Once you create your character, their alignment and path in the world is entirely up to you. They can follow the path of good or evil. Become a citizen of Albion, get a job, find a wife or husband and raise a family. Eventually you will have to do some adventuring but even then, that doesn’t mean you have to follow the sometimes poor story, the mass of side-quests and repeatable assassinations or bounty hunting is huge. Not as big as other RPGs such as Oblivion but we wouldn’t want to scare the casual market with too much to do now would we?

The drop in drop out co-op mode where a friend takes the place of a henchman in your service is done well and is a nice added feature that has always been difficult to put effectively into an open RPG. The camera however, while in this mode can get annoying. The first player has control of it which remains in a fixed position, following the characters unless the first player presses RB in which case the camera faces the direction of the first player. As you can imagine, this can get very frustrating for the henchman.

This is a game with few flaws although, like any, it does have some. Annoyances such as the golden “bread crumb” path which points you where to go takes the fun out of exploring. This is, however optional and can be removed on the options menu. The biggest problem involves the levelling of your character. The same system of Strength, (skill with melee weapons) Skill, (skill with ranged weapons) and Will (skill with magical attacks) are used, however as your Strength increases so does your girth, it seems the designers have tried to make your character seem muscley but the overall effect simply makes them look fat. Therefore, to keep a hero looking the part you have to sacrifice the Strength of you hero.
Apart from a few small flaws which are no more than annoyances really, this game is an impressive display by Lionhead Studios and didn’t receive nearly enough publicity in my opinion. Fable II has set an example for other RPGs hoping to break into the casual gaming market.

8/10

Lewis