Fable 2 Review

So I finally finished Fable 2. Without cheats okay!!?? Unlike Ammar who is a known cheater in-game and in the real world too. So I'm going to write a personal review on what I think about the game as a whole. So I'm gonna cover all the aspects of the game if possible in the least amount of words possible.

The Hype
Yes, this game is one of the most awaited games for the XBOX 360. It's a console exclusive which means it's only available on the XBOX 360. I have to say that Microsoft's bottomless pockets have managed to save this console from being another Dreamcast. We all know how that went, and even after all the hardware failures going around it still managed to survive. Which is really an amazing feat in the gaming world.

Enough of Microsoft and straight to the Lionhead Studios's RPG sequel to the epic Fable. I had a lot of expectations from this game. I really wanted it to be good since the first one was already great but had lots to improve on. But after playing a lot of games that were all talk and no show I was keeping my fingers crossed from the minute I inserted the game disc into my XBOX.

The First Impression
I was greeted with a very simplistic Fable 2 game title as the intro and a fairly simple start menu with a rolling illustrated background. As soon as I started a new game and you get to choose either to be a boy or a girl which was a pretty cool extra. After that it was straight to business. The cutscenes were of course mostly narrated illustrations following true to the first fable. Which is kinda cool actually. I always liked the mood in the Fable world. So far so good.

The story starts off with you in your childhood years with your elder sister in a town called Bowerstone. I'm not sure but I think this was about a few hundred years after the first Fable. Okay, so you guys are homeless kids living in the streets with no parents obviously, trying to find a way to get to the castle. A few simple tasks later to get you used to the controls and how the game works you finally get yourself a little trinket from a travelling merchant. Blah blah blah, you got shot, your sister dies and you're picked up by this weird blind woman and the game starts.

The Game
So now let's talk about the game itself. Graphics-wise it's leaps and bounds from the first one. You get a lot more dynamic chatter and interactions from the people in the game which is actually one of the main attractions.

The world of Albion as they call it in Fable is a really pretty one. It's much bigger and the attention to detail is astounding. Even the posters on the walls are high-res textures, and the Havok engine gives some really cool ragdoll effects and gives you a lot of fun bashing thing around.

You won't really get to see how much work they put into this game until you play it all over again after you've won. The character detail, the emotions, and how they react to you. What the little choices you make affect the world in a few years. And all the other little things you'll discover the more you get into the game.

The Gameplay
The battle system this time is a bit different. Although it still retains the same stats of Strength, Skill and Will. But the way that all of the three manage to play a part in battle works. Unlike the first Fable in which I really think raising the Willpower has no benefits except for the healing perk. This time the whole thing integrates so well with the battle system that it's just seamless. I could spend all day just spamming magics and combo-ing with my gun and sword.

The experience system is also quite interesting cuz this time we have what they call in the game the "General Experience". So what this means that apart from the three main experience orbs that are specifically for each attribute. This general experience can be added up to any of the three. Which really helps cuz you won't be able to use much of the will powers at first cuz they're pretty weak on the first couple of levels but are real killers once you maxed them out. Crowd control anyone?

The Brute
So what I'm trying to say here is that although all these three battle styles integrate so well together. They are very-very different in its own sense. For instance, the Strength attribute. The melee battle style includes rythm based attacks which you can chain together for faster attacks. Flourishes, which are basically really strong blows in which you have to charge and release to break enemy blocks, and of course counters and reversals. Top it off with a few types of melee weapons to play with, Clubs, Maces, Axes, Swords, Cleavers, etc. Now these are already a lot to experiment with but wait! We're not done yet!

The Thief
On the agility side in which the game refers to Skill. Focuses on of course the speed of your attacks and how accurate(powerful) your ranged weapons get. You get a choice of crossbows, pistols and rifles. Now all the three types have different pros and cons to meet with your style of playing.

As you progress through this skill type you'll be able to unlock things like instant reloads to chain your shots faster, aiming capabilities, zooming and the coolest part, you can even get to shoot specific parts on an enemy body. Yeah baby, I'm talking disarming the enemy with a shot to its arm and decapitations with headshots. Oh yeah!!!

And you get the roll ability which is just what it is. To dodge enemy attacks.

The Mage
Now whne you first get into the game, it's kinda hard to pick which one of the attributes to spend those extra general experiences on. I just wanna say, spend them on your will. Cuz it's kinda hard to kill enemies with this skill until you max it out. Now that's when you get to rain havoc and death to your enemies!! Trust me, you won't regret it. :D And there are several different types of spells to experiment with. And couple that with customizable spell slots which you can flip through on the fly. It makes for really interesting battles.

The Story
The storyline this time around is much-much darker. The first one was dark but this time it's wayy darker which is good in a way but it just gets worse and worse as you get further in the game. Up to a point of being somewhat disturbing.

You'll be facing a lot of choices in the game. Most of the time testing your morality. The way they make you decide is really something you have to experience yourself. Some of the choices you make might even affect the Albion world in the future.

The Possibilities
Apart from the main game. There are jobs for you to do to gain money. You can do side quests such as bounty hunting, tricking villagers into slavery, murdering them to get their stuff and make the prices on their house fall so that you can buy them. Get married, have sex, have kids. Own mansions. Kick chickens. Bring the economy of a city down or up. Buy all of the real estate in the game. Have orgies. Be famous and get the people to cheer when they see you, the kids will even ask for autographs which you can actually give. lol! Be a funny guy. Be a scary guy. Be a goth. Be a cross-dresser. Be a saint. Be the devil. Woohh!!! There's just so many things going on in the game.

The Pros
All of the above. but all in all I have to say that this is a must have game for any XBOX 360 owner who has and haven't played the first game. The limited edition set even gives you a Halo suit with an Energy Blade for your game character too apart from other little trinkets. How awesome is that!??

The Cons
Ah, now we come to the bad side of things. There are some bugs which really spoils the game. If you want to enjoy the game fully. I advise to update the game before you play it. Other than that it has to be the framerate. It lags a lot and the framerate drops to alarmingly when there are a lot of mobs and when you spam your magic. The in-game menu is a bit slow to load which is a pain cuz you're gonna be using it a lot. No on-screen map which is a major pain. And finally the inventory is like a high-school kid's locker. You can find everything there but it takes a bit more time than you would like lol.

As an end note. I hope they fix most of the things with future patches. There are already some really great DLCs online. Costumes, games and stuff. This game is really great. Just bear with the little bugs and annoyances and you won't be disappointed.

Whew!! Now I think this will be the last game review I'm ever gonna make. Cuz this is hard work!! haha!! aites till later.

IMPORTANT!! - To All Bangi Traceurs

SMS me your details.
Name and IC number ASAP.
Thank you.

PKMY Jam - Supermen Version!!!

So these are the three dudes that were the main highlights of the day. Sabree, Ammar and Abudi. From start to finish, they didn't stop. And I can understand why. It's not that often that they could train with Sabree. So they were trying to learn everything they can from the dude. :D Such an inspiration. Awesome stuff.





More to come... Penat larh!!! hahaha!!

PKMY Jam - Skyroof Playground

Alright as promised. The playground shots. More to come tomorrow. :D Didn't do much today. Spent most of it playing Fable 2. It's addicting!! woohh!!


To be continued....

PKMY Jam - Interlude

Before the playground.

PKMY Jam - Astaka

So since there're tonnes of pics to go thru. I'm just gonna skip the non action shots and the not so cool shots and just stick with the bests of the day. It's easier for me to narrow things down to something manageable. :D And also makes the photos of the day more professional and properly framed in both the artistic and technical aspects of things.

This post will be updated regularly. On another note. My photo processing time has been cut down by the recent acquisition of Fable 2. Hohohoho!! Which will most definitely occupy most of my free time at home rather than anything else until I finish this thing. :D But nevertheless I'll try to finish them all by tomorrow night if possible. All will be posted in chronological order unless stated otherwise. Woohooo!!! Why am I typing in perfectly neat grammatical sentences suddenly? Because I haven't slept eversince I got back from watching Tropic Thunder yesterday. Weee!!!

And last but not least. Photography done by several of the participants of the jam session. Mainly Muril, Qiddis, GiGi, Accappan, Me and others I might have left out. :D





Alrity. News update. I decided to post 4 different writeups for this particular event. Which will cover the 3 main spots we jammed at and the other one for portraits, scenes and bails. :D Today I have finished going through the Astaka spot. Playground scenes coming up after this. Enjoy!

This is meee!!! Yes I'm tricking again. :D Albeit carefully this time. I'm scared of going high. :O

Hmpphh. My shots all came out blurry. Muril muril. tsk tsk :P

PKMY Hari Raya Jam 2008!! Teaser......

Nuff said. Brace yourselves. :D

Tomorrow's the big day.

Gonna make sure I have a good night's sleep for tomorrow's whole day jam session. Dunno if the weather will hold up. But I'm hoping it will. :D If not, then there could be a major turn of events that might lead to watching Tropic Thunder instead. hahaha!! So it's gonna be lights off pretty soon. Good night all!!

I KEEELLLL YOOOUUUUU!!

I'm so fucking hungry!! FULL STOP!!

The serious side of music

MUSIC.. Can't have enough of it. The more I learn about it the more interesting it gets. This is truly one of the things that I can see myself doing without any complaints. :D But don't get me wrong. It's hard. Especially when you're past the age where your brain cells are developing. Haha!!

I have to admit, that it takes a bit longer for me to grasp what my tutor is teaching me than I would say 5 years ago? I don't even know how long it's gonna take me to be able to sight-read while playing the piano. Probably gonna take a few years. But no worries, I'm in it for the long run. I've missed class for about 3 months and getting back on track has been a rather bumpy ride.

But so far so good. And, it looks like I'm gaining back some momentum. If only I'd spend more time studying than just wasting my time online. That'd solve all my problems entirely. :P So right now I'm living a dream. I'm spending all of my time doing the things that I love doing. Despite the recent hiccup with my parkour training, at least I didn't lose any tricks in the process. That part of myself is also starting to gain back the lost momentum.

And I get to spend most of my extra time taking pictures. :D I have to say, that it's become much more enjoyable now that I laid off on the post processing. It's time to explore different things I think. :) 2 more days till the jam. Hope the weather forecast is wrong and it doesn't rain. That'd really mess-up the whole thing. I have a few shots taken of a few things on the table during my last minute attempt to finish my week due homework. More on that tomorrow. For now you can take a look at my cool musician hand. hahahahaha!!


This just in. :P My 5k++ piano that I spent my salary on. Could've gotten myself a D300 with that much money. lol! But nevertheless I'm happy I got this piano anyways. Even tho I still pretty much suck playing it. :P

My homework. It wasn't finished yet. :P

Gay-o-rama!! Woohh!!

This one pretty much speaks for itself. Yesh. I just got this like 10 minutes ago. hahaha!! Apparently I look pretty gay i guess. ROFLMAO!! aahh.. There's always something interesting going on everyday in cyberspace. And gay dude, if you're reading this. Here's a 540 for you. Dush!!

Best of Jengka Parkour 2008!!!

A prayer for the dearly departed.

I came across it on Tash's blog. And although I've never met or known this person I felt a little sad after finding out more about her. It's different when compared to physically knowing a person. But it's such a strange and sad feeling going through her writings as I searched to find more about her, what she was like, what she was going through, and what led to her passing.

Death is a part of our daily life. It happens every second as the clock ticks by. Yet it's something that we would ever get used to hearing.. seeing..

On my quest of finding out more about her, I found her photos, I found her blog, and most importantly, her friends and what they had to say about her. I bet she was a really strong woman. Having to go through all that she had to go through. I hope Allah forgives her for all her wrong doings and free her from any harm in the afterlife. Let's just all just say a prayer for her. For Wan Maisara Amira Wan Aziz and may god bless you. Al-Fatihah.

Kuala Lumpur Photography Festival (KLPF)

Continued...

I arrived at Times Square and as I reached the entrance there was another event going on. Which was a Perodua Myvi rally thing I think. Hmm... And I passed by one of the KLPF models. Probably heading back home. So pretty until I forgot to snap any paparazzi shots of her. demmit! :P

So the Myvi event was pretty bland, no babes no crowds. Kinda boring. I'm thinking maybe cuz people weren't really interested in Myvis. lol! But I did see a few photographers or dudes with cameras rather taking photos of some of these rides. Hehehe!! kinda funny. They look so serious. :P


So after the not so very happening scene at the entrance, it was time to head on in to the main event. The KLPF! weee!!! or so I thought. This was the first photography event that I really made an effort of going to. I used to just stumble upon these things by accident while chillin' at some malls. I had my 50mm on cuz I know that my kit and cheap tele won't be any good indoors. I wanted to keep the shots at ISO 400 at the most.

So heading on inside, I circled the ground floor checking the place out from above. Hmmm... It wasn't as big as I thought it was gonna be. It looked pretty cramped down there. After checking the whole 360 view from the top, I went downstairs. :D

Strolled around the main event hall a few times, and checking out the prices of stuff. Not so cheap. In fact it was kind of expensive. :O Not that I had any money at the time to buy these things anyway. hehe!! After a while I saw something going on at Sony's booth. And Sony being Sony, had the biggest booth around. With giant LCD screens around it. Ceh! showoff!!

So there was a dude with a vid cam taping this thing that was going. So I came closer to check it out. There were a coupla celebrities. yay!! I didn't know what they were saying cuz I was too busy concentrating on my manual focus. hohoho!! Took a few shots and I got this one that stood out from the bunch. I got another dude's flash in my shot. Kinda adds to the mood of the scene a lot. :D I just wanna say thanks to the dude with the flash. XD


Pleased with my shots, since I would never get anything near this good indoors with my kit lens. I was very-very satisfied. :p After some pusing-pusing and checking out the other brands' booth. (Nikon Forever!!) I finally came to rest at Nikon's booth. Hmmm... there was a queue going on. From people trying out the D700 and the D3. And the lenses mounted on them are MONSTERS!! I actually stood at the back thinking whether or not I should give it a try. I know it was gonna give me some degree of inferiority complex if I did. But I went on and tried them anyway.... FUCK!!!!!! NOW THESE ARE CAMERAS!!! after a few minutes that felt like hours with the cams. With a sigh, I slowy walked a distance away from the booth. My legs felt heavy as lead. I took another last look at the cameras, and with mine took a coupla shots of the big boys toys.



Yep.. My camera feels like a toy compared to them. But nevertheless. It's still awesome. hehe!! I'll get one of those babies someday. With my own cash. Roarrrghhh!!!

Feeling a little hungry I decided to find something to eat. Yea I know, dah la I was feeling down after testing those cameras. On top of that I had to eat alone. :( :( It was a very sad moment for me. :P So I headed off to the escalator and there were other mini booths on the way. The first one that I came across had this lightbox thing. I don't know what it's called, on display. So I took a shot of that. But for some reason I got this ugly blue tint on mine. Damn ugly. Maybe I should've over exposed a bit. But oh well.


I even passed by the Photomalaysia Booth. So small. :P And I saw a few photos on display that were on the board. Pretty cool. And as I turned my head, I saw a group of dudes with big cameras. Ooohh!! could it be? could it?? It could've only meant one thing. A model shoot. hahaha!! This was my first time actually trying to get into the heat of the action. But it was too crowded and with my 50mm I had to be right smack in front of the pretty lady to get a proper framing that wouldn't need any cropping. After going around in circles to find a spot for me. I managed to grab hold of a little space on the sidelines and took one shot. Yeps. Only one. Cuz it was pointless taking any more if this was the only position I could move around in. Pffffttt..


Not too shabby for a first try huh? :P Had to crop a lot out of this shot to get a proper framing. And the lighting was all ambient. Weee!! Love my 50mm. I must've said that a million times already. After being in the model shooting atmosphere, I can safely say that I understand why so called photographers like it so much. What's not to like? You have a hot chick posing for you. Looking at you if you're lucky :P and your shots almost always ends up automatically good because the chick is hot!! Provided as I said, if the chick is hot and knows how to pose tho. hehe!!

After my dose of model shooting, it was time to makan. I went to the usual fast food joints. But they were all full of fools!! haha!! 20 minutes or so of hardcore walking. I ended up having some Tom Yam Ramen thing at Mr. Ramen or whatever the name of the joint is. It was pretty good. They gave me a pair of chopsticks. I don't really know how to use them. But it was good practice. :D

Now it was already 4-5-ish. I was already tired. Went to check on the event again from the ground floor. I was in time to check out the Model Shootout Competition results. This time the crowd was insaney packed. WTF??? What is dis?? OMG!! Holy monkey crap!! So many people!! I never really liked crowded places. I feel a bit claustraphobic in these kinds of atmosphere. In malay we refer to this as "semak". :P



I didn't know it would be this crowded. Very hardcore these people. Salute these people cuz they can endure all the pushing and head blocking and the body odors just for a few shots of models strutting on stage. Woohhh!!! Gotta love ze models' mystique on photographers. After taking these shots. I headed back home.

I didn't mention about the talks tho. Cuz the way they presented themselves. Well... Not to sound offensive, but at least show some class la. At least stand up straight, explain it in proper grammatical sentences. Not like pasar malam rojak english. Talk talk oso like dis wan. How can people take you seriously?

Class and poise. Seriously. Prepare something weyy!! Don't just wing it.

All in all it was fun. I got my own dose of Full Frame poison and the wicked lenses, and some very decent shots from the event. Woooh!!! Next time, I'll bring a friend to torture. hahaha!!

The good and the bad. Let's have the good first. :D

Today was an interesting day and tiring too. I went to the Kuala Lumpur Photography Festival at Times Square just because I've never been to one of these. At least not when I had my camera with me.

I woke up quite early today. 11am. Yep. As they say, the early bird gets the worm. And if I were a bird, I'd probably end up as dead hungry bird. haha!! So anyway, I had to commute to get there since I can't drive still. Had my awesome Pink/White striped Baleno shirt on. My Levi's that I stole from my brother, and of course my super duper cool white with silver Adidas sneakers too. Stuffed all my gear into my flipside, strapped on and I was out!

The journey took me about an hour. Not bad, at least there weren't as many people if I had gone on Saturday instead. I had my camera on hand, but I had my 50mm on. Hmmm... My manualling is still not as fast for me to shoot people at random. And it's nowhere near long enough to give me some anonimity. So it stayed strapped on my neck for the whole trip there. hehehe!! Wanted to shoot the crowd in the commuter. I would've if I was with at least another buddy. But alone, it'd attract unwanted attention and not to mention stares. And the trip was not a short one too. :P

Okay, so after the uneventful journey I finally arrived at Times Square. And the story begins....TOMORROW!! haha!! For today we have yesterday's Tricking session photos posted up. And be prepared for some funny ass cracking pics that was also from yesterday's tricking session to be posted up tomorrow as well. Acappuddin didn't join in the fun during the low light tricking and photo session tho. Neither did I. Siddiq came all the way and didn't do anything. ceh! I only realized that when I got home and reviewed the pics. Not even a cartwheel!! wooot!! I can't believe this guy. Very not cool. hahaha!

Qayyim, even after a while without training, still got it in him.

Abudi control ayu. haha!!

Yes, Azam's jackassness never ceases to amuse me. And this time he didn't bail! woohh!!

Ammar showing off his moves and his tiny and no muscle arms. ptuih!!

Azam's jackassness at work again. A standing backfull this time. :D

Hmmm.. I don't know what to say about this one. You be the judge. Ptuih. :P

And lastly. Our very own Malaysian Spiderman!!! OMG!!!

Unfortunately that is all for today. But stay tuned for tomorrow's post of Amir's KLPF coverage. And some photos to go along with it. I actually have a few photos that are useable from the trip!! XD alright till tomorrow. Stay cool, Car pool. Gotta play our part to save the planet yo!