A monkey is for life, not just for killing soldiers
And that is the biggest problem with Black and White 2… it’s been too heavily scripted and jiggied with to be the fun the last game was. The original had very few moments when you simply HAD to do a particular thing, in fact I can think of only one and that was when the other god started totally blowing your villages apart at the end of the first level… you had to jump in the vortex with as many villagers as you could but that was the only the only time the game forced you to do something. This time around it’s a much more linear experience and feels more like a traditional god game than before.
Click for larger imageOne of the most unique features of Black and White was the way you interacted with the world, using that ethereal hand to move about, grasp objects, pick up villagers and cast miracles… Whilst that is still in place, Lionhead have added a short-cut bar to the bottom of the screen which pulls up all the various functions for you… The hand feels more like a stylised pointer than a method of interacting with the game world. But the interaction isn’t the only thing that has taken a turn for the worse, the animal training has also been simplified and in doing that, Lionhead have managed to remove a large part of the fun from the game.
Click for larger imageIn the original, you had to watch your pet all the time, keeping an eye on what they were doing. You didn’t know what they were thinking but you could react to what they did by either stroking them to reinforce the behaviour or giving them a slap to let them know what they just did was fine by you. This method brilliantly mimicked the training of a real pet as anyone who has had a dog will testify… you catch them doing something bad and you scold them while good behaviour gets praise. Whereas before you had to catch your pet in the act, Black and White 2 has a menu system for your creature allowing you to set his behaviour just how you want it within a few minutes of starting the game.
Click for larger imageNow the more impatient could argue that Lionhead have made a sensible move here and it lets you get on with playing the game rather than constantly checking up to see what your creature is up to and in way that’s fine. But lovers of the original will no doubt find that this much more rigid system takes a large portion of the game’s depth away. You could even argue as to why you have to bother having the stroke or slap thing for each action, why not just have a slider bar for whether to collect wood or eat villagers and save even more time?