Fable II — Molyneux Strikes Back

Posted by | November 5, 2008

Recently released by Microsoft and Lionhead, Fable 2 is, of course, the sequel to the poorly realized trainwreck that was Fable. In both games, you take on the role of a young adventurer out to make his way in the world. However, the premise here is less about the journey and more the destination as your choices in the game affect what sort of person your fresh-faced and innocent young psychopath becomes.

Fable 2 takes this trick further by giving you more choices, such as the option to be male or female, and then nails you to the game by the base instincts with a lovable pooch who just happens to be part of the user interface. Not only are you given the task of managing morality in NotBritain, but no matter what you do, there will always be your canine companion, smiling up at you …

Keep reading »

1 Comment

The Vox ex Machinia Guide to Playing the Good Guy In Black & White Without Tearing Off Your Skull From the Inside

Posted by | November 25, 2007

For those who don’t know, Black & White is a god game dumped into the market by Lionhead Studios in 2001, roughly six years before it was actually ready for publication. I recently picked it up at the local used vendor for the respectable price of them paying me to take it out of their store. As this might imply, the game did not deliver on the majority of its promises, and was ejected from the gaming community as a whole with a speed not unlike the meteorite which wiped out the dinosaurs.

This judgment was, in fact, entirely fair because while Black & White promised an experience between raising your own baby Godzilla and bombarding your foes with holy wrath from space, what you actually got was an exercise in tedium broken only by your divine cow pooping on the temple to your magnificence. Again.

None the less, there is an …

Keep reading »

Comment