Black and White 2

[JoystickJunkie 0]

I Have to admit, has anyone playerd Black and White 2? I have and I can tell you, it is a major step back from the first one. No, not just a step, a jump!
Why? Well here are my points.

The Creature:
The biggest, stupidest, and most perplexing issue I found was the creature. In my original review I praised the system of AI for the creature. If you don’t know, it was sort of like trial and error. Not only did the creature notice what you did, but HOW you did, WHERE you did it, and WHAT you did to. So if you cast a water miracle around him, he would learn it too. But he would notice small details. Like whom you did it to, or what you did it to, like trees or farms. Then he would only cast the spell on that object. Or if he saw you casting fireballs on the enemy, he would follow our lead and do so as well. But if he sees you casting fireballs to impress people, he would only do that. But the trick was, he wouldn't tell you how he learned it. So you were sort of left in the dark to what he had picked up until he actually cast a miracle or something. If you didn't like it, you had to beat it out of him and reateach him. He would learn only from your experience.

It was brilliant system. It made parenting a fun challenge, and made the creature seem very lifelike. He was like a real creature. Well now that’s been thrown out for a horrible system of attributes. Now you change the creature’s reactions just by going to a panel and clicking each “personality trait”. It completely ruins the very concept of Black and White. Now instead of a neat system of learning and punishment, I can go to a screen, and simply click a trait, then slap or pet him a couple of times. And not only is theis a horrible system, but its stupid things like “should I go poop on this tree”, or “should I eat the lamb”, simple things that the creature is supposed to learn through example. It makes the creature seem like a robot. It takes the fun out of parenting the creature. One of the best things in BW1 was the ability to teach the creature, but now that is completely gone. They ruined one of the things that made BW1 original.
The last game we had at least 15 creatures to play with, and we had to find and unlock them. This game only has 4. That's right...4. 
The Lion, the Ape, the Wolf and the Cow.
If you bought the Collectors Edition, you can unlock the Tiger which isn't that great. Where did all the other creatures go? They couldn't fit on the disc? I find that too hard to believe. And on the subject of the creature, the AI is bad. Like how bad? Bad as Daikatana. It's buggy, random and is an abomination. Lets try this example: My city wall have been knocked down, I tell my creature to go get some ore and repair those walls. I doesn't want to do that. Its either

1. Stuck in a building

2. Or the action is conflicting with another action.

Bad. Real Bad.

The Miracles:
How many miracles were in the first game, including the expansion pack? Well, I've counted them and there are...24. All of which are useful.
This game, only has 5 or 6. And guess what?
YOU HAVE TO PAY FOR THEM!
Pay? Why pay? I'm a god! I'll do what I want! I didn't have to pay for them before, so why pay now? Did Wal-Mart buy the stock and now to own them, I have to pay Tribute (the money) to use them! THAT SUCKS!
Also, the Creature doesn't learn miracles anymore. No. That's too logical. You PAY for them and he instantly learns it. Thats maj0r suckage. On another note, 4 of the miracles suck.
Only Heal and Meteor are good. Water, Lighting, Fire and...wait...THERE'S ONLY FIVE?!? Not 5 or 6, just 5?

The RTS Aspects:
Remember the Temple in the first game. The massive, looming centre of your power? Well, it's gone. Why? I don't know, it required to much disc space that the Creature needed for it's buggy, stupid AI. Well, I loved it, but it's gone...so...yeah.
Instead we have a truckload of civic buildings, houses and other useless stuff. But remember in the first game, when we, the god, would have to impress other towns with our...godliness? Throw that out the window. Now
They pretty much killed the very idea of Black & White with this next move. They took out impressing the people. In fact, there’s no more need to. Do you know why? Because other towns and cities are taken over by making your town bigger.

Now, instead of impressing other towns to come to your religion (like converting people when they think your religion looks cooler than theirs), everything is done by the size of your town. Every town on the map is taken over by building bigger buildings. Sooner or later the inhabitants of other towns become impressed by your shinier buildings and come to join you. How is that in any way a god-game? In BW1 you had to impress them with your powers. Like most gods. Now people are impressed by buildings. Instead of you going out to get them, they pretty much come to you. In fact, now your ring of influence is affected by buildings. Instead of how many people you have worshipping you, your rings expands as you build more buildings. How is that in any way godly at all?
So it pretty much devolves into a basic repetitive cycle. Build up some cities and get people to migrate and once your city is big enough, you pretty much win and do it over again. There’ really not much need of an army. In BW1 it would’ve been great because you actually had to go to THEM, but now you’re pretty much all you have to do is build and just wait for people to come to your city.
So what happened to make the game bad? Well, we the public demanded a easier creature to train, more buildings and better control. They did it at a price.

The Army:
An army would have been a miracle itself in BW1, but instead it’s useless here. Why? Well, in BW1 you had to go out and get other towns, and the army would have been much more useful. Building was an essential part, but you had to go out and take the cities in order for them to become yours. Now as long as you keep building they’ll pretty much come to you. No need to go out if they’ll come to you instead.

Where's the Skirmish:
The lack of anything to do outside the main game is very disappointing. In the last game when I was tired of the main game I could quit out and go do a random skirmish. In fact, I could even go online. But now there’s none of that. At first I didn’t notice, but then I went looking for it. It’s just not there. It’s not only disappointing, though, it’s annoying. This option was available to me before, why isn’t it available now? How much memory did they seriously need for just graphics? Or was it that advanced villager AI. Or maybe it was the city-building. It just make you wonder where the Hell did the effort go. I mean, the city-building is good but it doesn’t strike me as something that would cause the rest of the game to sink like an elephant in the Atlantic Ocean. So why remove these things. Did Lionhead really see these features as unnecessary? 

In time for the Holdidays?:
And lastly, the game just seemed so rushed. There’s really not much of an opener to the game. It’s just opening scene, choose a creature (you choose your creature first thing in the game), and do some stuff on a tutorial island. Then right into the storyline (which was only okay in my opinion). There aren’t as many challenges in the game, like silver and bronze scrolls. The main menu is just a picture of two islands. The main menu in-game demo movie is probably the most lackluster movie I’ve ever seen. It’s just a few shots from above of a city, then cuts to a few scenes of the creature and troops fighting, then a volcano, then it ends. The whole thing lasts about 15 seconds. It’s pretty pathetic. Well you can definitely tell they wanted to get this one out for the holiday season…
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Well, that's what I have to say about Black and White 2.
I want to know what you thought of it. Was it Good? Bad? 
Anyway, best take some time to cool down.

Joystick Junkie. 

[Evil_Someone 1]

well its good when you want to feel powerful but it gets boring very soon.

the worst thing is that if u build your city, other cities just disappear!

also no skirmish.... no online play and pretty big system requirements make this game a bad choice!

if u ask me, Black and White 1 was 10 times better game