Fable II See The Future Review: Wear Shades
Slapped with the moniker "See the Future", the latest Fable II DLC takes players back to Albion and lets them do just that: See the future.
"See The Future" adds four new quests, 13 new Achievements, new character duds and new hides for your mutt. Fable II's hero is given cursed items by Huxter Murgo the Trader. Your job: Lift the curses.
Is that reason enough to go back to Albion? Or should you stay away?
Loved
More Fable II: As flawed as Fable II is, we did enjoy the game and its universe. Being back in Albion with a story and stuff that needs to be done is a pleasure.
Doesn't Feel Rushed: The last Fable II DLC, "Knothole Island"? That seemed cranked out rather quickly — half-baked. "See The Future", while short, shows care, depth and polish.
New Doggy Skins: As important as the mutt is supposed to be in Fable II, we were also slightly disappointed in our lack of cainine selection. Finally, we get the Bloodhound we've always wanted. There are also new outfits in the game, but hey, that's to be expected.
See the Future: We sure saw the future. It's a future that Fable designer Peter Molyneux has hinted at multiple times — stuff like that the Fable franchise may not remain a role-playing-game. Molyneux told us, "If we were to take the franchise even further, going on from Fable II, I'm not announcing anything, but if you play See the Future you're going to be getting a flavor at what's going to be happening. My ideal is what I would want to happen is something big."
Raise The Dead Isn't Your Default Spell: A spell that always worked like charm for us was pretty ineffective for us in one quest in particular. We liked the challenge of figuring out why that old chestnut didn't work. That being said, it decimated pretty much everything else elsewhere.
Hated
Orbs: Remember those orbs in Fable II? Not the experience orbs that pop out of people when you kill them, but the ones you've gotta shoot or hit or whatever to make something happen. We hated them. They're busy work! Guess what, they're back. There's once painful segment where you have to shoot a single orb around to show you where to go. Think kick the can — without the joy of actually kicking a can.
Uneven Difficulty: Some of the quests are, what's a nice way to put it, too easy? It's to the point where you're left going, that's it? Other quests are right where they should be for a Fable game. We would've liked a more evenly paced experience.
See the Future: That's why were here, right? We're here to see the future. But, the cutscene plays once, and if you've zoned our momentarily, you'll miss it. Or you'll see it, and it won't sink in right away. And considering how the cutscene is really a gianormous hint about the future of Fable, it would be nice to be able to revisit or re-watch.
Depending on how fast you breeze through the new content, you could get up to a couple hours of gameplay; completists will obviously get much more. We got a little over two hours of play from "See The Future" — but then again, we didn't exactly rush through it.
"See The Future" leaves us wanting to do just that: See more of the Fable universe in whatever form it takes — whether that be RPG or Peter Molyneux coming full circle by turning the series into a God game.
See the Future was developed by Lionhead Studios and published by Microsoft Game Studios for the Xbox 360, released on May 12. Retails for 560 Microsoft Points (US$5.75). Played through all four quests.
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