Reviewed by Tiffany Craig
If I were a god, my priorities would be the sick, the poor, the unemployed and knowledge needed to halt animal testing. After I sorted that out, I would force people to walk faster in the London Underground, stop people from coughing without covering their mouths and disable all first floor buttons in elevators for those able to walk up stairs. My society would be a veritable utopia for public transportation and office buildings. Unfortunately, I am not a holy being and must quell my inner god with video games.
You are a holy exile from your peaceful land in Black and White 2. You must now birth a new civilization out of the wreckage of attacks on Eden. Your society going forth can be good, evil or neutral, based on your decisions. Two somewhat irritating avatars in the forms of ever-original devil and angel advise you of how your choices will affect society. Divine retribution through killing is bad, saving people is good. To regain complete control of the world you battle other gods for the love or conquest of the people. You must keep them docile and assure your society is better than everyone else’s. You are involved in every aspect of your townspeople’s lives including breeding and civic issues.
You choose a creature from a small pool of animals at the beginning of the game. This hell or holy hound is your manifestation in the world and changes as you do. Your creature needs role assignments to be useful. Unlike in the original game, your creature no longer watches and learns. It now does simple chores. It is mainly a multifaceted super unit.
Dazzling the next town over defines your godly prowess. If you have more interesting or better buildings than they do, then they’ll just pack up and move in. If you aren’t interested in being more impressive, then large armies can capture towns. The military units do require a lot of food and resources so some amount of building is always necessary. Your creature can be an impressive military foe when given miracles of its own. You can purchase better buildings and get miracles by spending tribute. Solving small missions, accepting migrations, completing a checklist of jobs and blessing your followers all earn tribute.
You must be able to monitor your defenses, creature, production and missions all at the same time to achieve your rightful kingdom. Despite what your devil and angel tell you, it’s virtually impossible to be simply good or bad. Many missions require you to be evil by using your military to take over cities. Certain worlds want you to be a benevolent builder. In later worlds, you will have to do both and combine a large army with an impressive town.
Your bog standard 3-button mouse controls all actions. The scroll wheel changes perspective. Clicking the left button executes an action. The keyboard is only necessary for saving and exiting the game. A series of different menus provide different choices such as buying new buildings and miracles, blueprints for your towns and roles for your pet.
Becoming the hallowed almighty is made more complicated by the game itself. Control wise certain things don’t always work. Your creature has difficulty navigating certain paths and it can take several double clicks to get the armies to move to a battle. Your creature will often ignore certain commands completely even without any free will. It can take millennia just to get them to pick up a tree or attack a moving target. Howls of ‘just hit it!’ are included in the gaming experience. Unfortunately, many of the tribute missions require the creature to do certain chores so the fiddling is necessary.
A lack of clear selection can also stunt your actions. One time you may hover over a wall to add ore to it and it will work, the next time the same place will mean you drop it all in a pile. The wall and road building tools can be frightfully obtuse. The game and my definitions of suitable (which should win, seeing as I’m a god) seem to be as opposite as my dueling consciences. Throwing and aiming with the mouse is extremely frustrating, there doesn’t seem to be a set of applicable static physics here. A centimeter further on the map will increase the throw by 50 feet. You would think that being a super being would give you the ability to accurately aim fireballs, but no. They go spinning off in various random directions.
The problems with the AI and actions do interfere with enjoyment of the game. But it still takes an act of god to pull you away. The mission for glory and the minutiae create a larger enjoyable experience. You may be frustrated with your creature but that doesn’t halt building the siren wonder. It’s easy for 30 minutes of intended play to become five epic hours. What draws you in and keeps you is the prodding of the plot. The other gods challenge you, talk to you, send you earthquakes and your people are bundles of need with ceaseless demands. Plot combined with richly detailed maps and wonderfully tactile sounds smooth out other difficulties.
Black and White 2 is a proud addition to the RTS portfolio. Although much of the charm of the original is now missing, the game has matured to be even less buggy and more engaging. Due to the simplicity of the controls and the interface, it’s easy to leave for a few months if you don’t have a spare week to finish it. When you do have the time, you’ll find being a god satisfying, frustrating and complicated all in one. I’m waiting for the office addition pack where I can smite difficult clients with a mere look.