....for he is a woman that used to be a man.... in a dress.
I completed Fable II (finally) over the weekend. Despite the disappointing and abrupt ending, I really enjoyed the experience. It smoothed over the cracks from the first one (and made a few new ones all its own) and made it overall a very good game. My time with the game was artificially extended with my side quest indulgences, my two previous blogs about this game kind gives you a rundown of what my character was up to... He started as an overweight alcoholic gambler paying for his vices with money made from working as a really crappy blacksmith. Which was amusing, but ultimately I was just messing around. It was during this time that something happened - something I did not expect.
The dog. The dog managed to endear himself to me. At first, it's just more of a "okay, there's a dog, whatever..." but he really grew on me. Mostly I think because he was always there. So I was surprised that Molyneux's gimmick managed to do what he intended it to for me. Bravo.
In any case, as time went on and the story progressed, I would get distracted for long periods of time on these little sidequests - finding gargoyles, buying properties, opening the demon doors, the crucible, the shooting range, etc., etc., all of it was fun - although the property income eventually makes the games a lot less challenging since it's perpetual, game on or off. You're making money.
At some point, I started a family with a hooker I met outside of a hotel in Westcliff. Whether or not I have prophesized my own future or not remains to be seen. Anyhow, I left her to her own devices for the most part and kept on doing what I was doing. On my first visit back she gave me an experience potion that was gave over 60,000 xp. My trips home became much more frequent, which finally generated some kind of demon, red headed stepchild. I say this, because 1 - the kid was redheaded and 2 - looked nothing like me. This means that she must have cheated on me while I was away, and now I had to pay for the result. Maury, where were you on that one!? :evil:
From that point, I had all but finished the story, expecting something on an epic scale, as I was told returning to the mansion in Bloodstone meant that any active quests I had going would not be able to be completed afterwards - I spent a lot of time wrapping things up, and maxing out all of my abilities. I completed everything I could with a few exceptions; I thought would surely still be available in the end game. (I was right)
Off I went to finish this....
The story kind of lost me here - it took a weird question mark-like turn into the land of "WTF?" I mean, I got it - I understood what was going on, I think, but I still had to ask... WHY?
[spoiler] So Lucien shows up after I, I guess take the other heroes powers (?), and tells me that he's killed my family (caused genuine anger in me! wow!) then as he was about to kill me, my dog jumps in the way, and he kills him too! Bastard! (RAGE) :evil: Then he kills me. Again. Here I get, I guess a glimpse into my hero's life before he was an dirty street urchin. Then it's on to the Spire, where I was listening to Lucien give a speech about a better world, and kittens or something, then Reaver shot him... Once. Then the game was over.... I was hoping for a battle to the death, but no. I chose the Sacrifice. My original intent was to reload, and get the other two endings, but I screwed that up too. Afterwards, I wandered around, checked out my newest statue, and went and bought Fairfax Mansion. In here, they wanted me to sleep in the bed. They were INSISTANT that I do this. So I did - then bandits broke in, and I ended up in one of the tombs under the city. This is where I discovered my save was now moved to when I slept on that damn bed. So I decided to just roll with it, let the chips fall where they may and all that. At the end of this tomb is a potion that will change your gender, permanently. I didn't want to do this, but I thought there might be an achievement for it, so I took it with the intention of reloading back to the bed... but NO. No achievement, and worst of all, it saves FOR you right after you change! :evil: :evil: :evil: Now, having severed any and all attachment to this character, I decided to go ahead and destroy everything in sight, and work on getting the rest of the achievements. I got the polygamist right away since it was easy. I killed one of my spouses and began to run amuck in Bloodstone, killing everyone in my path. I jacked up rent, and was really starting to enjoy myself - then... after casting a level 5 fire spell... the screen went black. I felt an eyebrow involuntarily arch, and my eyes focused intently on the ring on my 360. "Oh... TURN RED! I ******* DARE YOU! TURN RED, YOU MOTH... "*ahem* Turns out it was just frozen - and it corrupted my Fable II save - however so relieved was I that my 360 wasn't bricked - I didn't care as much as you would think. [/spoiler]
After that whole debacle - I picked up Lost Odyssey again - I was on disc 4, and very near the end... however it had been SO long since I had last played it, I had NO CLUE where I was, or what I was supposed to be doing. I quickly lost interest and moved on.
While I should have probably tried to figure out LO so I could get it out of my backlog, I opted for Assassins Creed on a technicality. I have played and beaten this game already - however, I did so on a guest account late 2007 when live was down for like a week after xmas. So it is not reflected on my Gamertag. I will now remedy this.
The key to enjoying AC, because it's so repetitive, is moderation, which works out nicely for me since my gaming time is severely limited, and that's precisely how I enjoyed it the first time around.