Reviewed: November 9, 2005
Reviewed by: Mike Colgan

Publisher
Electronic Arts

Developer
Lionhead Studios

Released: October 3, 2005
Genre: Strategy
Players: 1
ESRB: Teen

8
9
8
8
8.3

System Requirements

In 2001, Molyneux and Lionhead Studios developed Black & White, a game remarkable both for its stunning graphics and its flexible, non-linear gameplay. Black & White placed you in the ultimate seat of power: godhood. The world, or at least that portion of the world over which you hold sway, was your playground, and you could play a benevolent provider, a brutal tyrant, a sadistic deity, or a neutral tinkerer (or any combination of those styles). In addition, Black & White provided one of the more complex and entertaining virtual pet simulations you may ever play.

Black & White 2 takes the same unique play style of the original Black & White and adds a system of objectives to make the game more linear. The result is mixed, but those who enjoyed the original will probably still find plenty to like about the new Black & White.

After a brief tutorial level where your conscience (portrayed by a chubby devil who sounds like he’s from New Jersey, and an angelic sage floating on a cloud) guides you through the basic controls of the game. You then witness a scene where your people, the Greeks (the name is merely coincidental – you are in another world, and none of the gods of the Greek pantheon are mentioned), are being ransacked by mighty Aztec warriors. Before the Greek capital is destroyed, you are able to save a few townspeople. After whisking these refugees away, you set about the work of restoring the greatness of the Greek people.

In order to defeat the Aztecs, you’ll need all the help you can get, so you set out to recruit peoples under your banner. “Winning the land,” as the game calls it, is the chief objective of Black & White 2’s various stages. You can win the land (i.e. bring all the people of the world under your control) through two methods: you can build up a massive army and conquer your rivals (which is evil), or you can build a city so impressive that neighboring villages will pack their belongings and come to join you (which is good). There is no wrong style of play, and you can easily take a hybrid approach by conquering some villages and winning over others.

The center of any stage is your major city. You can conquer villages to create satellite cities, but the main city is where you will build up a population large enough to raise a massive army or win your neighbors over with culture. You have a radius in which you can interact with your world, which expands based on your city’s impressiveness and the devotion of your people to the worship of you.

Building a city is easier in Black & White 2 than its prequel. At the center of your city is a monument which graphically displays key information about your efforts: a flame or a fountain indicates how evil or good you are, and various pillars describe your citizens’ most urgent needs and wants. To build a building, you merely click on a building (either an existing building of that type, or a building icon on the construction menu, or the most desired type of building on your city’s monument, and place the blueprint for the building in your desired location.

After that, you can leave the construction to your villagers, or you can lift the required materials yourself and drop them into place. Villagers will find jobs that need to be done if left to their own devices, or you can designate them as “Disciples” by assigning them to certain tasks. If you feel that your workers are not gathering or building fast enough, you can always lend a hand (your only physical manifestation is a floating hand) to help your villagers get ahead.

The only work that you cannot directly help your villagers with is worship. You gain Mana power through the prayers of your devoted followers, and this power can be used to perform Miracles, such as inundating your fields with water to make them more fertile, or launching meteors at your foes. Miracles can be extremely useful for giving your civilization an edge in its bid to encompass the world.

By far the most interesting part of Black & White 2’s gameplay is the creature system. As in Black & White 1, creatures are virtual pets which take the form of anthropomorphic lions, wolves, cows, and apes. When you are born, your first task is to choose your creature, which you will raise from infancy. How you treat and train your creature will influence its behavior later in the game.

The creature’s AI is much easier to assess and manage in Black & White 2 than in its prequel. Now you can read the creature’s thoughts, which makes it easier to discourage behavior by stopping it before damage is done. If you want to encourage a behavior, you can pet your creature; if you wish to discourage a behavior, you can slap it around. Now, a thought bubble will show the creature’s understanding of how you want it to behave.

For instance, if the creature thinks “I want to go poo on that villager,” you have three options: you can ignore the creature, letting it bury an unsuspecting villager in creature droppings, you can pet the creature and ensure plenty of disgusting bathroom breaks to come, or smack it around until its thought bubble says “I would never poo on a villager, even if I really had to go.”

Aside from being fun in and of themselves, creatures can be very useful assistants for you. Creatures have an alignment independent of yours; you could be a wholly benevolent god, but send your creature to destroy things. A creature can help you with any number of tasks, including building, gathering, fighting, or even entertaining (seeing my Lion break dance is one of the funnier things I’ve seen in a game in a while). The more you train them, the more useful they’ll be to you later on.

The interface for Black & White 2 is extraordinarily well conceived, and hold your mouse…err…hand over just about any object will provide you with increasing amounts of information in the form of tool tips. Information is easily accessible in graphical form, and there are several ways to accomplish any task.

Black & White 2 is equal parts god game, city sim, virtual pet, and war game, and it pulls of the unusual combination off quite well. There are times at which the game can grow tedious and repetitive, such as waiting for a village to migrate across the enormous map, because the central objective of each map is the same. However, there are various mini-games and side-quests on the map (denoted by silver scrolls), which will give you a break from the usual conquest/assimilation dynamic and a chance to acquire Tribute (which allows you to “buy” new buildings, skills, etc.).

Some of the mini-games are fun, but others, like one in which you change the time of day several times in order to tire out a rooster, are put there simply to teach a game mechanic. A few are mind-bogglingly frustrating and pointless, like flinging barrels of liquor from one island to the next in an excruciating game of god-golf. Fortunately, side quests are purely optional – you can acquire tribute from simple conquering.

The scale of the game comes across well with the graphics engine – you can zoom out to view the entire area, or zoom in seamlessly to see individual followers. Weather patterns cause rain to fall (and affect the terrain) and the wind to rustle trees. The landscapes look amazing, and include rolling hills, dense forests, vast oceans and craggy mountains.

The creatures change their appearance subtly based on a number of factors. Good creatures will look friendly and almost cuddly… evil creatures look fierce and threatening. Your creature’s appearance also changes based on how much it eats, how much it works out, and how old it is.

The animation of your conscience is incredibly smooth and adds a light-hearted, cartoony feel to an otherwise heavy game. Every facial expression and body movement seems to have its own nuance.

One irritating factor are the voices of the rival “leaders” which you occasionally overhear. To a large extent, the leader will make the same empty threats over and over again every few minutes, which gives you no new information and gets tedious.