Resource management and base building
The time saved is important though as you’ll soon find that your main concern is the city building, and if you’re playing a kind and benevolent god, seeing to the needs of your followers. And this is where I was tipped over into the realm of deep, dark evil… so evil I was ready to sacrifice the daughter’s pet rabbit over my monitor if that was what was needed to get those bloody moaning villagers to shut up! Honestly, I’ve never encountered a more dissatisfied bunch of whining goits in my entire life. I’d rather take a National Express Coach trip to Skegness that have to deal with those little buggers again… they are never, ever happy… ever!
Click for larger imageThe largest proportion of the game time is spent building your city and responding to your followers needs as you build. It soon becomes clear that what you need to do is make the best use of the space you have to supply your villagers with everything they require… they might want food, better houses, children or even sleep, and it’s up to you to see that get it. By level two you’ll have it figured out and will start off with a road network (building connected by roads get more tribute) and then it’ll all go downhill from there as your villagers inexplicably ask for well after well or wish for a pub and then moan about the pub or, as an invading army suddenly rushes through your town they’ll wish for an army…
Click for larger imageIn Black and White 2 the main resource as far as you’re concerned is tribute. This works almost exactly the same as the originals mana but you use it to buy everything you need. Mana is still there in that you need it to cast miracles but you can’t have miracles without tribute to buy them first. But your followers want a pub, the blueprints of which can be bought with tribute, so what you get off the villager with one hand they take away with another… at times it felt like I was a bloody servant rather than a respected and revered god, hence my switch to the dark side.
Click for larger imageI’m not normally a cruel or spiteful person and I didn’t much enjoy treating my followers badly but they wound me up to the point where I was happy to let and opposing army come in a pretty much level my city, just to shut the whinging sods up and this is when I realised that Black and White 2 isn’t the game Black and White was… where Black and White was a wonderful blend of puzzle solving, resource management and story telling within a free-to-roam world, Black and White 2 is a level based RTS with a heavy emphasis on base building. The saddest thing about all of this is that unlike its predecessor, Black and White 2 has nothing new to show you after level 2… you’ve seen all the gameplay there is to see and all that’s left for the later levels are a few unlocks of new miracles or buildings which hardly justify the 1 ½ hours of city building before you get them