The negative, to begin with – BUGS! Although I did not have as many problems as some of the other reviewers, there were a few missions where key personnel or items never appeared and a restart was required. Not from the beginning, thankfully, but I did lose about an hour of gameplay. I never tried co-op, however there were a number of bugs relating to that and people’s character getting reset when they joined the game of a new player.

Gameplay itself is flawed in several aspects. Social interactions are never that complex, or as deep as they were advertised to be. You may have just slaughtered an entire village, but as long as you tell a few fart jokes everyone will still be in love with you. Combat is based on the premise of “anyone should be able to play at any time, regardless of experience” and is far too simple – I found myself doing the same ranged/spell/melee combination for 90% of the game. It’s not that I was being cheap, but the fact that there really wasn’t an effective alternative.

Speaking of combat, you’ll be dealing with enough of it. One of the most annoying features is, like its predecessor, all of the enemies in a certain area will respawn once you leave that area. Combat’s easy enough so that it’s never a challenge, but it gets pretty annoying after the third time to kill the same exact bandits in the same exact spots.

The money system is incredibly flawed as well. Once you’re able to rent out a few houses, money will flow in even when you’re not playing, making jobs pretty pointless. Finally, and perhaps criminally, you can’t get ALL of the achievements without dishing out some money to pay for the Pub Games. This isn’t just a matter of buying DLC and the attached achievements, but an achievement that’s unachievable in the core game without playing the stupid minigames.

But, despite all that, Fable 2 is still a fun, but mindless game. Once I was able to get over the hype I was able to enjoy the game a little more thoroughly. The story is pretty dull, but some of the characters you’ll meet along the way are entertaining enough to make up for it. The “bread crumb trail” actually works pretty effectively, even though there are no quests complex enough that you actually require it. The moral choices through the game are usually pretty obvious, but as with the first one, it’s interesting to see the initially subtle changes your character undergoes as you proceed through your character’s life.

A lot of people hated the dog, but I found it was a nice addition to the game. No, I did not enjoy stopping every five minutes for something different to dig up, but the dog was somewhat useful in combat and made some of those re-treks through the largish world more bearable.

The game may be best as a rental, one of those games you and your buddy/significant other pick up over a long weekend with some junk food. However, there’s enough content in there to go back and try it again, just to see what it’s like to be a better/worse person. It definitely has its faults, but if you’re looking for a decent Western RPG with a little bit of charm and simple enough gameplay, you may want to look into Fable 2.