeance. When you're hanging around the towns and exploring the various mini-features, Fable II starts to show its chops.

The towns in Fable II are quite alive. There are countless townspeople, each with his own likes and dislikes. A lot of them are pretty cookie-cutter, but there are a few memorable folks scattered among the regular townspeople, and it's still fun to get to know everyone in a village. You can even nickname townsfolk, if you like, and there are even a few rewards for doing this. Certain townsfolk will give you presents if they feel a certain way about you. You can choose to try to woo them, make them laugh, scare them, or various other things to alter their feelings toward your character. Alter them enough and you'll get a present, which can range from a useless healing trinket to a permanent discount at a shop. Some characters may even want to marry you. Gay marriage is an option in Fable II, so if you're playing a good character, expect to see both genders chasing after you with hearts over their heads.

Marriage is a pretty simple thing. If you're playing a good character, most townspeople will fall in love with you without any effort on your part. Even if you need to put forth effort, you can do it by spamming a few expressions or giving them a present, which will quickly raise their favorable meter. Once you've got a spouse in mind, simply give a ring to her, take her to a house you own, and you're settled in. From that point on, keeping her (or him!) happy is your goal, or else you could be facing a divorce! Spending the night with your partner can even result in a child being born. There is no adventuring as a pregnant female hero; there is just a quick cut scene, and a baby cradle appears in your house. The attempts to make you care about your spouse and child work significantly better than the game's attempts to make you care about your dog, probably because you interact with them less, so their weird AI doesn't stand out quite as much. I had a few weird glitches, including a strange moment when my character's spouse got angry, divorced him, and then quickly changed her mind, existing in a weird state of being happy and content until I left the area, at which point the game informed me that a divorce had occurred. It was very strange indeed.

One of the big elements that has been expanded and changed from the first Fable is the concept of real estate ownership. In the first Fable, you could buy a couple of houses and occasionally decorate them with trophies, which was amusing but pointless. Fable II takes the concept and runs with it, allowing you to purchase any building in Albion, from a modest gypsy hut to the lord's castle. Buying a house allows you to rent it out or move in yourself. Renting out the house is a great way to make money; you receive a monthly rent and can do certain things to improve the value of the house, such as buy furniture or make friends with the tenants, which allows you to sell the house for a tidy profit. Moving into the house, however, has its own benefits. Each house has a specific set of abilities bound to it, such as a speed boost, health regeneration, and increased strength. Houses can also have bad effects, though, such as decreasing your attractiveness or causing you to more easily become corrupt. You can buy objects that will change the effect of your houses. If you get married and move in with a spouse, the effect of that house increases, and this bonus is further enhanced if you have a child. Keeping a happy and healthy family isn't just for good feelings; it gives you bonuses as well.

Stores, on the other hand, have a very different effect. When you buy a store, you can start making a profit from it, much like renting the houses. Rented stores will continue to generate income, and you can choose to adjust their overall prices. Lowering the prices below the average increases your purity, while raising them above the average will get you more profit, but also causes corruption. Buying certain stores or businesses may even unlock special items or quests to which you wouldn't normally have access. On top of that, you'll get an owner's discount. These businesses are expensive, and actually affording them will take you quite a while, although there are some things you can do to alter the price. The money you spend in a town can change its economy, which may raise or lower the price of the business. If you're a particularly well-liked hero, you may get a discount. If you're willing to dirty your hands, you can even kill the current owner, which tends to drive down the price quite a bit.

Outside of interacting with the townsfolk and owning property, there's a lot of random, fun stuff to do in Fable II. You can take on a number of jobs, such as blacksmithing or wood chopping, which involve playing quick time mini-games for cash. If you get good at these, they can yield some pretty amazing amounts of money. For example, one good run at level 5 blacksmithing earned me enough money to buy some of the better equipment the very first time I came upon a town. You can also take on various other kinds of part-time jobs — such as assassinations, bounty hunting, kidnapping or rescue missions — which are more dangerous, but offer a lot of money for a little work, in addition to unlocking other features.

At the time of this review, the Fable II online features are not available. The Xbox Live co-op will be patched sometime shortly after the game is released, but the online features that are working are fairly interesting. Other players will appear as "orbs" in your game world, floating around in the same area where they are adventuring in their own games. By interacting with these orbs, you can trade items or chat. Once the patch is out, you'll be capable of player co-op by inviting one of those friends into your version of Albion. By doing this, you can gain a helping hand in combat or see events you couldn't see in your own Albion, which can be used to get Achievements.

The graphics in Fable II are quite good, for the most part. The character animations are smooth and charming, the areas are lush and vibrant, and most of the visuals are top-notch. There were a few cases of weird animation bugs, but nothing actually detracted from the gameplay. The amount of customization available for your character is quite nice; you can select gender, hair style, and then customize your clothing and hair color with various dyes. There were a few nasty cases of slowdown in the review build, but only when I was casting very busy spells in the middle of a crowd of enemies.

The music is the same sort of clichéd fantasy soundtrack that Fable used, and a lot of the same tunes make a return here. The same goes for the voice acting, which assumes, like the original Fable, that everyone has the same Cockney accent. You're also going to hear the same voice actors a lot, and the townsfolk really could use more variety in the things that they say. The characters from the main quest have pretty good voices, and there are no bad or distracting voices.

Fable II is almost easier to classify as a sandbox game than as an RPG. The main plot and combat don't exactly stand out and are perhaps the title's weakest points. Fable II is short and easy, and the plot is mostly boring. Fable II isn't a game you buy to finish, but a game that you buy if you want to goof around. It's a game where the most fun is had while interacting with townsfolk, mastering your blacksmithing skill, buying houses, or doing bizarre side-quests, like helping a lonely gravekeeper create a female Frankenstein or helping Farmer Giles find a girlfriend for his son Rupert. Fable II is a game that encourages you to do anything but finish the main story, and considering how dull that story is, you'll probably be glad to agree.

Score: 8.5/10