Not everyone has the opportunity to go to the E3 in Los Angeles, so it might be a bit of a mystery to them what happens there. The day usually starts at around 4 in the morning, due to your bioclock and the timedifference (East coast America is around 8 hours behind from us Brits). Breakfast at six-thirty (when there's a breakfast meeting) or seven-thirty when it's a normal show-day. You have to be at the convention centre for nine when the doors open and the press and industry is set free on the games, including Fable 2 (Fable II).
We had three different parts of the game to show; the first one showed the early parts of the game where you play a child and we introduce you to some of the drama we're putting into the game. Now this part contained a spoiler but luckily most journalists understand players should be allowed to experience this moment in the game and not read about it in a hands-on preview. So if you have picked up on it, keep quiet - and those that didn't; don't go searching for it.
The second part of our demonstration was all about combat; four different Heroes were created so players could expierence the different fighting styles: Melee, Ranged, Will and an Allrounder. It was set in a sunken village in an area called Wraithmarsh and we introduced several new creatures: Hobbes (not new) and Balverines (new) and Hollowmen (also new). If you haven't seen this for yourself yet, take a look at Josh and Iain (who looks neutered in the video, he didn't know it was picture-in-picture) on G4TV. Players could also play in co-op here and we had the Xbox Live! ambient orbs enabled (but we disabled interacting with them).
The final part we showed was the sandbox, where we introduced features that aren't required to finish the solid story but just there to have some fun with. It was set in a small farming community called Oakfield, you could do expressions with the villagers, explore the town and surrounding forests, go for a swim etc... Our very own daxworth from the forums came to visit us and I had the pleasure to show him the sandbox. You can read everything about this expierence with the game in this topic.
daxworth: "I grinned from ear to ear as I hopped fences and went swimming and fooled around with the free aim of the musket. The magic system is great. I was able to move an "area of effect" circle around and control where I cast certain spells."
When you are showing a game like Fable 2 you can't go wrong, I am so thankful to the entire development team for creating a game that was a pleasure to show, it was fantastic! Occasionally I would find new gameplay during my 'messing around' and I would then incorporate this into my demo. The condom is one of those moments, as was shooting ravens (they explode in a puff of feathers) and diving off a cliff into the water and seeing your dog jump after you were just some of the things I didn't even know about before I started my work at E3.
More updates to come...