Black and White 2

[TazFTW]

First review at IGN.

http://pc.ign.com/articles/654/654547p1.html

Maybe it's me but I find it weird that Butts complains about the gameplay and still gives it an 8.8, an editor's choice.

[Coffee Warlord]

Still won't buy it unless I get stellar reviews from here and/or RL friends.

Fooled me once, not gonna happen again.

[Qwikshot]

I agree...this game is not one I'll buy till it hits the discount rack.

[RebelMan]

Same here. I'm willing to wait, this time around.

[Eaglesfan27]

Ditto.

[Galaril]

Well, I bought this one yesterday and am happily surprised so far. This is a major improvement over the previous games. You really feel like you are watching a living world with day and night cycles and weather. The graphics of the world are amazing IMHO. I haven't got very deep into it yet but from the initial impression it is much more structured and seems to be alot of fun unlike the first one.

[Capital]

I'm interested in this thread because I am seriously considering buying this game. Although the $50 is a bit steep.

[Galaril]

I have played around with this and I think those who like any of the old caesar and populous city building games will like this. The RTS strategy is rather abit light for my tastes. You only get infantry, swordsmen , archers and siege weaponry. But, your troops can be upgraded depending on their experience. I love being able to name all the peopel in your cities. I put my wife children and other family members in mansions on hills overlooking my capital city with a garrison not too far away for their protection. I also, put some of my excoworkers and bosses that pissed me off over the years as well as either soldiers or farmers and ex-girlfriends I made them breeders :). So far I am having ablast the creatures are alot easier to teach and control.

[Galaril]

Here is a great deep impressions post from a guy on Octopus Overlords boards I saw. I agree with this and since I am too lazy to give acomplete impressions as well as being too busy playing the game I thought I would post it:

Admitedly I have a big weakness for city building games, and thats where I think part of the attraction comes for me. They've fleshed out the city building from B&W1 to be quite a lot of fun. You have many different building types to add to your city now, and as you progress and get Tribute (your reward from completing quests) you can purchase more buildings to use, in addition to new powers and abilities. They also have a nice selection of buildings for both good and evil leaders. A good leader would want to build villas and manors for his people in addition to wells and lamps, etc. For the gods of war among us they have prisons, torture squares, hovels, and other assorted not so nice things for your peasants.

Having a pet along of course opens up even more fun in the game. One of my biggest peeves from the first game was being unable to tell what you were rewarding/punishing your pet for, and with the addition of thought bubbles that tell you what your pet is doing or considering doing, it's easy as pie to tailor his behavior to whatever situation comes up. They've also added roles you can tell your pet to perform. Basically a way of telling him to gather or fight or build without any input from you. The method for teaching your pet spells has changed. No longer does he get spells through watching you, but you purchase them with your tribute rewards. While it was perhaps a little more flavorful to teach your pet skills like in B&W1, the system is a lot cleaner and less frustrating in B&W2 IMHO. I've given my the water spell so far and he's been having a fun time running around the town helping to water the fields for me. Another thing to mention is that you can upgrade your pets skills from the tribute menu now too. You can improve his building, gathering, entertaining, and soldiering. Each of those upgrades makes him better and more efficient at performing those jobs.

The gameplay difference between Good and Evil basically really comes down to "Are you a builder or a warrior?". If you build up a nice beautiful city, this will increase it's impressiveness, and if you have more impressiveness than your neighboring gods, your enemies people on the island will flock to you and make your city even greater. On the other hand if you choose the way of combat you can use your pet and your armies to take over the other settlements of the island you are on. Whenever you perform an act that is good or evil (and most actions do change your alignment, even if only slightly) it shows on the screen an indication of the change. Things like picking up trees, attacking towns, killing off your people are all evil acts to a greater or lesser degree, while taking in refugees, helping the people gather, etc are good actions. Don't think that you can't have any crossover in your actions though. Even though my pet and I are both solidly good we've still performed our share of evil acts. My pet has fought off numerous norse infantry platoons (an evil act) but I've purchased him a nice teddy bear to cuddle with between battles, and that has the effect of raising his alignment. Likewise I've done thing here and there that have hit my alignment, but as the majority of my actions are good my alignment has gotten pretty high pretty fast.

Combat in the game is so far simple to use and fun to watch. You can build an armory in your town that allows you to raise infantry platoons. The number of men available for drafting depends on your population, so even if you are evil it pays to have a good sized population (you just don't have to treat them as well ). Raising a platoon is as easy as setting the muster point and selecting the size of teh platoon to raise. Once started, men from around your settlement will head to your armory to equip and deploy. Then you can use the number keys to select your platoon and move them about the map. One fun thing to watch is your troops if you leave them stationary for a bit. After a time you will see them build fires and some will go to the fires to relax while others will gather up and spar with each other. I haven't got to the point of sieges, but there are rather impressive city walls in B&W2, and I noticed you can deploy platoons to the tops of the walls. I'm sure that will come into play soon.

Your pet in battle is pretty fun to watch. He controls pretty much the same as a platoon if you use the leash, or you can tell him to fight around a certain spot, or just set him to soldier mode and let him roam free. In battle he runs around and smashes enemies like ants. It's quite fun to watch. I haven't seen any pet fights yet, but I'm sure it's coming.

Well that's pretty much it for now. As far as final thoughts go, I think if you enjoyed the idea of the original Black and White, but not the execution.. I'd give this one a chance. So far I've been very pleased with the game in it's role as a god simulator. All the ideas that could have made B&W1 an instant classic are present in B&W2 IMHO. However, if you are looking for a new RTS/town building game... well that's not really the point of B&W. While those features are fun, they don't make the game by themselves, and can't compare to a game that only focuses on those points.

I got up to the end of the second main island last night, and I will most likely have to start over since the patch due out today seems to invalidate save games from all accounts. Annoying, but not enough to keep me from planning on playing most of the weekend.

I think I may build an evil empire with a cow as my pet tonight... no one expects a simple cow to be a cold blooded killer.

[Capital]

So, does this game have a campaign?

[Galaril]

Yes

[Coffee Warlord]

Is there an open-ended type thing as well?

As in like a random map (or whatever), a few opponents, and Game On type deal.

[Capital]

Did the 2nd patch come out or are they still on 1.1? I keep hearing about massive enemy AI flaws. Maybe this patch will address them.

[Galaril]

Is there an open-ended type thing as well?

As in like a random map (or whatever), a few opponents, and Game On type deal.

No. But after you complete the game you can use random maps I belive. And the second patch isn't out yet. I would say after playing for a while wait for the the price to drop. It is great the first island or two but after a while you are overwhelmed since you have two or three large cities to keep an eye on as well as your creature. Enemy AI is not too good. I get the feeling very little effort was put into the RTS.