Black and White 2

What is the measure of a GOD? Who decides that he is a GOD? His two angels on the shoulders or the power to take the life of anyone under his influence?

Black and White 2 buried these aspects under a heap of mathematics, with no remorse what so ever. Peter Molineux is known for his weird and uniquely beautiful ideas and concepts but this time he tried to make an old idea perfect. This was the mistake.

Story: Some people have been complaining that the beginning intro is way too similar (almost identical) with the first title. In fact I consider this to be a positive aspect and not a downside, but this is only my opinion. Anyway, a pure prayer is what makes a GOD start ticking and your born. You arrive on a tiny island where a small training begins followed by more training when the Aztecs attack the Greek civilization (which is supposed to be yours - why is not the question here) on another island and yes, you guessed it, more training on a third island. The whole purpose of the game is to re-conquer the stolen territories from the cruel Aztecs, through good, without force and only by the simple power of civilization, or by evil, with the might of your armies. There is also a middle way, a combination of the two, but I don't think too many players will try it.

Gameplay: The first title in this totally unique series (you won't find another GOD like simulator anywhere) was interesting because of its mystery. You didn't need to know how much wood or food was collected (although you could) or build house after house. You only had to make the big decisions and train your godly pet. Your followers gave you power by praying until they died and the combat system was inexistent because you could only conquer the other civilizations by the power of belief or by simply destroying them. The whole experience was fun and even if Lionhead didn't make a lot of money with it because of people's unwillingness of playing a god, it remained a reference point in history.

Although it looks like a commercial remake, the feel of the game is completely different. The differences are numerous and I'll enumerate just the most important of all.

The Creature - in the first game it was more like a Tamagotchi and the way it learned resembled small children, not knowing what is happening in their heads. Sometime it would make you mad and sometimes smile. The whole experience was really frustrating but when the pet grew and it was educated you had this really fuzzy feeling like you didn't really want to uninstall the game, because you could kill it.

The creature in the second title is just a robot. You can always see what happens in its head and the abilities are no longer gained due to practice, they are added like an upgrade. I no longer have any feelings for it.

The Toolbar - what the heck is this? A toolbar? Yes you heard is right. The mouse gestures have been replaced with a spyware. Well not a really spyware, but is definitely an intrusion on my screen. This feature is now needed to construct and consult all the Excel details you will ever need. When opened, it will cover one quarter of the screen. It's annoying and I hate it.

The People - They were initially just simple folks with some basic desire of belief, food and wood; the most important thing is that they had no desire to fight. Now everything has changed because the tribes are a lot more demanding, with more needs than ever. Additionally to wood and food, an ore resource has been added but it really makes no difference. The most important addition is the introduction of armies. Don't go haywire thinking this is an improvement because it's not. In the end, strategy isn't that important and the only thing that really counts are the numbers - the more the merrier.

The Tribute - this is a new feature that makes the game ever more unappealing. These are points, credits or whatever you want to call it. You need it to buy certain blueprints for the structures the villagers have to build or new features to add to the new robot (like spells and stuff).

If we want to analyze the big picture, the gameplay could look like an improvement, but it's not. It looks that way, but in fact it's a totally different game.

Concept: They have screwed the gameplay completely. I think Peter Molineux wasn't home when the team decided to input all these features. They have changed the concept and ruined a beautiful game.

I don't want you to get the wrong idea. The game isn't bad, but is no longer Black and White.

Video: At least a chapter where the game is outstanding. There isn't a game to even compare it and not even Age Of Empires 3 can't stand in front of it. This has to be one of the most extraordinary game engines I have ever seen. There isn't an engine out there that can perform a full zoom from the clouds to the bugs on the ground. And all this at no cost to the hardware... yeah right. This baby will suck the life from your system like a lollypop and if you happen to own an Nvidia card, it will put it to the wall and shoot it because it's heavily optimized for ATI. When I say "heavily", it means that Nvidia had to develop new drivers for this game to work properly. That about summons it.

Audio: Beautiful, like the first one, with angelic music and even some dynamics. When zoomed all the way down you can hear the people talking and selling goods, which is a nice feature that gives some heart to a cold game.

An improvement to this chapter are the creature sounds because they form a much larger repertoire and it makes them a little more lively.

Multiplayer: None. It could have saved some lives from the developer team...

Conclusion: I am completely disappointed with this so called sequel. I expected so much and I received so little. If there will be a Black and White 3 (and I'm sure there will be) I wish they take in consideration the gamers' feed-back and turn whatever plans they have in the perfect God game, because this is, at most, a few steps back.