Played a good 4-5 hours (?) of this game over the weekend. (Got the the monk guy in Oaksomething). It's goofy fun, and extremely well made in most areas:
Amazing ideas/stuff:
1. Breadcrumbs: I think it's a crutch, but it makes the "openness" a lot more accessible. I like how I can always find my way back to the next objective, even if I ignore it and go on my merry way looking for treasure and stuff. I think that for most games, it's a crutch, but for this game it works well.
2. The dog. The dog is super awesome. (he clips through me like every 5 seconds though). Also the emotes are strange with the dog, I have to struggle to bring them up. But he's very very well done, and I care about my dog.
3. The level design. Without the breadcrumbs parts would definitely be too difficult to navigate, but they are very organic and beautiful looking. There's just enough freedom without being too open. Caves and such are beautiful looking.
4. Lighting. When it's not popping in and out randomly :lol (sense a trend?). But the sunrise and sunset and everything, it's very nice.
5. Creature design. I like what I've seen so far, everything has good personality.
6. Orb system/leveling system. Although it's kind of too much shit on the screen, it's a well thought out system.
7. Voice acting and personality of the characters in the game is excellent. I have a feeling that the story is going to be at least decent. You can't strike up a conversation with most people, which is kind of weird at first.
Cons:
1. Fuck this fucking shitty map. The breadcrumbs can't solve everything... damn it. You can't even mark stuff.
2. Too many glitchy sound and graphic problems, like one minute the voice volume is tooo fucking high, I turn it down and then the next cutscene it gets worse. Or special effects and such run at half the framerate. Really annoying. Pop-in isn't an issue 99% of the time.
3. Lack of use of 5.1. I never hear voices behind me.
4. Clipping through walls and stuff everywhere, my sister walked through walls 30 minutes into the game.
5. B button is both magic and cancel in menus... super super lame.
6. Context sensitive cross icon is really annoying. Never does what I want it to do, and the icons feel very random.
7. Overly active tutorial. YES I KNOW HOW TO LEVEL UP. But you don't want to turn it completely off, because you miss out on new stuff.
8. Using items sucks because the menu is sloow. I don't trust that context sensitive BS to come up with the right item. The menu is slow and clunky.
And I'm not sure about these elements either way:
1. The combat is too easy, but I think it's accessible. I like how it breaks things into ranged, close, and magic. I like the magic system (although everyone just kind of hangs back when you cast magic, which is silly). Although I wish there was a little bit more depth for hardcore people like me, I understand why it's made like this.
2. The emotes and renown system. It's goofy, but fun I guess. I have a feeling it will get boring after a while. Apparently, if you don't use them enough, you'll lack renown, and then you can't continue through the game.
3. Jobs. They feel like a waste of time, but you get caught up in them.
So I think this game is easy to nitpick, but the experience of playing it isn't all that bad. I just wish it was more polished. I really dislike games with so many little flaws, it really detracts from the experience. There's a LOT in the game, and it's very open, so I want to forgive it, but at the same time there are extremely annoying elements.
I have a feeling that the PC version on a really really nice rig will be a better experience. Shit won't lag as much, at least.
And that's my Fable II rant.
(Reeeeeeallly surprised this got a 10 in Eurogamer, with all of these glaring issues.)
