Fable 2 is " content complete" with a measly 5,000 bugs to squash before it' s completely complete, reports NeoGAF poster " Vinterbird" (aka Mikkel Vinther of Xboxlife.dk). The Danish site published a preview of Lionhead' s second try today, based on a visit to the studio' s headquarters in Guilford, UK last week. Vinther kindly translated the good parts, highlighting these new details in his post on NeoGAF:

Mini-map has been replaced with a " bread crumb trail;" a dynamic golden line on the ground that directs you to a destination (read: medieval GPS)
Magic system is divided into focused, single-foe attacks and ranged attacks; attacks can be built up into five levels using various spell combinations

Speaking of spells, there' ll be just eight (but remember, they can be combined)
Every house in the game is up for sale; each house will unlock a sidequest, item or skill
Rough estimation: 20-30 times larger than the first Fable
The gameworld features seasons and dynamic weather
Cutscenes are interactive; the d-pad can be used to issue certain gestures that will steer conversations
Sex minigame was canned; instead, screen goes dark and moaning ensues (sex can still be unprotected though! Babies, yes; STDs, unconfirmed)
Female character was almost canned; almost.
And finally: Three more Fable sequels are being planned. (Lionhead is currently wrapping up Fable 2 and focusing on an announced project.)

In the Beginning
The game of Fable 2 has an elegant beginning, a cut-scene that follows a bird from a forest to a town, where it lands on a ledge and takes a poop.

" We take a dramatic camera angel and follow that poop until it lands on your head, and that' s how it starts," Molyneux said. " It' s a lovely starting."

The game begins with you as a little kid in a slum, totally powerless, learning both the city and your controls. Molyneux calls it a half hour of charm.

" My dream is to tell a story you fucking remember," he said. " I want you to remember it, i want it to stay in your mind. How do i do that? I steal a bunch of stuff from my favorite things."

The screen is relatively HUD free, instead most of what you need to know is shown contextually. There is a breadcrumb trail, for instance, that appears on the ground to show you where you need to go next to complete your current missions.

" It' s like an in-car navigation system without a voice."

Free Roaming
Almost all cut-scenes are interactive in the game, in fact there is less than five minutes worth of non-interactive cut-scenes in the entire game. During the rest of them you can react, by using your D-pad to perform expressions, laugh, frown, even fart when someone is talking. You can evil kill a person in the middle of a cut-scene, cutting it short and drastically changing the missions, Molyneux said.

These choices are what help shape the world, changing it from something created by developers to something very personal. And such choices have drastic repercussions as the years pass, changing not just your character and his or her appearance, but the look of the town, even the region.

" The cool thing about Fable 2 is that it' s a role-playing game set in a simulated world," Molyneux said.

The entire world is free roaming too and everywhere in the world can be owned by the player.

Molyneux showed how this world lives even when the main character isn' t around. He slipped through the hills and trees of one region until he discovered a gypsy camp. In it the women were dancing, the kids playing, heedless of not having an audience to react to.

" These kids will play out the whole of the fable one story, it' s just what they do," he said, following around a pack of children with the camera. " They will be mock fighting, it' s a little play they will play. They will go out and kill Jack of Blades. If you get famous enough they' ll start acting out what you' ve done in Fable 2."

Moral choices make a return in Fable 2, but this time around, Molyneux said, they will actually work the way he said they would.

" We made a rubbish job of that in Fable one, there were a couple of moral choices in Fable one but it wasn' t what we said it would be," he said. " There are an enormous number of moral choices this time around. To be a good guy we are going to ask you to sacrifice a lot."

Fight
The fighting system in the game will be as customizable as the world and your character, Molyneux said.

" You can add flourishes with button holds, you can add contextual buttons, your whole combat system is unique to you," he said.

Each of the buttons will have 15 things you can tie to it. There are eight spells in the game, each with five levels. While that doesn' t sound like a lot, Molyneux said that the combination of these different things can make for quite a few different iterations.

" It' s truly a dynamic combat system," he said.

There is also the dog, who will help you fight and stay by your side, but as Molyneux has said before, that' s really not the point of your pet.

" He is just your dog, he' s there for you to enjoy."

Molyneux told us about a play test the team did with a biker, a man who at one point was " absolutely in tears" because of a scene involving his dog.

" That' s why he is there."

Molyneux wrapped up the demo by quickly showing how easy it is to drop into a cooperative game with a friend and teasing a yet to be announced secret about co-op play.

" There is another big surprise, a very big surprise about co-oping," he said, before adding that Fable 2 is a " Hell of a game."

" We take a dramatic camera angel and follow that poop until it lands on your head, and that' s how it starts," Molyneux said. " It' s a lovely starting."