Screenshots :.
Fable 2: Pub Games
360
Matt
18-08-2008
"Keystone's the best of the bunch."
"Conversely, Spinnerbox is the worst."
"Fortune's Tower sits somewhere in between."
Right, yeah. Y’see, Jay is supposed to be doing the review for Fable 2: Pub Games at some point this week, but I’ve decided to chip in with my own thoughts here because… well, let’s just say our opinions differ slightly.
See, I can kind of see where this was coming from. Fable 2’s a way off at the moment (and current rumour suggests delayed until the end of October), so in the meantime why not peddle a cheap arcade title that gives us our gambling fix and also allows us the chance to scrape together a bit of gold for the main game when it comes out? On paper it sounds like it might be alright, but having sat down with it for a few hours now I can tell you that it really isn’t. Really.
See, Pub Games shoots itself in the foot from the very moment you realise that there are only three games to play. Of those three games, two – Keystone and Fortune’s Tower – are actually not too bad and worth spending a bit of time with, but the third – Spinnerbox – is a simple case of betting on matching symbols appearing from a spinning board ala slot machines, and hence is fun for about, oh, three minutes if you’re easily amused.
The other two games are a bit more fun to be fair, with Keystone seeing you placing bets on a throw of three dice and which numbered stone from an archway that the resulting total will take away. You can also spread your bets by gambling on what colour (red or black, naturally) the number that is thrown will be, what shape and what number range. It’s certainly got the most depth of any of the games on offer, and is probably the one where you’ll spend most of your time.
The remaining game is Fortune’s Tower, which is reasonable enough. At the start of the game three cards are laid down, with one at the top face down and the other two below face up. The task here is to bet money on each additional row now matching a numbered card on the row above with a similarly numbered card on the new one, thus creating a diagonal matching pair and ending the game early. Luckily, the first time this happens your face down card at the top will leap to the rescue and substitute itself in, although if that card itself creates another matching diagonal pair then you’re still doomed. Hum. Oh, and in each pack of cards are four hero cards that, when placed in a row, will defend any potential number matches. Another interesting point about Fortune’s Tower is that there’s a ridiculously easy exploit that can be used to bet vast amounts of gold for relatively little potential loss, but I’ll let you venture elsewhere if you fancy finding out for yourself how to do it.
See, the problem here is that once you bend your noggin around the various ins and outs of each game, none of them offer much in the way of a hook to keep you coming back for anything longer than a couple of sessions. The prospect of winning gold to use in Fable 2 is fair enough, but that in turn raises the question of how it will affect the game it you start off as a new guy with a whole tonne o’ cash. Will there be a comedy moment ala the start of Monkey Island 2 where you get looted, no matter how much cash you have? Who knows.
A more obvious problem is that gambling games are great when played in multiplayer modes. The three games on offer here aren’t fantastically deep, sure, but giving us the chance to play them against our friends across Xbox Live would have spiced the chilli a little and added a decent bit of longevity to an otherwise fleeting experience. These thoughts come crashing to the ground very quickly, though, when you realise that no – Fable 2: Pub Games has no online play. At all. Ever. In any shape or form. You can play your way through tournaments against the AI to win, but it’s a bit of a drag even with the prospect of gold and unique in-game items hanging over your head. It’s as if Pub Games has gone and pulled even the most major of defeats from the jaws of the most minor victories.
Thus, you can’t really recommend it. At 800 Microsoft points (about £7) you’re getting very little in the way of long-term interest, with only two of the three games actually being any good and even then struggling to hold your attention for too long. With no multiplayer added into the mix it means that, even if it did sound like a pretty decent idea, Pub Games ends up being a waste of money that you could have spent down a real pub playing dominoes with the elderly residents and chatting with your mates on the rights and wrongs of the world. As an optional extra in a special edition of Fable 2 it might have gotten away with it, but as a standalone product Pub Games just doesn’t cut the mustard.
See, I can kind of see where this was coming from. Fable 2’s a way off at the moment (and current rumour suggests delayed until the end of October), so in the meantime why not peddle a cheap arcade title that gives us our gambling fix and also allows us the chance to scrape together a bit of gold for the main game when it comes out? On paper it sounds like it might be alright, but having sat down with it for a few hours now I can tell you that it really isn’t. Really.
See, Pub Games shoots itself in the foot from the very moment you realise that there are only three games to play. Of those three games, two – Keystone and Fortune’s Tower – are actually not too bad and worth spending a bit of time with, but the third – Spinnerbox – is a simple case of betting on matching symbols appearing from a spinning board ala slot machines, and hence is fun for about, oh, three minutes if you’re easily amused.
The other two games are a bit more fun to be fair, with Keystone seeing you placing bets on a throw of three dice and which numbered stone from an archway that the resulting total will take away. You can also spread your bets by gambling on what colour (red or black, naturally) the number that is thrown will be, what shape and what number range. It’s certainly got the most depth of any of the games on offer, and is probably the one where you’ll spend most of your time.
The remaining game is Fortune’s Tower, which is reasonable enough. At the start of the game three cards are laid down, with one at the top face down and the other two below face up. The task here is to bet money on each additional row now matching a numbered card on the row above with a similarly numbered card on the new one, thus creating a diagonal matching pair and ending the game early. Luckily, the first time this happens your face down card at the top will leap to the rescue and substitute itself in, although if that card itself creates another matching diagonal pair then you’re still doomed. Hum. Oh, and in each pack of cards are four hero cards that, when placed in a row, will defend any potential number matches. Another interesting point about Fortune’s Tower is that there’s a ridiculously easy exploit that can be used to bet vast amounts of gold for relatively little potential loss, but I’ll let you venture elsewhere if you fancy finding out for yourself how to do it.
See, the problem here is that once you bend your noggin around the various ins and outs of each game, none of them offer much in the way of a hook to keep you coming back for anything longer than a couple of sessions. The prospect of winning gold to use in Fable 2 is fair enough, but that in turn raises the question of how it will affect the game it you start off as a new guy with a whole tonne o’ cash. Will there be a comedy moment ala the start of Monkey Island 2 where you get looted, no matter how much cash you have? Who knows.
A more obvious problem is that gambling games are great when played in multiplayer modes. The three games on offer here aren’t fantastically deep, sure, but giving us the chance to play them against our friends across Xbox Live would have spiced the chilli a little and added a decent bit of longevity to an otherwise fleeting experience. These thoughts come crashing to the ground very quickly, though, when you realise that no – Fable 2: Pub Games has no online play. At all. Ever. In any shape or form. You can play your way through tournaments against the AI to win, but it’s a bit of a drag even with the prospect of gold and unique in-game items hanging over your head. It’s as if Pub Games has gone and pulled even the most major of defeats from the jaws of the most minor victories.
Thus, you can’t really recommend it. At 800 Microsoft points (about £7) you’re getting very little in the way of long-term interest, with only two of the three games actually being any good and even then struggling to hold your attention for too long. With no multiplayer added into the mix it means that, even if it did sound like a pretty decent idea, Pub Games ends up being a waste of money that you could have spent down a real pub playing dominoes with the elderly residents and chatting with your mates on the rights and wrongs of the world. As an optional extra in a special edition of Fable 2 it might have gotten away with it, but as a standalone product Pub Games just doesn’t cut the mustard.
4/10