# Fable II Review: Stability Improved After Installing the Game to the Hard Drive

DevFeed: [Fable II Review: Stability Improved After Installing the Game to the Hard Drive](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/fable-ii-arguably-better-than-getting-your-head-crapped-on-38767.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/12/fable-ii-arguably-better-than-getting.html>)

Author: Steve Yegge (noreply@blogger.com)

Published: 2008-12-25T14:39:00Z

Content type: opinion

Language: en

Sources: [Steve Yegge](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/steve-yegge.md>)

Topics: [Xbox](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/xbox.md>)

Tags: [gaming](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/gaming.md>), [xbox](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/xbox.md>)

## AI overview

A personal review of Fable II describes frequent crashes during initial play. Installing the game to the Xbox hard drive eliminated the crashes, but the reviewer ultimately found the game playable yet forgettable and not very good.

## Source excerpt

I finished Fallout 3 maybe six or eight weeks ago, and it was hands-down one of the best games I've ever played. A game like that gets you in the mood for more gaming, so I thought to myself: "Hey, I should plop down $160 for Fable II!" Actually that's not exactly what I thought, but it's what happened. I bought the game for $60, fired it up, got up to the part in the intro where a bird craps on your head (yes, this is how it starts), and it locked up hard. Reset the XBox, tried again, and this time got as far as some guy selling snake oil gadgets before it locked up again. Snake oil, indeed. I tried playing for about an hour, with the game crashing every 3 to 5 minutes, and I finally went online to read about how it kills XBoxes and it's the Game of Death and blah blah blah, all interesting but not especially helpful. Eventually I stumbled across discussions of the "install to hard drive" option. Nobody actually said how to do it, so it took another hour of digging to deduce that you need to purchase a $100 wireless network adapter (or 100 feet of network cable, I guess). So I shut it down for the night, waited for the stores to open, forked over the $100, and installed the game to the hard drive. To Lionhead's credit the game never crashed again, making it significantly more stable than Oblivion or Fallout 3. I tried hard to like Fable 2. I didn't even need to like it $160. I would have settled for a $60 value. I vaguely remember liking Fable 1, although I can't remember anything about the game except for one neat scene where you had to escort two NPCs through a dark valley. One of the NPCs has been bitten by a Balverine (a werewolf), and the two argue the whole trip about whether he's going to turn. It's a funny conversation and the scene has a funny ending. Other than that, I just have vague recollections of shooting birds on the roof of some guild, and needing to get a 6-foot handlebar moustache for some side quest. The rest of it is basically a blank. But I ha