Fable II: Pub Games Review - Xbox 360

4

Gameplay: 4
Graphics: 4
Audio: 4
Innovation: 2

Introduction

Fable II: Pub Games is Peter Molyneux's entree before the main meal; the sip before the swig; the pinch before the punch. More accurately, Fable II: Pub Games is a compilation of the mini games you expect to find in any RPG. Those same silly mini-games you play to earn a bit of money so you can afford that shiny new sword in the shop window.

Except now, you get to play those same silly mini-games to earn money and items for a game that isn't even released. A beautiful piece of marketing, to be sure, but does it play beautifully?

If you're hankering for a little thing called Fable II, and you can't wait to take another hero's journey through the land of Albion, then playing some mini games to earn gold and items when it finally lands is one way to wait for Molyneux's latest promise.

Gameplay

Before you can begin gambling with pretend money, you need to select a character. Since there is no way of using Heroes you have not yet created, six individual pre-made characters are available. Don't worry, you have the option to merge them (taking their reputation, gold and items) with your Hero when the time comes. Each character works individually, so you can have six different profiles at one time.

The only trouble is finding six people on one console who would like to play this. You have five options when starting up Pub Games. There are three games available, tournaments for each of those three and the tutorials that explain those three games.

The first game is called Fortune's Tower, and it works roughly like this: You take a deck of 70 cards, numbered 1 through 7 (plus four Hero cards) and create a pyramid of cards from the top down, starting with three with the top card face down. At the start of each hand, you place a bet, and then the cards get played. You can choose to take the current deal offered (the sum of all the cards in the row) or you can choose to hold and see the next hand. Each row adds an extra card, until at row eight you have eight cards. The catch is that if a card touches another card of equal value on the previous row, it gets “burnt”, then the hand folds and the player loses. (continued next page)