Fable II - The Buggiest XBOX 360 Game Ever?
October 28th, 2008 by Tam I M
I loved Fable and I have been really looking forward to Fable II. I’ve been reading the numerous reviews on the various gaming sites and it looked really promising. Also, I’ve been checking out Molyneaux’s demo videos and that had gotten my excitement level even higher. I finally was able to scrounge up enough cash three days ago and went and bought the game.
I started the game up and just starting up, the Fable II title screen was jittering a little. Also, I noticed that the music was breaking up a bit. For some reason, it was really feeling like a PC game running on a PC with sub-standard gaming specs. I figured this was just a minor glitch so I got started playing. I made a male character and jumped in the game.
The initial start of the game is quite linear, but of course it was just setting up the story, so I didn’t see any issues. The graphics are gorgeous and the voice acting is excellent. I played for a couple of hours and got past the first quest in the tomb on the island. I was then heading back into town and found out that the road was closed because some bandit was still on the loose. So I went to the bandit camp and dispatched them all. Upon coming out of the room with the key, that’s where the problem started. The game completely froze. I waited and waited and waited, but it was just completely frozen. I hit the START button and that did nothing. The only thing working was the XBOX button that let me go back to the dashboard.
I figured that this was probably a minor glitch and re-started the game. The Microsoft Studios logo came on fine and so did the Lionhead logo. But as soon as the Lionhead logo was gone and I got the all white screen, that’s where the story ended. The game had frozen AGAIN. Again, I waited, and waited, and waited, but it was completely dead. Again, the only thing working was the XBOX button. I turned off the XBOX and left it off for about an hour. Starting again, it did the same exact thing again.
So I started searching on the net to see if others were having the same problem, and sure enough, people were reporting the same issues on the Lionhead forums. Here are a few relevant threads:
http://community.lionhead.com/forums/3173888/ShowThread.aspx
http://community.lionhead.com/forums/thread/3172581.aspx
http://community.lionhead.com/forums/thread/3139811.aspx
So next I took the disc back and got a replacement. No change whatsoever. Still it locked up right after the Lionhead logo. So then I went and deleted my savegame (BTW, you get ONE bloody savegame and that’s it. So if that gets corrupted, you’re screwed. Sorry, start all over.) and tried the Y, X, X, LB, RB, X, X option as listed in one of the threads above to delete the patch. Still no luck.
My last option was to login with a different XBOX Live ID. This time the game loaded and the menu came up. I was excited because I figured that maybe there was something wrong with my profile. The game started up ok, but as soon as I got to the antique dealer selling the music box, he never started talking. Holding down LT just showed the antique dealer standing there with his back turned to the crowd and not saying a thing. I couldn’t walk out of the crowd and couldn’t do anything. So I hit the Start button to see if I could get the menu. Nope. The game froze.
After re-starting and logging in again with the second profile, I was back to square zero. The game once again locks up right after the Lionhead logo. Suffice it to say I’m PISSED. I’m quite confident there is nothing wrong with my XBOX 360 because I haven’t experienced this with any of my other games (Forza Motorsports, Halo 3, Crackdown, Bioshock, Assassin’s Creed, Orange Box, etc.). So I really can’t understand how Lionhead pushed this game out the door in this condition. At this point I’m out $60 of my hard-earned money and stuck with a bloody coaster. I’m going to hold my breath for a couple of weeks and hope for a patch, but if it doesn’t come, this thing is going to ebay.
What’s really disappointing is that this game has been so hyped and I’ve been really looking for it, and this has completely ruined my experience of it. For such an ambitious project, it’s inconceivable that they would release this game in what I consider to be beta condition. And I’m still perplexed at why this game lets you have only ONE f*ing savegame, especially when it’s so buggy and so many people’s savegames are getting corrupted.
10/31/2008 UPDATE
I started up the game yesterday and it said that there was a game update available for download, which I dowloaded. It seems to have fixed the problem so far because I was able to start a new game and play. I got past the part where the game initially locked up on me so at this point it looks like it’s fixed, but I’m not holding my breath. I’m not convinced until I’ve actually finished the main quest. I will continue to post updates.
Tags: Fable, Fable 2, Fable II, XBOX 360
October 29th, 2008 at 10:44 am
Lionhead is working on a patch to fix all the known glitches. From what I understand there are a couple of “game breaking” bugs that have been found and the most often reported is the “Abbot” glitch. I think there’s a patch due out in the next week or so, if what I read is correct. Needless to say, I won’t even consider buying the game until the patch is released and proven to work W/O causing additional problems.
Sux to see such a hyped up game saddled down with “should’ve been caught before it was released” problems. Such a terrible shame!!
October 29th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
Yeah, I read about that at Kotaku as well so I hope that they actually do get a patch out. I’m also hoping that the problem isn’t with my console, but frankly everything else runs fine so I doubt it’s the console. See what happens when I step away from my PS3 and buy another XBOX game?
October 30th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
Disappointed in the game overall. Im about 3/4 of the way through the game (I did not experience any of the issues you had) and I would rank it inferior to Fable 1. The story starts out well, but overall goes weak. The lack of armor really hurts it. Yeah, I can wear lots of different clothes and dye them, but mostly the clothing is lame looking. The load times really burned me out, as well as the framerate problems. A good PC could fix the later (just like it did for fable 1, which I played on PC and loved) but nothing can fix some of the lame design decisions.
Personally, I would sell or ebay your copy and get Fallout 3. So far, its been amazing.
October 30th, 2008 at 11:02 pm
i was under the assumption that Xbox owners were used to bugs…. or maybe im just in love my PS3 and hate everything else…
Still, bad news about the game glitches. Hope it doesn’t hurt the sales of the game at all and that the PC version will be solid enough for me to play
October 31st, 2008 at 10:41 am
Yeah, as of late all I’ve been buying have been PS3 games, but since this was a 360 exclusive and I liked Fable 1, I wanted to give it a try. BTW, I started the game up again yesterday and it asked me to download an updated, which I did. This time it looks like this patch may have fixed the problem because I’m able to play the game again. So far I haven’t had any other lockups so hopefully this may have fixed it.
I really want Fallout 3 and also Little Big Planet, but considering I just bought FIFA 09 and Fable 2, I’m a little short on cash so sadly it’s gonna have to wait
Hey Scott, when is Starcraft II coming out? You guys are killing me!
November 1st, 2008 at 11:22 am
There are loads of game stopping glitches. I’ve restarted 3 times now. First with the abbot glitch, then with a quest finishing and leaving the skip conversation panel active so that button a no longers responds.
The same happened to me at the folowing locations:
1) The spire quest
2) The strange archeologist who’s gran wants him to come home.
I am not starting again
November 3rd, 2008 at 10:52 am
Man, that really sucks. Since the last patch, so far it has been working fine so I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it continues to work. But if this thing dies, I really don’t think I would restart. That would be way too much time wasted. I’d put it up on ebay at that point.
November 4th, 2008 at 9:32 am
You’re so right I had the very same issue nothing helped so I just took the game to gamestop and swaped it i for fallout 3 had to pay 20 euro extra though. Happy days now it is just shame that Fable II was relaesed in this condition and lionhead studios should be banned to make games forewer
November 5th, 2008 at 6:43 pm
Starcraft II: “When its done :)”
I bought Fallout 3 on the PS3, and love it. The load times are extremely fast for a console game, quite a refreshing change I might add. My friend has Fallout for the XBox, and in direct comparison, PS3 loads about twice as fast. Its caching to the HD as you play, which is awesome: no 10 minute install wait when you start the game for the first time. The XBox version does look a little better … longer draw distance, anti-aliasing and more contrast. But overall the two versions are very close in look .. close enough that the load times make me go PS3. Both versions crash after about 5 or 6 hours of play. Obviously a resource leak that I hope they patch.
Another great game I played recently was Dead Space. I tried both PS3 and XBox version, and the XBox was definately better: loaded twice as fast, better framerate.
November 5th, 2008 at 10:43 pm
Fallout 3 is definitely on my list. I just put my copy of Folklore and Devil May Cry 4 on ebay to hopefully come up with some funds to go towards Fallout 3. As of late I’ve just been getting everything on the PS3 that isn’t an XBOX exclusive. My brother also has a PS3 and no 360, so it definitely helps getting stuff on the PS3 ’cause that way we can trade games.
Other than Fable II, the only other thing that I play regularly is FIFA 09. I was hooked on FIFA 08 and I’m completely loving FIFA 09 (and boy, it’s got some major bugs too, which should be another post soon). I’ve got a bit of rivalry with my brother so it’s always fun. He has his good days and I have mine and we’re always trash talking each other.
November 29th, 2008 at 7:06 pm
Has the “lockup freeze” patach been release yet as of Nov.29/08?
Please post if you know?
Thanx
December 2nd, 2008 at 9:32 am
I haven’t played the game in a couple of weeks, but as of 10/31, the latest patch fixed all of my lockup issues and I was able to finish the main quest without any problems. I’m currently working on the side quests and haven’t noticed any problems.