DarkWombat

It's coming! Possibly one of the most awesome games of all time, Black & White 2 is scheduled to come out in early October. If you've never played the original game, Black & White, I can confidently tell you that it is one of the most unique games I've ever seen or played. You're basically a diety who tries to compete with other gods to gain control of a land. You get believers by winning them over, using Miracles (which are powered by the worship of your followers) like magically procuring resources like wood or grain (food), growing trees, or by terrorizing them into submission, like raining fireballs on their towns, destroying parts of their villages, etc. You have a "creature", which is a magical being that is basically a giant animal of sorts, which you train and care for and teach it to perform Miracles as well. You can choose to be either a good, benevolent diety or an evil, destructive horror, to get what you want, and your actions reflect what your Temple (your source of power) looks like, as well as what your creature looks like.

In Black & White 2, it's that and more. Now you can train and control massive armies of worshippers to do battle against one another, fortify towns, and fight for control or defend your territory using armies. The graphics are absolutely jaw-dropping. Your creature is now the center of your power, and its alignment (good or evil or somewhere in between) affects nearly everything around it now, even the terrain. The game, like its predecessor, is fully 3d, you control everything using a "hand" and after a few minutes you'll become one with controlling the environment around you. Resources are more important than ever now because you can't perform Miracles that magically generate them like you could in the original game. The more I read about the progress of this game as it nears completio, the more it seems that this game is going to be VERY big, maybe even as big, if not bigger, than The Sims.

Check it out at Lionhead Studios, makers of the Black & White series. If you preorder the game on EB Games you will get a code to unlock another creature as well.

That's all I'll say for the moment, I could go on and on about how great the original was (although it was quite buggy in XP), but if you wanna learn more about it just go to the site and read up on it.

I'm not sure what the online playability will be yet. In the original, you got a list from the LionHead servers about what games were open and then you went there, but I don't think there were dedicated servers. You would all play in a free for all with your own creature that you trained in single player mode so it had the same skills and was the same size and age, and if you did team play then you all shared your territory and controlled the team captain's creature, taking over villages across the land and working your way to capturing all of them so you could wipe out your opponents Temple and destroy him/her. The new multiplayer will probably be much more advanced, supporting dedicated servers I bet, and since you can mass armies now, not all the power rests in your ability to create Miracles. What I liked so much about Black & White was how "realistic" the village structure seemed. People procreate by breeding, people grow and die, and you can assign them to jobs. Everybody needs food, so they go to the Village Store (if you're good, you'll build one) and get the grain they need, and they sleep in houses (again, if you're good, you build them. Otherwise you just let them sleep on the ground and don't waste your time gaining the precious resources to build homes), etc. To power your Miracles, you would have worshippers come to your Temple to worship you and increase your energy pool, allowing you to use more powerful Miracles. With the new abilities of villagers and the whole new dimension of training soldiers, it's going to get really cool.

Anyways, check it out. If it gets as popular as I hope it will and it supports dedicated servers...maybe TG could eventually host one. =D

Vinzalf

I liked B&W 1. It was fun, but yes very buggy. I'm going to order this one just because I enjoyed the first.

I'm not sure what the idea behind this 'pre-order and get an extra pet thingy' I mean, you only get one pet, and as far as I know what they look like really has nothing to do with what they do. That and I'm sure within days of release someone will have already hacked into the game and made a patch to unlock it.

Whatever, I'll still get it the legit way, even though I'll probably go with a different pet.

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rs_al

The best part is, Peter Molenyeux admits the first sucked, and I agree with the flaws he lists. B&W 2 could be a very good thing, he seems determined to correct the mistakes of the first.

DarkWombat

I wouldn't say that the first sucked, but it had a lot of issues that needed to be addressed. But what I like about Lionhead is that they're open to their community and they keep in touch (*cough* Valve *cough*) constantly. What's more is that Lionhead is willing to admit that there were a lot of issues that needed to be fixed, and that makes me feel that they're more determined to make B&W2 the best it can possibly be. It's been in development since the original came out in....when was it? 2000? 1998?

micr0c0sm

I am also looking forward to this release.

Karkianman101

B&W sucked. Period. Its controls were realyl clumsy, the gameplay was tedious. Time management was a real problem, since if you wanted to control your creatures developement you had to watch it constantly, and if you wanted to beat the level you had to abandon it, since it took forever for it to run anywhere. At your worshipers place, you had to constantly drop food down, because just dropping one massive load for some reason made it get used up alot faster, and was a waste, and if you ever leave your worshippers alone for even a minute you stop gaining power.

I never was around for Molyneaxes first games that made him so loved, but his most recent two have been full of bad designs, shallow gameplay, and broken promises. He needs to actually make B&W 2 a good game. Unique ideas half assedly done should not be rewarded any more than EA's style of shoving movie license sequals out the door.

TEMM

If by clumsy you mean completely innovative and natural then i agree

You mustn't have been playing the game properly, because once you have the creature sufficiently trained (within the first few levels with it) It will run around and learn your spells and earn power for you while you are off doing the mini puzzles and main quest puzzles.

The only mission i found had timing problems was the one where you start and have to get force fields up to protect a village for fireballs or something.

Karkianman101

I actually stopped playing on the first real mission. I couldnt push myself. The controls really are in no way intuitive. Grabbing different parts of the world in relation to the screen in theory is nice, but its really cumbersome. Especially when you try and get over a mountain thats as high as your maximum zoom. Inching pixel by pixel to the other side.

The rock and fireball throwing doesnt work that smoothly, and I dont see why you cant lift rocks up real high and then just drop them so they gain velocity.

The leash has problems, since you cant perform miracles with the training leash, and it feels like you have to shake your mouse an extreme amount to get rid of it.

Its extremely buggy, as in eating certain things affects completely unrelated traits in negative ways.

The creature fighting system was... shallow. You clicked on different spots but they all had the same effect. It was just a game of "Keep your clicks up!".

I might need to try it again to remember the rest of my grievances, but I can say that Molyneaux did not deliver with that game. And ask people. The majority will agree that its more a toy then a game, and its not a very deep toy, which means its only fun for so long.