Fable 2

Most Improved Lousy Franchise. Worth: $50
based on 360 retail

Now they've got it right!

Six years ago I read about a game called Fable, a sprawling, wide-open world for you to live your own character and paint your own stories. Like Morrowind and Oblivion but with it's own tongue-in-cheek humor and Sims-like personal interactions. Sounds awesome, right?

Wrong! I played the first game and it was a linear, low-choice, mediocre adventure game populated entirely by humunculi. The GamerGal liked it enough, but I barely did one play-through. I was terribly disappointed, it just sucked. So when I heard about F2 I said "Whatever, I'll wait for the GamerGal to pick it up and I'll just watch her play." Sequels are never better than the originals anyway, right?

Wrong! F2 totally rocks with everything Fable 1 was supposed to have but didn't. Great: stories, game mechanics, camera, characters, writing, music, and art direction. It's also got several terrific innovations I've never seen before:

- You earn money in real time, even if the console is turned off. So if you've bought some shops or houses in the game, your character continues to rake in the cash, all of which you collect in a lump sum when you continue your game.

- Co-op is (mostly) perfect and very flexible. Drop-in drop-out, locally or online. I actually just helped the GamerGal with something in her game, and I used my character's stats from my gamesave! I even earned money and XP!

- You can un-apply XP (50% of it anyway) and re-apply it to another skill, anytime, wherever you happen to be.

Fable 2 is the game Fable 1 wanted to be, and as such, it's a _great_ game.

One caveat: it's not for kids unless they already know about condoms, extra-marital sex, swingers, gangland murder contracts, prostitutes, and divorce. You don't see any nudity, of course, but all this content makes the game truly for mature players only, I'd say 16+ for city mice, 18+ for country mice.