Fable 2: Interview with Molyneux and Hands On Preview

Lionhead studio’s Peter Molyneux explains why he feels that “most role playing games are shit” in an interview with Kikizo. Also take a look at Kikizo’s hands on experience with a very early Fable 2 demo.

Molyneux recently confided to Kikizo that all fighting games are flawed because most players don’t know how to play them. He is striving to create something superior to the normal.

“Stupidly, the ambition on this thing is I want you to measure this against any fighting game,” he told Kikizo in an exclusive chat. “It’s amazing for a role playing game, because most role playing games are shit! Oblivion was a great game, but the combat was rubbish; we all talked about it being rubbish. So imagine you had a great role-playing game and really, really good combat system.”

With combat being more than half of the role playing game experience, Molyneux and his team are striving to find the middle ground between the casual gamer and the demanding hardcore gamers that excel at such games as Call of Duty or the Halo series. He is concentrating on the controller which necessitates players to hit four buttons in the correct sequence to pull off combat moves. By allowing one-button combat in Fable 2, he’s attempting to bridge the gap.

“It’s one-button combat. It has been tried before, but usually really sucked. I am going to try and make it not suck.”

Button mashing will get it done in Fable 2, but players will be rewarded for not button mashing earning more experience, power ups and ending combat more quickly. Using rhythm will produce more attacks and holding down and ‘charging’ will give you a special move that yields double the experience points. This is all with the one-button combat model.

“And another thing we’ve got is counter moves, for much more experienced players,” says Molyneux. “If they’re really good they can wait for an attack and counter it, flip him around, and do a killing blow. That is much more skill based, and again you’ll get double the experience. Another advanced attack is to use the environment; you can actually break someone’s neck on some railing during combat. It could be a spike on a fence or a solid brick wall, and you’ll get increased experience for that as well.”

Combat is enhanced by coordinating music, effects and camera cuts with sword moves. The more finesse a player pulls off the more exciting combat will be. The overall game experience will be much different visually and even musically for the button masher than a more experienced gamer.

Kikizo’s first look at the combat system is impressive. The description of the author, who is an experienced 2D and 3D fighting game veteran, promises that Molyneux has accomplished what he set out to do.

Death has unique consequences in this game. The character doesn’t just blip back to the last save point. When your character goes down his opponents lay in to him with a vengeance leaving permanent marks on him.

“What actually happens is your hero is getting permanently scarred all over his body. And those scars will never go away. The more times you die, the more you get scarred, the more ugly and disfigured you will look, and the more the world will react.”

Players willing to sacrifice 500 experience points can avoid scarification.

Molyneux also details the character’s dog companion and talks about keeping the character in control even during cut scenes. Fable 2 is still over a year out, but the game promises to be as ground breaking as its predecessor.

via Kikizo