If you were still looking to get down on Fable II but haven’t been able to due to the game’s price tag now is your chance to do so for free. It was announced today that the first volume of Fable II: Game Episodes is now available to download.

If you haven’t heard of Fable II: Game Episodes before, it is essentially the full retail Fable II game split up into 5 episodic releases in the sense that it will include the exact same content including achievements and co-op game play. This first release  is a free one in which you will take your character from being a child to a young adult.

If you find at the end of the first volume you want to adventure on, you can just purchase additional episodes. Quite a brilliant idea, if I do say so myself.

via kotaku

If you thought that Project Natal was going to be just be a gimmicky Wii remake perhaps recent reports will make you think otherwise. It seems that Joystiq has recently done an interview with Microsoft VP’s Phil Spencer who said he wouldn’t be surprised if the technology makes its way into a future Fable title.

Below is an excerpt from the interview:

“You know, Lionhead’s been a real innovation studio for us. We have the release of Fable 2 episodic this week, where they’re taking Fable 2 and breaking it up into chunks, allowing people to buy the content at their pace. Fable 2, I thought, was a great release, with the orbs they added with Live, adding new functionality to the franchise. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if Natal found its way into future iterations of Fable.”

So, if more major studios like Lionhead pick up Project Natal, we may be seeing some very innovative uses come from it.

It seems that a game studio founded by developers working on Fable II, Crackdown and GTA entitled Ruffian Games, has announced their expansion. 

The infant game studio will expand their employee base by 15 but still are unable to let the world know what they are working on. Joystiq quoted Ruffian exec Gaz Liddion as saying “Now we’re in full production, we’re itching to share the fantastic work these guys have been producing,” going on to say that the announcement “won’t bee to far away”.

Hmm, I wonder what the project could be? Crackdown 2 anyone?

Lionhead has recently announced a new promotion they are holding to celebrate the release of the See the Future DLC pack for Fable II. A contest will be held and the winner will recieve a copy of Fable II along with a Fable II branded Xbox 360 signed by the game’s creator, Peter Molyneux.

To enter the contest you’re going to want to head here and follow the directions which prompt you to sign in with your Lionhead account and then click the register button, it’s as simple as that.

LionHead has recently announced that the Xbox Live achievements for the upcoming Fable 2 expansion, See the Future, have hit the service.

There will be 13 achievements totalling 250 Gamer Points and other than your normal defeat this guy, score this many points achievements, there are some more colorful ones also included. My personal favorites:

The Fowl Player - 10 Gamer Points
Dress as a chicken and kick five chickens during the Colosseum battles, or see another Hero do so.
The Nutcracker - 10 Gamer Points
Score 25 groin shots, or see another Hero do so.

You can head here to see the full list of achievements.

See the Future will be released for Fable 2 ”sometime in May” for 560 Microsoft Points.

If you are new to the Xbox scene or are just looking to upgrade your existing console you should check out the recently announced Xbox 360 Elite Games of the Year bundle.

Featured in this new pack is your run of the mill Xbox 360 Elite, equipped with a black body and 120GB harddrive, along with both Halo 3 and Fable 2. And, the best part is that this SKU will retain the original Elite’s asking price of $400.

Heck, Microsoft even threw in a free Netflix trial, what a deal!

Read (Engadget)

Not exactly a look at Fable 3, the DLC will have players saving Albion or leading it to ruin, whichever rocks your boat. Whatever you do, you’ll receive a vision of Albion’s future. which may or may not be Fable 3.

There will be two new major quests as well as new items, clothing, hairstyles, and you can even teach your old dog new tricks. Here’s the deal:

The Ghosts of the Snowglobe Quest: Holding a disturbing secret, the small model village inside it was once a real town in Albion. The people who once inhabited it are now ghosts condemned to endless torment until the shadowy threat that cursed them is defeated.

The Cursed Knight Quest: Forever banished to a land beyond the dead, the Cursed Knight awaits a hero who has the strength and will to dress up in convincing costumes, even imitating a hobbe or balverine, to save him from his fate.

The Colosseum: The Colosseum puts even the Crucible to shame. Only the greatest heroes have triumphed here. Players’ abilities will be put to the test to prove themselves in combat once and for all, to win the ultimate in prizes.

The DLC is slated to hit Xbox Live next month for 560 Microsoft points ($7).

Since Microsoft announced that Fable 2 had sold 1.5 million copies in its first month — thereby becoming the fastest selling RPG on the Xbox 360 — the game has reached sales of 2.6 million, surpassing the sales of the original Fable, which has sold around 2.5 million units to date.

And indeed, Lionhead has once again brought me way more sizzle than steak with their release of Fable II, the game Molyneaux swore up and down would blow Fable away.

On that point, he’s right.  Fable II does blow Fable away.  It has a whole new generation’s worth of graphical processing power to play with, a metric ton of mini games and several new characters inhabiting a storyline that will encompass decades in a world that will change visibly with every decision you make.

The only problem, of course, is that while Molyneux and company were building this massive world, they forgot that video games are supposed to have this thing called PLOT.

On the surface, Fable II looks to have plot in abundance, with you playing as a hero of legend who doesn’t know it yet gone in search of various other heroes of legend.  They will in turn lend their powers to make you a kind of SUPER hero of legend.  And once you have become this magnificent figure you will then go out and defeat the villain who killed your sister about ten years prior.

Said villain, meanwhile, is visibly trying to rebuild the Death Star.  You think I’m kidding there, but I’m really not–Fable II’s big bad is out to rebuild a gigantic spire-like facility (okay, so it’s not the same SHAPE.) that has mystical powers sufficient to reshape the world according to his own twisted whims.  He’s stocked said facility with a seemingly infinite number of identically dressed lesser baddies (if they were wearing white I’d swear they were stormtroopers), some of which you’ll have to fight for a few minutes.

The main plot of Fable II, and this is the game’s primary problem, should take you only a few hours to beat if you’re sufficiently motivated and you can ignore the alarming number of pop-up shiny things that will seek to distract you from the main quest plot.  It’s like this game was designed by a team of ferrets desperately in need of Ritalin.

Side quests, featuring such mundanities as chopping wood, making knives and slinging ale for quick cash, will abound throughout Fable II, and this may be the game’s ultimate strength.  The world of Fable II will allow you to become a bounty hunter, a slave trader, a real estate mogul, and a general jack-of-all-trades doing pretty much anything you want and altering the very world with your decisions, as long as you can ignore the fact that there’s a madman with a magic wish tower somewhere out at sea.

Indeed, this particular point leaves Fable II feeling somewhat schizophrenic.  Yes, you may think, I own half of the downtown shopping district of every town I’ve been to and if I can just kill a few dozen more cockroaches I can easily buy the rest of it, but the whole time, you have to actually TRY and forget that there’s a lunatic who wants to destroy REALITY with his tower that grants wishes.  Of course, he’ll never actually get the chance to USE it any time before you’re ready to take him on, but it just feels so very ridiculous.

Clearly, Molyneaux and company went for a game with huge replay value.  You can play as good or evil, you can launch yourself into completionist heaven, or you can charge through the main plot for a truly lousy payoff (try the main ending sometime and see if you’re not disappointed by the “final boss fight”.  It’s in quotes for a very good reason.).  And because of this variety, you can’t call Fable II a BAD game.  Sadly, due to its fractured nature and weak main story, you really can’t call it a GOOD one either.

“We’re not working on a PC version of Fable II,” stated Lionhead employee “Woody” on the developer’s forums. “If this changes we’ll make sure you know about it.”

The recent rumors stem from entertainment blog WhatifGaming, which claimed that a PC announcement for the game was “imminent”.

I would like to point out that the original Fable did hit PC after its supposedly-Xbox-exclusive release. It remains to be seen just how long Lionhead takes to make the PC announcement.

I wouldn’t recommend the content pack for someone who’s relegated the game to trade-in status and is hoping it’ll breathe life back into it because the quests it adds aren’t terribly long. Put in an hour or two and you’ll be able to explore pretty much anything the island has to offer. Where the content really comes in is expanding the possibility for a player who hasn’t purchased the game yet, or has only put in a little bit of time. One of the big appeals of Fable 2 is that since they did away with armor you can choose your garb to fit your style of character; black-garbed assassin, swashbuckling pirate or powerful sorcerer. The content pack gives you some interesting style options to round out the content.

It puts in some more assassin pieces, allowing you to complete that set, as well as more scandalous options if you’re interested in the fighting bar wench idea. There’s a suit of armor for anyone desiring a more medieval look to go with that battle axe, and a couple staves if you’re looking for a complete wizardly theme. The Halo assault rifle nicely rounds out the full Master Chief gear, although like the sword it’s sadly underpowered. In addition to the weight loss potion there are other beverages that’ll change your character’s appearance, making them taller, brawnier, even removing scars.

There are some interesting augments available but nothing is quite so nice as the augment remover. It doesn’t allow you to remove augments from legendary weapons but you can take out an augment you regret using. By far though the best feature for anyone who’s completed the main quest and gone the route of absolute good is that you can get a certain furry friend back.

Many users have experienced several glitches and bugs in Fable 2. Lionhead addressed these problems, but hasn’t resolved any of them. Today, the long-awaited patch has been released, fixing issues that have been plaguing players for a long time. Here is the list of fixes:

• The Ritual/Monk’s Quest — Fixed the issue with the Abbott becoming unresponsive if you leave Oakfield before he finishes talking. This will fix the problem if you’ve already hit it, too.
• Rescuing Charlie/Rescue My Baby — after rescuing Charlie, you are now able to interact with objects
• Guild Cave chest — resolves any issues with previous inability to retrieve items unlocked from Limited Collector’s Edition, website or Chicken Kickin’ game. If you’ve already hit this bug you should now get your items.
• The Spire (Pt2) — no more issues with ship captain being unresponsive
• The Hero of Skill (Pirate King) — you’ll no longer get stuck during Hero of Skill quest (Bloodstone)
• T.O.B.Y./Trouble In Bloodstone — you’ll no longer get stuck during T.O.B.Y. quests (Bloodstone)
• Your child — will no longer be chosen as an assassination target
• Furniture Shop in Albion (Bowerstone) will now always have something for sale
• Additional unspecified fixes

The delayed DLC for the game will be releasing next week, so the patch is just in time to check out Knothole Island.

Read (1UP)

The screenshots don’t reveal much but they do seem to show the island in slightly different states, indicating that whatever quests you undertake or decisions you make will have the potential to change the landscape. One shows a village with houses on stilts although the landscape is sandy and arid. Another shows the same village as rain falls and the stilts do their job of keeping the houses above the water around them. See all the screenshots after the break.

PETA has stepped away from criticising games like Cooking Mama and has instead decided to reward games for celebrating non-animal cruelty.

The organization has awarded Lionhead Studios’ Fable 2 with the title of Most Animal-Friendly Video Game, quite a braggable title.

Below is PETA’s reasoning behind awarding Fable 2 with the title:

Created by Microsoft Game Studios, Fable 2 is a vegetarian’s dream come true. Why? In this virtual fight between good and evil, characters powered by tofu are just as powerful as their meat-eating counterparts—and are more fit and attractive to boot. Featuring a strong pro-vegetarian theme, eating a plant-based diet helps you rack up “purity” points, whereas eating meat makes your character fat and evil. A fun and innovative game, it’s also an effective tool that teaches gamers the real-life benefits of a vegetarian diet.

So there you have it, thanks to the in-game ability to eat tofu and the “strong pro-vegetarian theme”, Fable 2 is PETA’s Most Animal-Friendly Game of the Year.

Read (PETA)

Ham will now lead the design team working on the upcoming unannounced project that is being created in partnership with Bethesda.

Not lifting the veil any further on the mystery project, Splash Damage described it as a “new AAA multiplatform title” handled by the studio’s “wealth of talent” that includes the “senior, lead and directorial staff behind hits such as Mass Effect, Rainbow Six Vegas, Heavenly Sword and Burnout Paradise.”

Following complaints about freezing glitches, lost experience points, missing gold and more, the studio responded that it is “watching and listening to you [the fans], and are looking into all serious issues that are bought to our attention.”

"Some things slip through the net during development, especially when a game is the size and scope of Fable II," Lionhead noted. "Again, we can only apologise for this issue, but we are doing our best."

No release date was given for the patch.

“I have a favour to ask you — we build this game not only to appeal to gamers like yourself, but to appeal to anybody. So please, please, please, please, please find somebody who doesn’t play games, watch them play it and see how their world turns out, because I think it’s only when you see those differences that the unique experiences comes through.”

While he clever avoided asking reviewers to actually pretend that online co-op was available. Whether reviewers will go through with doing this “favor” for him remains to be seen, but I for one don’t think that providing a letter requesting to, essentially, ignore a fault that the game has is a respectable move to any degree.

Peter Molynuex has an odd habit of over-promising features and technical accomplishments that one of his games, specifically on of his Fable games, will have. No matter how hard they try, the games seem to always launch without some sort of feature that they might have shown off or spoken about. That is why I find it endlessly ironic that Lionhead has announced that the Fable 2 Collector’s Edition will ship with less content than originally planned.

“The premium box, five printed fate cards, and Hobbe figure will not be available as part of the Limited Collector’s Edition. We apologize for any inconvenience.”

The price, however, has also been reduced. Whereas the original Collector’s Edition of Fable 2 was $79.99, the new bundle will be priced at $69.99, merely $10 more than the price of the standard copy of Fable 2. For that price, buyers will get a bonus DVD with new ‘Making-of’ Feature, bonus in-game content (which will be obtained online via Xbox Live), The Hall of the Dead’ Dungeon(which I believe is a map), The Wreckager Legendary Cutlass Weapon, Spartan armor and energy sword. Once you are done enjoying that, you might also want to check out the actual game, which is also included in the Collector’s Edition. Lionhead will also release the canceled “fate cards” as a PDF.

If by any chance you were worried about starting of poor in Fable 2, here is your chance to potentially make millions utilizing nothing more than the XBLA title Fable II Pub Games, which is 800 Microsoft Points.

Apparently, a glitch has been found that allows you to trick the computer into thinking you are betting 600 gold when in reality you are only betting 60, increasing the margin of profit ridiculous amounts.

The above embedded video will detail just how you go executing this trick but you better move fast because I sense a patch on the horizon.

Originally stemming as nothing more than a rumor, Kotaku has recently confirmed that we will infact see a Master Chief inspired armour set bundled as an extra with the Collector’s Edition of Fable 2.

There’s currently no word if this is actually a Bungie endorsed cameo, but considering the subtle Master Chiefness, I’d say probably not.

As announced earlier today, Fable 2 will hit stores stateside October 25th as an Xbox 360 exclusive.