Fable II – Knothole Island.

Steven

We over at Peoww rather liked Fable 2, and there was much anticipation for this piece of DLC with rumours of extreme weather and dogs (extreme dogs? – Ed) to get us all excited. Just as its name suggests Knothole Island is based solely on an Island with the only way to get there via a submarine, there is no way to walk to it.

Initially Knothole looks different from anything you’ve previously seen in the main game as you are confronted with a snowy field and a frozen lake, and while there is no real gameplay consequences of this snow it certainly make you feel like you are playing something new. The island itself initially looks like it could be fairly big as you are tasked by the mayor to go into a temple and recover a weather totem, which initially involves digging up a door key then trekking through a dungeon.

However once you reach the dungeon it’s fairly apparent that this expansion wont last long. As with many of the other dungeons in the game there doesn’t seem to be much depth to them, there are a couple of flying sphere puzzles, which prove far more annoying than they ought to be, and there are a couple of hidden treasure chests and each dungeon can be completed in round about 20 minutes.

You will then get tasked to get two more weather totems, each of which further drastically alters the weather. Given this you can see the whole game will only give you just over an hour’s worth of gameplay. When you consider this it starts to look like a bad purchase, however there is much more to this expansion than just the dungeons. Knothole has a selection of shops which offer unique items for you to buy you can get items ranging from exotic coloured dyes, unique weapons, funny clothes and some very interesting potions.

If you got pleasure from dressing your Hero up in main game then you will love the range of items in this expansion and it possible you will spend longer messing with the new items then you will in the actual dungeons.

One nice part of this expansion is that you can go to Knothole whenever you want, so this means that the experience is fully integrated into the game, you are not relegated to having to play it as a separate entity, you can go back and forth with ease and take the items you find here into the main adventure.

Weighing in at 800 points this expansion is the same price as many full price arcade games, and probably doesn’t offer as much gameplay as an individual game. However it’s a very thoughtful expansion to the main Fable 2 game and provides you with items and potions which you can then take to use throughout the whole of the main story. If you liked Fable 2 then I think you will like this expansion.