You all saw Microsoft’s amazing demonstration with Project Natal, right? Well I don’t think anyone could have predicted the scale of advancement Project Natal was going to bring to the gaming world.

Introducing Milo, a virtual boy who you can literally interact and talk to utilizing Microsoft’s Natal technology. Now let’s pretend for a moment the video isn’t staged and ponder the possibilities of Project Natal coupled with this revolutionary artificial intelligence.

Considering Peter Molyneux is behind Milo just imagine an RPG that uses this same kind of technology with you as the main character, instead of picking from a predetermined list of NPC responses you actually respond with voice. Sure it may be a ways off but just knowing that this technology is coming is very exciting.

Most games from Lionhead Studios, especially games involving Peter Molyneaux, remind me of an old political cartoon from the Clinton presidency.  On the left, Clinton is seated before sheet music labeled “Promises” with his saxophone, a skein of notes visibly emerging from it.  On the right, he’s seated before sheet music labeled “Delivery”, this time playing a kazoo.

And indeed, Lionhead has once again brought me way more sizzle than steak with their release of Fable II, the game Molyneaux swore up and down would blow Fable away.

On that point, he’s right.  Fable II does blow Fable away.  It has a whole new generation’s worth of graphical processing power to play with, a metric ton of mini games and several new characters inhabiting a storyline that will encompass decades in a world that will change visibly with every decision you make.

The only problem, of course, is that while Molyneux and company were building this massive world, they forgot that video games are supposed to have this thing called PLOT.

On the surface, Fable II looks to have plot in abundance, with you playing as a hero of legend who doesn’t know it yet gone in search of various other heroes of legend.  They will in turn lend their powers to make you a kind of SUPER hero of legend.  And once you have become this magnificent figure you will then go out and defeat the villain who killed your sister about ten years prior.

Said villain, meanwhile, is visibly trying to rebuild the Death Star.  You think I’m kidding there, but I’m really not–Fable II’s big bad is out to rebuild a gigantic spire-like facility (okay, so it’s not the same SHAPE.) that has mystical powers sufficient to reshape the world according to his own twisted whims.  He’s stocked said facility with a seemingly infinite number of identically dressed lesser baddies (if they were wearing white I’d swear they were stormtroopers), some of which you’ll have to fight for a few minutes.
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In general, reviewers judge games as they are. If a game receives a significant patch that fixes a glaring flaw that the game in question may have had, it wont affect the score which the game received. A good example would be Lair and how the poor controls destroyed the experience, and although those were patched, the game was not re-reviewed. A little while ago, we reported that one of Fable 2′s major features, online co-op, would be added in shortly after the game launched. So what does this mean for Fable 2′s review scores? Peter Molynuex took it upon himself to personally, via letter, ask reviewers to take the significance of online co-op into account.

“I have a favour to ask you — we build this game not only to appeal to gamers like yourself, but to appeal to anybody. So please, please, please, please, please find somebody who doesn’t play games, watch them play it and see how their world turns out, because I think it’s only when you see those differences that the unique experiences comes through.”

While he clever avoided asking reviewers to actually pretend that online co-op was available. Whether reviewers will go through with doing this “favor” for him remains to be seen, but I for one don’t think that providing a letter requesting to, essentially, ignore a fault that the game has is a respectable move to any degree.

When someone is asked to associate a game title with the Xbox 360, chances are they’d say Halo 3. With the Wii, the game is WiiSports. What does the PlayStation 3 have though? Many would either say Metal Gear Solid 4, or Little Big Planet. If you ask the question to Peter Molyneux, however, you’ll get an entirely different answer all together. During an interview, Molyneux was questioned about whether he thought his next title, Fable 2, could spur Xbox 360 sales in Japan. Part way through his answer, he mentioned “defining titles” and how he thought that the PS3 was still waiting for a title of it’s own.

“I think the PlayStation 3 is still waiting for that definition title that represents the platform – and I think that’s what hardware manufacturers need to do, find that defining title. Nintendo did a brilliant job of doing that at launch with games like Wii Sports and Wii Play – maybe Fable 2 is a defining title. But you are talking to the proud father of this game, so you can’t ask me to be tremendously objective.”

With both Little Big Planet and Metal Gear Solid 4 being PlayStation 3 exclusive, and considering that MGS 4 can only be stored, uncompressed, on a Bluray disk, I’m not sure how more definitive Molyneux is expecting.

Always a vocal person, Peter Molyneaux recently talked about the games he is looking forward to this year, noting, in particular, Too Human, which he felt to be “slightly off”, noting that he would have done things differently if he were in charge.

“It has some gems in there, but they’re hard to find,” he said. “I quite like the combat and felt it was accessible, but I just… If I got my hands on the game, I’d rip out a few of the things they did and just concentrate on the core.”

“It just slightly forgot about what it was trying to be,” Molyneaux continued. “In a way, it tried to be something it was not. It felt – and again, I thought it did some things really well – that there was something slightly off about it. I’m sure that Dennis Dyack is going to come and kill me now!”

He also talked about GTA 4, which he noted was a “high spot” this year despite it having flaws. Braid, LittleBigPlanet and Spore were also mentioned, with the latter turning out better than expected by Molyneaux.

The famed developer recently oversaw the development of Fable 2, which is due out exclusively on Xbox 360 on October 24.