A break from our usual proceedings

My brother tells me I'm too cynical. That I complain too much about things that don't really deserve it. That I'll never be satisfied. Mostly he says this when I complain about Fable 2. I can't help it. There are things in it to complain about. It's not like I hate it... it just needs improving. So, partly to vent and partly just to show him, here's a complete list of everything that bothers me about Fable 2.

1. The distinction between good/evil and purity/corruption is virtually indistinquishable. There's really not too much point to it.
2. Having no cutscenes does nothing to help the game. It just means that those long, expositional conversations are unskippable.
3. This is a game of many figures and few numbers. It's never made clear to what extent an action actually affects your morality or appearance.
4. It is far, far too easy to become obese.
5. Those magical blue lines appear on your body far too quickly.
6. Homosexuality is displayed far, far too prominently. As in, it's really crossing a line, especially in the era this game is supposed to be set in.
7. A female hero would not be treated nearly the same as a male hero, especially in the era this game is supposed to be set in.
8. No money from quests? How does that even make sense? Not only do you get virtually nothing from completing these quests, it means that your only source of income is
9. Jobs. Why, why? You're supposed to be a hero. An adventurer. You go on quests and do things for people for money. That's... you know, the whole point, saving the world notwithstanding. So instead you have to spend twenty minutes pressing one button in a depressingly uncomplicated minigame just to buy basic equipment. No, no, no. This is not good gameplay.
10. There are eight spells in the whole game. Five of them are variations on the same spell. Perhaps two of them are actually useful.
11. Casting spells consists of standing still and letting enemies hit you. More powerful spells take longer to cast, so in order to do any decent damage you have to just sit there and take it for a good ten seconds. All of them are cast the same way.
12. Alternately, you can let loose a volley of smaller spells that do next to no damage at all.
    
13. Switching out spells is finicky and unnecessarily difficult in the middle of battle. Although that's just as well, since you'll only ever use one or two.
14. Guns, even the strongest in the game, are either far too slow or do too little damage. It can take a long time to kill even a single enemy.
15. First-person shooting is slow and leaves you open to pretty much everything. It's the only way to use the things effectively, yet in an actual fightit's impossible to maintain.
16. The open-ended map thing just didn't happen. What we get instead are extremely linear maps with occasional side-routes leading to treasure chests which invariably contain health potions or very small amounts of money. If there is an explorable cave or tomb to find, it will be directly related to an unlockable side-quest. There will be nothing of value in the cave until you do said quest. Even then, as mentioned before, no reward but renown.
17. Renown is still useless. It is needed to progress exactly twice in the game. Acquiring it gives you no practical bonuses.
18. The single-button fighting style leaves much to be desired. We were promised that that single button would be used in a variety of ways depending on how and when it was used. That, like so many other things, never happened.
19. There's not much variety in terms of jobs. Blacksmith, woodcutter, bartender. That's it. Not much of a list.
20. Some of the characters are quite well-designed. The rest are not.
21. Movement is clumsy and blocky. No matter how your character is built, they always handle the same.
22. What happened to the epic boss battles? In the last game we fought Jack of Blades as a sorcerer and a dragon, in addition to a wasp queen, the Kraken, and several other Heroes. What do we get this time? The final "boss" of this game is a blocky black thing whose only real attack is spawning more of the same enemy you've been fighting for half the story missions. Unless you count the anticlimactic ending. But that hardly counts.
23. We were promised six different endings, depending on actions throughout the game. What we got is three. And we get to choose. Yeah.
24. The whole point of the game is your actions affect the world around you, right? There are exactly four occasions when you are given world-changing choices. Two of them are optional quests. It won't actually affect gameplay in any insurmountable way.
25. The trolls are annoying as hell to fight, since they can only be killed with guns (useless) or magic (slow and useless).
26. The real estate system sounds good, but it means in practicality that you'll never have enough money while playing the game, but overnight you'll collect twice the amount you'd reasonably need to buy anything.
27. It's hard to get emotionally attached to a family any more. They just seem like a drain on your resources and nothing else.
28. Expressions are overused. The original got by just fine with only a few.
29. What happened to the hotkeys? It's now impossible to set them. The game just decides when you're likely to need something, and it's usually wrong. That means you never have easy access to items when you need them, like, say, healing items in a battle, or experience potions when you're about to get a big multiplier.
30. The experience multiplier is arbitrary and an unnecessary hassle. Give us a combat multiplier like the last game.
31. How about some decent quests? Almost all of these consist of going somewhere and killing everything that stands in your way. That would be nice, if the combat system was any good. How about some originality?
32. Check that. The very few puzzle-solving quests are awkward and extremely simple, consisting mostly of hitting a switch to open a door.
    
33. And the remainder revolve around going from place to place and talking to people. These are not things any self-respecting Hero should be doing. Even fetch-quests are better than this. Even those that involve linear, uninspiring dungeons. Did I mention those?
34. All weapons are pretty much the same. Some are faster, some are slower, but you don't get any sense of one being "better" than another. It also keep showering you with "legendary" weapons far worse than the ones you pick up in the shops.
35. The most powerful weapons in the game are completely not worth the effort.
36. No armor? As in, none at all? That's not really realistic. I mean, I'm not saying we need plate mail in every game, but there's no reason going into battle naked should go unpunished, if you see what I mean.
37. There are only two types of tattoo. And they barely show up.
38. Including bosses, there are about ten different enemy types in the game. About half of them are just variations on the other half.
39. You have to finish the game before you can complete the gargoyle quest. That means by the time you get their legendary weapon, there's nothing left to do.
40. Gargoyles are annoying, and impossible to find.
41. It's glitchy. Things walk through other things. And the dreadlocks are awful.
    
42. During several missions, you'll be aided by up to three other characters. Since they can't die, it reduces the challenge of the mission dramatically - especially the final boss fight.
43. The glowing trail that leads you straight to the doorstep of every objective is useful, but only points out just how linear this game is. It's not as though there's multiple ways to do something, or anything off the beaten path worth finding.
44. It just lacks the charm of the original. It lacks the depth and the originality.
45. This world is absolutely not ten times the size of the original. The maps are larger, maybe, but there's less in them. The five levels of Darkwood in the original were much better than the single, dull area of Brightwood.
46. The ability to travel anywhere, instantly, just by walking really takes you out of the game. It's convenient, but it's not good gameplay.
47. There's no room for multitasking. The quests are far too linear for that.
48. It's much easier to be evil than good. To get good points, you have to play through most of the game waiting for opportunities. But to be evil, all you have to do is hit someone.
49. The novelty of the dog wears off fast. It's hard to care about it when it always goes through the same motions, just a little machine. It will always do what you tell it to, so there's really no point in interacting with it.
50. The glowing trail is much better for finding hidden objects than your dog, who rarely turns up anything worth finding. So there's really no incentive there to keep him alive.
51. There are no good secrets. Skorm's Bow in the original, for example, made for a fun and confusing challenge. Now everything is far too laid out. There's no mystery and no challenge. Not that the prizes are even worth getting.
52. Making people fall in love with you is far too easy. The moment you walk into a town, you already have swarms of men and women asking you for a wedding ring.
53. They should have kept some sort of boasting system for quests. Although, since they took out rewards for quests, I guess this makes sense.
54. Does it seem right that one of the jobs available is blacksmithing, in which you spend all day making swords, and yet you can't make weapons for yourself? It doesn't seem right to me.
55. The augument system is terrible. Weapons with augument slots cost much, much more than their counterparts, are only available at highter levels, and have far fewer slots than the last game.
56. It's never explained who the bind seeress is, or what her connection is to the blind seeress in the last game, which took place hundreds of years ago.
57. You know what would be helpful? A world map. So we can actually see where things are. And not get lost all the time. Or are we expected just to fast travel everywhere? Yeah, that's immersive.
58. Two-player mode is bad. The camera is uncontrollable. It's impossible to look at anything or find anything.
59. In addition to that, movement is severely limited.
60. Why is the strongest sword in the game also the fastest? For that matter, why is it the strongest at all? It's not that special.
61. There are too few demon doors.
62. Opening said demon doors is frequently far, far more trouble than it's worth.
63. 50 gargoyles is at least 10 too many.
64. 50 silver keys is at least 15 too many.
65. Too many people are clones. It's frightening.
66. Considering all the different things you see the populace wearing, there's a very slim selection of clothing. Why can't I get, say, a top hat? Or some of those black rags?
67. The game tries to create "atmosphere" with scary situations. It's impossible to be afraid of anything when you're an invincible warrior with god-powers.
68. If you don't care about attractiveness, the scarring system is really pointless. It just makes you invincible.

I think that about covers it. I'll edit later if I think of anything else. In short, it's brief, unchallenging and unrewarding. I'm glad I got that out of my system. Take that, O brother-of-mine.