How Fable 2 killed 3 Xbox 360’s

54 Comments

• 

  Jack F

  December 15, 2008

  So basically it was Fable that was borken and you wasted lots of cash on a new 360?

• 

  Alexander Rehm

  December 15, 2008

  Seems to be the case…In all fairness though, the old 360 did not even play one game after the original crash, so it seems to have recovered itself

• 

  lilspixie

  December 16, 2008

  AHHHH!! you must be tearing your hair out alex!!! cant belive that fable wrecked your console, i’ll be sure to let my bro in law know as he has 360 and has been playing fable

• 

  Sarah

  December 16, 2008

  I’ve been playing Fable 2 alot lately, and my console has officially died, but by 3 red lights. bye bye 360, back to Microsoft you go…

• 

  Steve

  December 23, 2008

  I played Fable 2 for over 30 hours without it freezing once. After I donwloaded the update to the game, Fable 2 would freeze. Sometimes 30 seconds in, sometimes 5-10 minutes in. I have read many similary complaints to this. The bigger issue is that now many of my games freeze or get stuck on loading screens. This has happened with Madden 2009, GTA IV, NBA 2k9, and a few others. Has anyone else had this issue?

• 

  Wayne B

  December 25, 2008

  Got mine on christmas, started playing for about 15 min, whole thing shuts down I go to play again and guess what…. 3 RED LIGHTS!!!!

• 

  Alex

  December 25, 2008

  Very sorry to hear Wayne, especially today! Call Microsoft’s support line immediately, they should be in today until 6pm from what I know…

• 

  nappleton

  December 26, 2008

  We just bought my son a brand new xbox 360 from currys 3 weeks ago and it was absolutely fine until he put fable2 in it yesterday now its freezing with the game but playing other games fine. Does this mean its the game or does it mean within a short period of time his xbox is going to die? Should worried his xbox is faulty? And is he at risk of breaking his exbox trying to load the game to the HD

• 

  Alexander Rehm

  December 26, 2008

  Hi nappleton,

  Very sorry to hear about your son’s situation, especially at this time just after Christmas.

  Looking at your reply, it sounds to me as if all other games are running fine, which seems to me as if anything but Fable 2 works (similar to my situation). What I would recommend is doing a little stress-test – take any game (NOT Fable 2) and play it for at least an hour. If it crashes in that time then it looks to me as if you may want to have a word with Currys / Microsoft.

  My guess is that your Xbox will be able to play any other game fine (again, similar to my experience), meaning your Xbox is fine, but you should be giving the game back, as at it seems it is breaking more and more consoles these days. If the shop assistant gives you any stick make sure you ask for his manager and / or request his details including any staff number or ID that person has as you will be making a complaint about him / her. Works 100% of the time 😉

  Good luck!

• 

  Simon G

  December 31, 2008

  Ok heres my situation, i just got Fable 2 for christmas, and it crashes ( no supprise eh? ) ive tried everything i know to try fix this, ( i tried with the update and without, ive tried offline and online ) and it STILL crashes within about a max of 20 mins, HOWEVER every other game works fine ( bar The Darkness, still seem to have the same problem with this as with Fable 2 ) i can play Fall out 3 for as long as i want ( within reason crashes every 6 hours or so ) i Really enjoyed the first one and was looking forward to this one, so if any1 has any ideas i would really appreciate it.
  Ohh i almost forgot i have an Xbox 360 elite, had it for about 3-4 months now.

• 

  Alexander Rehm

  January 1, 2009

  Hey Simon, I am very sorry to hear about your problems with Fable 2 and The Darkness. For what its worth, you’re not alone, but unfortunately there is no solution yet for the problem you, me and many others are experiencing.

  My best advice is: if you like your Elite then don’t play Fable 2 until Lionhead / Microsoft finally get down to fixing this problem, simply for the sake of your hardware. Seeing that Lionhead released a DLC for Fable 2 but hasn’t bothered addressing this issue (as you can see here I doubt that this will be any time soon though 🙁

• 

  TheJackson5

  January 7, 2009

  i’ve been playing fable for quit some time and my xbox has never frozen so i don’t have a problem with fable so it’s all about to buy the game after christmas and then there’s nothing wrong:D

• 

  Si

  January 7, 2009

  That has to be the STUPIDEST reply I have read this year, TheJackson5.

  If you had actually bothered to read the threads in the Lionhead forum as well as the comments here then you would have noticed it has nothing to do with the WHEN but more the WHICH BATCH you have got, and even that seems to be random, looking at gamers’ replies.

• 

  Madmouse Blog

  January 8, 2009

  I had no idea that a game could be destructive to a game box like that.
  I am not a gamer because it is so addicting and I get stressed out by it.

• 

  Arthur

  January 8, 2009

  Exact same thing, have a pretty old xbox 360, which was replaced just after I bought it because it had a video problem. Now, after playing a couple of hours of Fable 2 if froze. Then it froze during reboot. Then it played for an hour, and froze again.
  Then 1 red light. Removed everything, including HDD, now 🙁 3 RED LIGHTS. AAGHHHH

• 

  Taz

  January 18, 2009

  Whenever I load up my fable 2 save game after new January 09 patch it now has a high ratio of freezing crashing display glitches and all thats left is to shut down, switch back on got red ring bottom right hand corner of power button. Fable 2 caused this probably graphics too much for 360 to handle?.

  Wouldn’t be so bad if Microsoft would give us free replacement hardware with a free 5 year warranty minimum! Afterall its their published game that messed up the console. Lionhead please fix this issue, while your at it release some more
  new armor/clothes/weapons, Quests (good looking ones).

  Currently the content still not enough for hardcore gamers like us to play with, also an easier method of applying dye colours its just too slow and annoying to do it the way it currently is, although there is tons of weakness to the game.

  So far I aknowledge one thing only its a beautiful game with almost decent magic effects/style and battle mechanics the rest plain sucks sorry, It gets boring fast and I almost enjoyed it at the start.

  one final thing to say this puts me off from fable 3 also sorry to everyone who’s console broke, I’ll be joining your club now.

• 

  Alexander Rehm

  January 18, 2009

  Hiya Taz,

  Really sorry to hear about your problems with Fable 2.

  Fable 2’s graphics are actually nothing that complex or excessive as Gears of War 2 or Dead Space for example, even though that most of the users are having freezing issues with a lot of effects on the screen (say a fire-spell plus lots of experience orbs on one screen) many others had issues where they were just talking to someone or pretty much just running around, buying houses or equipment.

  To me, Lionhead has managed to do what they did with pretty much all games since Black & White – over-hype, under-deliver, unable to produce a finished product and lack in after-release support.

• 

  Taz

  January 19, 2009

  hey Alex,

  so if its not the graphics card then the hardware xbox360 is just not reliable enough to cope with so many pixels at the same time and freezes the game or perhaps the game save data itself? I’d like to know though how a game mainly (fable 2) could break console, how its even remotely possible. I never had issues with my console until i played fable 2 off harddrive with new patch.

  I’d like to note a few other issues with the game mechanics its pretty big issues, dont you just hate it when you go around the entire zone changing prices of houses, why couldn’t the price lists be selected in game menu to adjust prices from there? its so annoying to run around looking for properties I gave up after 1 hour of bordem running around 1 town, or at the very least a npc to adjust them for you after giving them instructions, perhaps you should hire npc in game to do some work for you? The only thing you need to run around for is to find a house for your mate, you should also be able to collect your presents from your mate anywhere in game forget realism having to pick it up its a game with magic, also sex is boring in game just hearing moans without the ability to skip it and get on with the adventure.

  I tell you something if Lionhead hired me for ideas and game mechanics they would make much more money I would Perfect a gamers experience and keep them happy at all times from 0-200 hours at least. well I need to look for a job tomorrow hint hint lol. Like i said before though the only thing i like about the game is the colours and graphics. Its only reason i played it thus far. I would really like a patch from Lionhead to include fixes for everyone’s issues and game mechanics to improve gameplay/content and maybe people will purchase your future games?

  Above all else I would also play none stop just to test if it breaks an xbox360 console after a new patch never release a patch if its unstable, its not good to release a game that has issues and destroys consoles. you just make many people angry work for people do it right and the people will respect you and buy more, I also just found out data that got corrupted on my memory card that was plugged in at the time of the 360’s crash. so if you switch off your console prematurely it can corrupt data be careful especially when data is being saved. Sorry if I make spelling mistakes I rushed this but put much thought in it.

• 

  Alexander Rehm

  January 19, 2009

  Hi Taz,

  You have raised a number of good points there, especially regarding the graphics and hardware problem. I recall a while ago that the same was said about Forza 2 (which I never experienced, and I love that game and am still playing it a lot).

  I think you touched a very good point there, is the installation causing problems? Is the game developed badly to cause a graphics overload, resulting in a crash?

  Well, knowing Lionhead, latter is most likely the case. I am not having a go at the developers entirely, I think they did a tremendous job getting the game done, but I feel that its release was (again) rushed, testing was done superficially (I mean look at all the graphics problems, sound and gameplay glitches even after the patch, and some of them even appear on the DLC!!) and not to the standard it should have been.

  I agree entirely with you about everything you said about the gameplay mechanics with regards to houses, price adjustment, spouses, etc, and I am amazed that most of that was never ever considered in detail (coming back to the ‘rushed development’ issue mentioned above), especially since Lionhead had a hard drive full of fan suggestions for Fable 2 after Fable 1 came out.

  It is really a shame that the experience you (and many others) are having are so grave that some cannot even play the game out of fear to see their 360 blow up in smoke or – worse – RROD. That and the to some extent really badly implemented gameplay mechanics outside of combat are a real let-down. I am just glad I made it to the end before the game killed my system.

• 

  ChosenOne72

  January 21, 2009

  I had that problem with Fable 2 also. I beat the game with no problem. Than suddenly a few days after I beat it it froze. I thought it was a cache problem so I cleared that up. It still froze on me. Than I burned it on to my Xbox360 and haven’t had a problem yet. My theory is that the patch is causing the problem. Maybe by burning it on to the xbox360 you can play without the patch thus no freezing problems. I know I havent had any problems.

• 

  Taz

  January 21, 2009

  Iv played fable 2 from the dvd drive for about 1 month then installed to the harddrive played it from hard disk drive ever since patched the game then loaded up my save, eventually it caused fatalities on the hardware this is what i think the console couldnt keep up with the amount of data on screen, resulting in major crash, now my xbox is showing me all red lights exept the top right hand coerner of the power led which is blank. think its 3 red lights. I’m definitely sending it back. how long is the warranty though on xbox360? its only been a bit over a year for me.

• 

  Alexander Rehm

  January 22, 2009

  If its a Red Ring of Death (i.e. what you have) then warranty should cover it for 2 years after the console was first registered, in some cases even longer.

  Best thing to do: jot down your console’s serial number, call MS’s customer support line, explain the situation and they will tell you what to do with your console (I know a friend of mine was told that he was to pack his console and someone from Parcelforce or RoyalMail will pick it up free of charge, but there are cases where people had to pay for the shipping and would then be reimbursed). Be warned though that it can take up to 3 weeks for the console to arrive back at yours.

  Hope this helps mate, let us know how you are getting on!

• 

  Princess Peach

  January 25, 2009

  I bought my xbox 360 Elite in May of 08 brsnd new. I have played many games that did not freeze. I purchased FableII when it first came out. Then it started freszing after I beat the Troll the first time. After that I was lucky even getting into the game! Today I had to restart the console at least 10 times and I have yet to complete one quest! I am not happy with this game at all! It seems fun, but I really wouldn’t know, considering I can’t even play it for 5mins before it freezes!!!!

• 

  Taz

  January 26, 2009

  company i got it from told me manufacturer is 12 months warranty and said they couldnt help me, I email support at microsoft and now I’m awaiting response, if they going to charge me for a fix I wont be able to play xbox360 for 1 year just can’t afford anything right now. if its 2 years warranty and i can claim free I don’t mind paying shipping so long as it doesn’t cost me to repair it, its only been over a little over a year.

• 

  Alexander Rehm

  January 27, 2009

  Taz, don’t go to the company you bought the 360 from, this is a pure MS issue now. If your 360 in fact RROD’ed then you will be able to get a 2 years warranty, and they should not be charging you.

  As to emailing them, it is a waste of time I fear, as all they will probably say is “please contact us on ….”. Instead, if you are in the UK then contact them on 0800 587 1102 (free from a landline) or +44 20 7365 9792 (from a mobile phone).

• 

  Taz

  January 29, 2009

  yeah good idea Alex, I phoned them up and got a repair to pickup my console free of charge they have 3 years extended warranty from the date of purchase from the company, I told them my full issue the guy on phone said to me that its not fable 2 that broke my console lol I doubt my console would break if fable 2 didn’t crash on me, i also think the guy on phone doesn’t play games or fable 2 at least to know this. They made me double check the console was 3 red lights and power supply is green light, which probably indicates that there is nothing wrong with the power supply unit just the console itself.

  They are picking my console up 1-3 days time, free service and free shipping back either repair or a complete replacement all free lucky for me I wont be out of an Xbox360 for a year lol the shipping back to me can take 1-3 weeks though yeah thats pretty much what they said, seems decent 3 years warranty, but I do hope their future hardware is more stable, personally xbox360 isn’t very hardware stable, it should have 5 years warranty instead.

  This hasn’t changed my opinion of fable 2 the game still has major game flaws in both mechanics and patching still needs to fix all crashes, did they test the game out on an xbox360 from a pre-saved game before the new patch I wonder. I’m paranoid now I’m never going to play this game on my repaired/replaced console I think just in case lol…

  Sadly however I didn’t manage to complete this game, and think I will not buy any sequels, but not just because of the patch, but because the game fable 2 doesn’t give me/us what I/we want in an rpg they made the game with specifics to what they want only, telling us its an rpg which does things that other rpg’s have never done before please this is so wrong everything in this game iv seen before via pc or console games over the years, its just not very interesting to me anymore.
  I feel like i have to say this perhaps programmers and companies will take note if they view this page.

  Key elements to superior games are:

  Game mechanics <without good game mechanics not even worth buying the game.

  Graphics <Graphics is very important nowadays because it has to match 1080p for LCD/plasma or content would look like an a Nintendo wii on a large LCD very unattractive trust me. I suppose 720p looked just about ok for minimum on my 52″ Sony LCD but 1080p is the one should be enforced all the time until the next step up.

  Sound< sound is Important as it helps keep you coming back for more, and stops the game from being repetitive.

  Storyline <Storyline is another reason to play more and helps replay value even.
  Originality <This can go last since if the game is fun to play originality isn’t necessity.

  I guess thats all i got to say anyone else have issues contact that number like Alexander said It worked for me. Good luck to you all thanks again.

• 

  Taz

  February 2, 2009

  Actually there is one last thing I found out and had to post it I also have an American White version xbox360 the very first model I thought i could use this console as backup until my black elite 360 version gets fixed, guess what when i turned it on it froze, then second time i switched it on 3 red lights same thing, this is curious so i asked about it on the phone.

  The 3 red lights indicate hardware problem thats true, ok so far iv come to realize something about xbox360 if the new dash board is used with old console the hardware needs a new motherboard, with new patches comes stress on the hardware so they need special hardware to get it working properly.

  Thats what she told me on the phone was quite polite too I’m not surprised she told me its not our fault and this is a reason why 3 red lights gets a free repair. my white old console was out of warranty she told me but because its old version and this specific motherboard wasn’t made for new dash board I’m getting a free repair on it. lucky!

  The new dash board got on my xbox360 console because i used my previous hard drive, i had to it contained all my game data, I think even these semi new consoles need replacing of components and hardware. I wonder though was fable 2 built for this new motherboard is that why it caused problems with older consoles? Perhaps this is more the issue and the reason why patch for fable 2 doesn’t work right but if people still having problems with the game maybe I’m wrong but I’m sure there are tons of bugs that need fixing.

  well now i got to wait in twice for two different repairs /sigh oh well free repair free delivery who can really argue.

  Forgive my gramma and or spelling. I thought some people might benefit from this knowledge if it was mentioned before please excuse it or use it to refresh memory. I’m only stating what they told me on the phone.

• 

  Alexander Rehm

  February 2, 2009

  Hi Taz,
  Thanks for the heads-up, and I really hope you get your 360 back soon!

  I had a quick dig around (mostly asking a friend in the States who is working for Microsoft’s Xbox customer service department), and it seems that these RROD’s are in fact random and either occur on the first-generation 360’s (as your telephone call confirms) or a certain lot number of 360’s, but he said that no one will confirm this at this point in time. Well, we’ll see. Either way, I wonder what Fable 3 will do to consoles 😉

• 

  bobby chybik

  February 5, 2009

  I only got fable 2 a few days ago as a present from my older brother and it was working fine for the first two days,low and behold tonight i play it i try to reach bloodstone,i come against this monster and before i can use a trick…it freezes,luckily my xbox is fine buttt its is rather annoying… not that i really bother with birthdays anymore but if i did… happy 20th to me :l

• 

  bobby chybik

  February 5, 2009

  One more thing, something that seems to tick me off is that it somtimes seems to come down to what 360 unit your using mine isnt the arcade..it was part of the pro bundle which at the time had the 20gb hdd,now microsoft comes along and brings out the elite for more moneyand when the older model starts gettin faulty their answer is send it in,but what if you dont have a warranty or dont have the money to get it fixed or dont have xbox live to get updates or cant afford the elite..then thats just tough then isnt it?,i guess sony may be reaquiring my custom in the near future

• 

  Andy D

  February 8, 2009

  Got My xbox in November. My son has had his for over a year. He played fable2 fine. I on the other had from the 1st 10 mins in had freezing. If I took out my Hard drive and put it in his. No Problems, back to mine and it freezes 🙁 All other games seem to work fine. Now terrified that it is going to die on me. Fable2 is now banned on both machines and it looks like ebay will get another customer. 🙁
  I saw other threads about clearing cache but 1 i have no idea how to do that or what effect it has and 2 I dont want to make things worse.

• 

  Taz

  February 12, 2009

  I’m not leaving yet until i report on my status of consoles still waiting for them to collect my original white version of the xbox360 but they have my black elite so far still in repair stage.

  If you ask me bob Sony are just as bad releasing a new console with larger hdd but with lack of backwards compatibility for ps2 titles? wtf is that? “and” more expensive games not to mention not many good games compared to whats been released on the 360, the ps3 is overhyped the only good thing i can say about the ps3 is blue ray and xbox good thing is free repair if their patch caused the problem with the 3 red lights considering even if your out of warranty they still repair only based on their update patch caused the problems I believe.

• 

  Taz

  February 12, 2009

  new news just came in i have to speak with a supervisor regarding my status of the white xbox360 because its out of warranty, but im going to explain to him that I used the elite soon as it was released and put the white one aside for emergency, I have hardly used my white 360 it eventually ran out of warranty the cause of the hardware failure is the new patch.

  My proof is my white xbox360 asked me to update my system, soon as i try to update it the screen froze, I then switched off console as the only thing we can do when this happens, switch back on again after 10 long seconds and boom 3 red lights, tried again and leaved console off for a day still 3 red lights, lol if its not fable 2 its the new dash board patch that messes up my old console.

  “Now listen up Microsoft”

  If Microsoft offer me a free repair on this one even though out of warranty it means they not deliberately killing our consoles, as if theres no profit gain it would be irrelevant to kill consoles correct? but regardless the programmers of fable 2 need to go back to game design school sorry its true. Don’t mean to be rude but Lionhead you’ve caused many problems for us and all we ever wanted to do was play some video games.

• 

  Alexander Rehm

  February 13, 2009

  Hey Taz, always happy to read your comments, and I hope everything goes well with your Xbox 360.

  To everyone, please link to this blog post, two developers of Lionhead have emailed me about these issues and would like to read more info about this problem. Who knows, they might actually try and fix this.

• 

  Taz

  February 17, 2009

  What a nightmare, I had to go through a lot of trouble on the phone for 2 xbox360’s with 3 red lights, today i got back 360 elite my console is NTSC US but I live in UK so i used the number 0800 587 1102, what they do is fix NTSC consoles with NTSC parts but if a replacement is necessary then they only replace with a PAL console. Good thing they didn’t replace it at least i think thats a good thing, the issue is I received my Elite console back but has knife scratch marks on the right hand side also either they did something to the dvd drive which is a bit fickle now works 90% of the time when before it was 100% but it could of been damaged in transit.

  This I understand but the fact i have to re-install all my games again to just play the off the hard drive is ridiculous i had 23 games installed to my Elite hdd and they wont work because it would only play on the console it was originally installed too, all they did with replace the motherboard why do i have to delete then re-install my games? Argh if those not annoying enough i had spend over 2 hours including hold time, I’m currently waiting on the phone to them explaining the issues, my returned 360 elite is working though not necessarily 100% fixed these technicians are having a laugh.

  The first turn on my 360 wouldn’t install a game, Its position is vertical I turned my console horizontally and then the dvd drive kicked in I could hear a motor sound, I’m thinking what the hell my dvd drive is broken vertically? My dvd drive was working 100% before i shipped the elite out for repair, all they did was replace the console’s motherboard according to the documentation, lol this is crazy now the dvd drive is working vertically but it makes me think if it can fail at anytime no matter what position?. currently on vertical side but I fear my console doomed within a few months after the warranty expires the dvd drive will probably stop working first my guess, my warranty expires in May this year for any damage. But the 3 red light issue i think i have until end of 2010. Well they said 3 years extended from date of purchase only for the 3 red lights issue, so end of 2007 that be near end of 2010 ish.

  They still have yet to pickup my white xbox, I had trouble getting the labels for this repair service, so i had to speak to supervisor regarding it, should get another pickup 3 days from now, almost makes me regret phoning in the first place im about ready to give up on their repair services its caused me major hassle although free nothing is for free, you get hassle in return 🙂 perhaps i should go in debt and just buy a new 360 US console…. damn repair services not to mention i almost didnt get free repair on my out of warranty white version seems like iv had it for a lil over 3 years but because someone already issued me a ref no. Lucky!

  Lucky free repair? Having said this I don’t think I’m lucky if i got my elite dented with a couple knife marks and a damaged fickle dvd drive which makes me believe it can die anytime if my 360 didn’t look so ugly I might of cared about its superficial exterior lol

  I can only say I’m going insane chasing up 2 repair xbox360’s It’s not “that” bad on their phones the problem is technicians aren’t doing the proper tests, and explaining it on the phone is difficult and time consuming and just causes stress maybe they are extensive but not enough when I used to build some pc’s I would do detail tests and benchmarking for at least 1-2 days constantly but for pc its different i get it but for an xbox360
  please 6-8 hours test not 2 this what they should do for an xbox360, testing is the key to fixing patches and/or repairing/replacing hardware, trial and error is the best method to learn. But to take time on consoles making sure 100-200% sure its working at all angles.

  They did not test my console out with specific games vertical or horizontal console stand position, they only did a 2 hour benchmark test they quote on the documents, lol so having the console for a lil over a week I see it takes 1 week to replace a motherboard and 2 hours to test it all? lol dammit honestly Alex this is enough to cause even Rocky Balboa to quit. One more round as if, hmm actually I’m already due for another round -.- lol

• 

  Taz

  February 17, 2009

  Regarding fable 2 I’ll be honest if they would listen to the crowd and fix any issues left and not to mention add some in game-mechanics for convenience they would get more compliments instead of complaints.

• 

  bobby chybik

  February 22, 2009

  Ok,i feel major embarassed having to bring this up,but after ringing up the retail store and bringin the game to one of their games specialists the guy said that u could download an update for ur xbox dashboard there was the option of installing to hard drive should the game still glitchup in bloodstone,essentially i had allready restarted my game, go through thag,the trolls the annoying spires only to get to the moment of truth…killing the annoying banshees and getting up to the point where my game last shut down, low and behold after using some will and some numerous gun shots the troll shutdown anddd i got into bloodstone,as of today i finished fable 2 :l yes i feel rather embarassed..and i didnt even have to use up hard drive space to install it directly maybe my reduced will usage helped or the simple idea of restarting,frustrating as that was could of been the solution and the thing that has allowed me to progress second time around.

  Yes kinda feel stupid,however the glitches still remain an issue and for those who still dont have xbox live access its a bitch i just barely managed to set my connection up to get the dashboard updates etc…anywho i still hope that lionhead addresses these issues

• 

  S

  March 9, 2009

  Well i have an X360 elite, everything has been running just fine. I’m wary of lionhead hype (overpromise,underdeliver eg b&w, fable 1 etc ) but decided to see why fable 2 was so high in the charts all the time. Had they finally fixed all the quirks and made a half-decent game? Within the first hour, i’ve seen more glitches/bugs than you can shake a stick at and cannot even play the game for more than 15 minutes before it locks up – this is really unacceptable. I wanted to give it a chance but not going to waste my time with something that is half-baked – no more $$ going to lionhead games. I’m taking the game back for a full refund tomorrow and exchange it for something more reliable – it really is a sorry state of affairs.

• 

  Zeuxis

  March 10, 2009

  Doing some searching on google and found this spot. Hehe funny, my Xbox died on my last month while playing Fable 2. Just about within the warrenty for 3 lights, so MS took it and send me a ‘new’ xbox. Been playing Fable 2 again just so I can finish it as I enjoy the game…. during loading times it froze on me about 8 times now, wonder if this Xbox will die as well 😛 whole system is useless. Might have to spend more time with my PS3!

  Ta

• 

  simon

  March 13, 2009

  I got the 3red rings of death a few months back but luckally i had a bit of warranty left so sent it back and got a supposidly new xbox back within a couple of weeks, i was impressed. So this new xbox was running fine for a couple of months and the i go and buy me a copy of fable2 and low and behold the disc drive stops working and wont read any game disc’s! So im back on the phone to microsoft and major gutted my warranty had ran out! So i went ape shit at then how they can send me out a replacement console that only lasted a couple of months and tell me it will cost me £90 to fix! so i went and got myself an elite but that keeps on crashing on some games unless i install the game to my hardrive!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

• 

  Taz

  March 23, 2009

  so what did they say to you Alex? I’d like to know if they going to try fix the bugs and problems if not then so I can sell the game or just trash it, I’ll just youtube the ending. I’d only play it if they fix all major bugs and the add on to change prices of all houses you’ve bought in your inventory screen, cause seriously thats the no 1 major game issue aside from the freezing and crashing. Who actually runs around town and looking for every house to change prices? what a ridiculous flaw the game has.

• 

  Alexander Rehm

  March 23, 2009

  Hey Taz,
  I have tried to get in touch with them, but I have not received any word of them on planning to fix the problem, the DLC is out and they have their money, as such I would think they have shelved the development of another patch. No surprise there to be honest, seeing how they managed to mess up Black and White 2, Fable 1 and now Fable 2. Thanks Lionhead 🙁

• 

  Taz

  March 27, 2009

  oh well, I guess thats it then if they not going to fix it what a pity. The game had some good elements, a shame they don’t know how to use them properly and expand on them.

  Although my xbox is supposed to be fixed according to them, well it froze again on me once but this time on star ocean 4 I really need a new hobby lol.

  A word of advice for everyone although xbox360 has issues it doesn’t mean ps3 is better so no matter what you buy it will all be the same thing a console and a broken console, lately I break consoles like tissue paper and i treat them with the utmost respect, so how is this possible? I never once broke my NES, SNES, N64, i never broke my gamecube or Nintendo wii, and i use them tons of times, why the heck am i breaking Sony and Microsoft hardware???

  I’d say the problem is the hardware isn’t quality, and perhaps couldn’t keep up with the power of games/graphics for long periods of time, perhaps a new console one that stays cool for 10+ or so hours straight. Also better laser one that can last much much longer, how hard is it to do that? ^_^v

  well Cya guys thats it from me for good this time lol.
  Thanks Alex for all your info and hope you get your consoles sorted out again.

  Taz-
  p.s
  Microsoft why do we need the game disk if we installed the game to the hard-drive? if its for piracy purposes can we not update the console to allow your own ID specific to read data off dvd or idk sort of like activation code then we can play without the game disks?

  I want to phase out DVD and blueray and have games run completely off hard drive this way if something happened to the laser in the console I wouldn’t have to phone up tech support and slam the phone down when he tells me how much it costs to replace a laser. ok a long pm but its a good idea then each game that has activation code specific to each dvd can play off the hard drive without the use of the laser or game disks.
  ciao..

• 

  Yamadron

  April 11, 2009

  I am having a problem with Fable II as well. But the game doesn’t even load up. Microsoft logo, then Lionhead’s Studio logo, White screen and FREEZES up like that ( Just the game not the
  console ). Emptied the Cache, Tried to play off-line, tried to play without signing to my profile = SAME PROBLEM. I rented a copy of the game from my local store = SAME PROBLEM. The problem just arised when my original disc is scratched badly and the game no longer loads up ( at the same white screen ). It is like my XBOX swears that it will never play that game again 🙁 .. I am playing other games for over 2 hours without crashes or freezes.
  It is really a shame. I loved that game, but now I have nothing to do. :'(

• 

  Taz

  April 21, 2009

  Alright I lied I haven’t gone away lol and I must admit I was a rather stressed and angry gamer, I have some new info regarding the xbox360 and thought I’d share it with everyone, I think they patched Fable 2 and I found a freeze bug in star ocean 4 The Last Hope, My console kept freezing on me same place whilst playing star ocean 4 so this is what i did I thought my console was broken again, so i contacted Microsoft and setup a repair again lucky me (free) but then my console starting working on all my games except star ocean 4.

  Yep even fable 2 now worked on me for 2 days straight no crashing still not crashing so assume that game got fixed? a cause for star ocean 4’s freezing could be resolution I had a save state running 1080p I killed a creature in the coliseum it always freeze on me the game after the battle, and when changing characters,

  so I turned the game SO4 down to 720p in Dashboard menu and loaded up my game same place and killed the creature guess what no freeze!! and what popped up was an achievement, turned game back to 1080p now the achievements out of the way the game didn’t crash on me, however later froze on me again during character change running 1080p still.

  This is so strange so I keep the console at 1080i now and turned achievement notifications all off via menu (notification) star ocean 4 has not crashed on me since running on a lower resolution, wonder if anything like this is related to fable 2 achievements and 1080p combined or just 1080p with some games?

  Iv tried turning off notifications and running 1080p but star ocean though it says it can run on 1080p still freezes unless i put it on lower resolution, I contacted Square enix about this and according to them they can’t reproduce the freeze bugs, lol they are Amateur testers or liars.

  Anyways I managed to complete Fable 2 with not one freeze in 2 days. I still find many things in the game annoying especially the ending where it auto saves on your choice so be careful when given choice if you pick “sacrifice” you lose your families and your dog for so far I think forever. I really think they should give you a choice of what ending you want to keep not force you to do this or that.

  Fable 2 replay value is so limited because of the annoying game mechanics so I wont play it again unless they add convenience for economy handling and the ability to rollback and save multiple slots. The game has a semi decent storyline it just wasn’t big enough seriously was so short shorter than anything iv ever played, and the excitement wasn’t constant, for any future games please include the most important bug fixes and game mechanics for everyones sake.

  I also think childhood should last longer to make the audience feel more emotional to the characters, or a time travel thing so you can go back and forward from kid to adult to do quests and or puzzles which effect the future.

  I really suggest issues with the hardware that causes game crashes, there are so many factors to take into account and like Alex said as well.

  1: Hardware
  2: Achievements as we know achievements slow down the game for a second which could leave open a freeze or a crash running max resolution 1080p which leads me to 3

  no 3: Resolution for the only game iv played that causes freeze some parts of the game running on 1080p. which also could well be related to achievements mixed with that 1080p resolution. Star ocean 4 has more Achievements than a general, to fix some game crashes or freezing change the resolution to 1080i or 720p it might help you diagnose the problems, this is from what Iv understood after learning much about my own console.

  4: Tons of game detail sprites and effects over heating issues and running 1080p with a buggy game and weak hardware the 360 console that is, could very well crash often on you. keep it ventilated install game to hard drive can help, but it might be best to Google and find out if the game has problems and needs fixing which is the first thing you should do if all else fails.

  Personally the xbox360 is still a decent machine aside from its weak hardware and needs a serious make over, I would give another chance to xbox360 simply because they have all the games im interested in, and I like testing things its sort of a hobby for me.

• 

  Laura

  August 5, 2009

  I got a new 360 arcade in December 2008. Before that I had bought Fable 2 and had started playing it on someone else’s 360. And it worked fine. Beat the game a few times. Tried playing it for the first time last night on my 360 arcade, and it froze 5 minutes into the game. I put in my Guitar Hero Metallica and it worked great. I think it’s rotten that Lionhead is not addressing this problem. I would think twice about buying any games from them again.

• 

  Nic

  August 30, 2009

  Yeah i had the exact same problem, bought a new one and the same thing happened. and just like you microsoft dismissed my problem. blaming it on dust… wtf!

• 

  Tamar

  September 1, 2009

  Its funny, my copy of Fable 2 is running fine, but a friend is having massive problems with his version, similar to what Alex and Taz are describing. I don’t understand how this can be though, is there a bad batch of discs? Are they all the same and there is a bad batch of 360’s (which wouldn’t surprise me) out there that cannot play that game at all???

  All other games are running fine though, shame MS or Lionhead don’t seem to give a damn…

• 

  Blake

  September 3, 2009

  I’m not convinced that Fable 2 was the direct result of your problems, though it would seem so if you look at the story from the surface. I’ve got fable 2 and play it on my 360 pro that has the falcon chipset and it has never frozen yet. It was a little laggy at times, but thn when I installed the game to the 360 hard drive it ran perfectly well.

• 

  Blake

  September 3, 2009

  ***** not the result, i mean the direct cuase

• 

  nick

  September 4, 2009

  Blake, I don’t think you understood what the problem was about. Some are having an issue, some aren’t. You are one of those who are unaffected. Read the post and the comments properly next time.

  Nick

• 

  Wellhoff52

  December 26, 2009

  Hi, I purchased Fable 2 a few months ago for my boys (11,10 and 5) and it crashed a lot. The kid at the store told me we needed to download a patch to make it work properly, which we did…it still struggled, so then we were told to download it directly to the harddrive which we did and it worked fine….the freaking problem is now my console will not recognize my Call of Duty 4….aggghhhhhh!!! Anyone els have this problem, and if so what can I do to fix it?

• 

  Alexander Rehm

  December 27, 2009

  Hm, the fact that Fable 2 works and CoD4 isn’t recognised any more are unrelated.

  I remember there were quite a few users with the same problem as yours, could you please check the following options:
  – make sure your lens is clean. There are some lens cleaning discs that work with the 360
  – try and update your 360
  – delete all CoD4 content off your drive minus the save data or DLCs (if applicable) and restart the console and try again
  – try another game, play it, then exit the game and put CoD4 in

  Hope any of these items work?

  ALEX

• 

  Mike

  March 31, 2010

  I note the last post was in 2009, but what the hell, I thought I’d throw in my details of my experience regarding Xbox360 and FableII.

  My Xbox360 is just out of warranty, I haven’t got three red lights, as others have. But no problem, go on YouTube and get instructions on how to fix it yourself.

  I played FableII the early part of this year, till I owned everything and became King. Early on I too began having problems with it freezing. But found that I could get round it by saving the game at regular intervals. After finding anything, after completing any/all tasks. Even where possible I would save my game during tasks.

  Toward the end though I was starting to get other odd, quirky things happening. Such as, when going to rescue slaves, along the ‘Bandit Coast Road’ I noticed I was passing cages with people in that I wasn’t being sent to rescue and couldn’t. However, when later in the game I was sent to rescue them, they didn’t disappear and would only leave the cages when my guy got in and pushed them out! After that, everytime I passed that cage, the two men were still standing there, looking around. But I was unable to interact with them. Further to this they also changed their appearances, clothing, stature and ages. But on one occasion I noticed something realy weird, one of the guys was wearing a long black, hooded cloak and his nose appeared to be or looked like a long pointed, orange carrot? I promise you I wasn’t drinking and neither was I on any sort of drugs!

  My wife is still playing the game, as she was some way behind me. As yet she hasn’t experienced the freezing, nor has she noticed any strange occurances.

  I have now gone backwards as it were, as I am playing ‘Fable the Lost Chapters’. I know it’s the wrong way round, but I never knew about it till after I’d started ‘FableII’. Still as soon as I put it in the machine, it froze. It wasn’t a good sign, but after I’d switched it back on I saved it immeadiately and have kept doing so, as I did with ‘FableII’. Sadly though, I’ve hit another problem, I can’t complete the arena challenges one after the other, in one go. Because…yes you’ve guessed it, the game freezes and when I switch it back on, I’m back outside waiting to go in. The strange thing is though, it allows me to and appears to be saving between bouts. Till it freezes and of course it hasn’t saved anything!

  I’m at a bit of a loss as to how to get round this one. It has occured to me that perhaps there’s a bit too much stuff on the hard drive. Which could be the reason for it not allowing me to save it. Although I can save everything else in the game? It’s a conunderum!?

  But I’m a glutton for punishment, as if and/or when I finish this one I’ll be getting ‘FableIII’. As I find the game itself – if not the programming – to be brilliant. Perhaps they were so keen to release it that they’re trying to run before they can walk.

  Mike

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