When last we saw Peter Molyneux and his promise-filled Fable 2 at GDC, he just would not stop talking about his dog. I should know, I was there. And you know what? He made a believer out of me. But this time, in a hotel room at E3, he showed off two things teenage boys are probably much more interested in: fighting and death.
He teased us about death back in May, but this time he actually elaborates. There is no death. Instead, your character gets beaten until he collapses. Then he (or she) gets beaten some more. And more. Continuously beaten until you get up. How do you get up? By paying for it in either experience or gold. How fast you get up, and presumably continue fighting and killing your enemies, depends on how much money you pay. Pay a lot, get up fast. Pay a little, lie on the ground for, say, sixty seconds.
So what's the consequence of not getting up fast? You get scarred. SCARRED. Irreversibly scarred. And the more scars you have, the more townsfolk, villagers, barristers and women despise you. Unless they're in some kinda weird scar club, which is still as of yet not confirmed to be in the game.
The inspiration for all this is, strangely enough, birthed from the scene in the latest James Bond movie where Bond is repeatedly punished in the genital area. Hard. And did we say repeatedly? Molyneux saw that Hollywood took their heroes beat them to a pulp, but never killed them. They would be scarred, sometimes irreversibly so, but never killed (unless you work with Jack Bauer). So why not take this mechanic and put it into Fable 2?
Since most of the game is spent in an effort to not die, let's talk about combat next. Molyneux says that in an RPG game, at least 50% of your playtime is going to be in combat. So he wanted to make a combat system that was both robust and accessible. The way he did that was by mapping just about every attack function (melee, at least) to the A button. It's definitely simple, and it's definitely button masher friendlysomething P. M. said he wanted to embracebut there's also a lot to do.
First, mashing the button just keeps you swinging and swinging. The AI will figure out your patterns and block most of your attacks, but some may get through. Timing presses correctly, while the enemy isn't blocking, is the key. Then there's blocking, which consists of holding down X. Holding down the attack button for a while gives you flourishes, which are essentially charged up moves.
If you want to get fancy, there's A and a direction for thrusts, and if you time everything correctly (A, hold A, or thrust A) you'll get a cool camera change that zooms in on the action. There's even a narrow focus to give it even more "dramatic effect". And on top of that, the battle music changes and adds drums, which supposedly is controlled by the rhythm of your attacksor button mashes. It all comes together pretty cohesively.
However, Molyneux claims that the system is on par with say, a Virtua Fighter, but we don't quite agree. It's deep, sure, but it's not exactly at a Soul Calibur-esque level. But you do get to break items and throw stuff at enemies all with the same attack button. And although magic and ranged weapons weren't demoed, he says they work in much the same context-sensitive way as melee attacks.
As for the engine itself, it's also looking pretty good. Lips, as he pointed out himself, look like rubbish. And so does lighting on certain characters. But buildings, streets, breakable objects, flowers, character animations, and the general environment looked fantastic.
Is this the second of the big three things Peter Molyneux has in store for Fable 2? What's the third thing? I can't wait to find out.
