....for he is a woman that used to be a man.... in a dress.

I completed Fable II (finally) over the weekend. Despite the disappointing and abrupt ending, I really enjoyed the experience. It smoothed over the cracks from the first one (and made a few new ones all its own) and made it overall a very good game. My time with the game was artificially extended with my side quest indulgences, my two previous blogs about this game kind gives you a rundown of what my character was up to... He started as an overweight alcoholic gambler paying for his vices with money made from working as a really crappy blacksmith. Which was amusing, but ultimately I was just messing around. It was during this time that something happened - something I did not expect.

The dog. The dog managed to endear himself to me. At first, it's just more of a "okay, there's a dog, whatever..." but he really grew on me. Mostly I think because he was always there. So I was surprised that Molyneux's gimmick managed to do what he intended it to for me. Bravo.

In any case, as time went on and the story progressed, I would get distracted for long periods of time on these little sidequests - finding gargoyles, buying properties, opening the demon doors, the crucible, the shooting range, etc., etc., all of it was fun - although the property income eventually makes the games a lot less challenging since it's perpetual, game on or off. You're making money.

At some point, I started a family with a hooker I met outside of a hotel in Westcliff. Whether or not I have prophesized my own future or not remains to be seen. Anyhow, I left her to her own devices for the most part and kept on doing what I was doing. On my first visit back she gave me an experience potion that was gave over 60,000 xp. My trips home became much more frequent, which finally generated some kind of demon, red headed stepchild. I say this, because 1 - the kid was redheaded and 2 - looked nothing like me. This means that she must have cheated on me while I was away, and now I had to pay for the result. Maury, where were you on that one!?

From that point, I had all but finished the story, expecting something on an epic scale, as I was told returning to the mansion in Bloodstone meant that any active quests I had going would not be able to be completed afterwards - I spent a lot of time wrapping things up, and maxing out all of my abilities. I completed everything I could with a few exceptions; I thought would surely still be available in the end game. (I was right)

Off I went to finish this....

The story kind of lost me here - it took a weird question mark-like turn into the land of "WTF?" I mean, I got it - I understood what was going on, I think, but I still had to ask... WHY?

***SPOILER***

After that whole debacle - I picked up Lost Odyssey again - I was on disc 4, and very near the end... however it had been SO long since I had last played it, I had NO CLUE where I was, or what I was supposed to be doing. I quickly lost interest and moved on.

While I should have probably tried to figure out LO so I could get it out of my backlog, I opted for Assassins Creed on a technicality. I have played and beaten this game already - however, I did so on a guest account late 2007 when live was down for like a week after xmas. So it is not reflected on my Gamertag. I will now remedy this.

The key to enjoying AC, because it's so repetitive, is moderation, which works out nicely for me since my gaming time is severely limited, and that's precisely how I enjoyed it the first time around.