It's not all black and white
Now you’ll be thinking that Black and White 2 is all bad but there are some good points to be said about the game. For starters it’s graphically gorgeous and a massive improvement on the first game, which was impressive enough in itself. Black and White 2 makes use of all the latest features on the latest cards, so you can expect some visually stunning scenes.
I did experience a few occasions of slow-down though, most notably during the battles, which I guess could be put down to CPU lag as it figured out everything going on. Throw in a few special effects and the HEXUS.gaming Test Rig. had a couple of stutters at 1280x1024 with 4xAA and 4xAF. Otherwise the game looks superb and has to have some of the loveliest sunsets you’ll see this side of a Sandals Holidays brochure.
Click for larger imageWhat puzzles there are in the game are well worth the effort, though there are far fewer of them than in the original. Most often the reward for these is a fair whack of tribute which goes a long way to buying yourself some of the more expensive buildings or miracles. Considering how little tribute you get in normal play and how much the good stuff costs, you’ll be hard pushed to afford the really expensive upgrades until quite late in the game and you’ll spend a fair bit of time deciding what to buy now and what to buy later. The puzzles are a great diversion from the main story mode and are a much needed addition to vary the gameplay which becomes seriously repetitive later on.
Click for larger imageNow I’ve hardly mentioned your creature at all so far and with good reason. In the original, you creature felt much more like an independent thing, almost like having a virtual dog if you like. It was a loyal and faithful companion, taking the punishments along with the rewards and doing your bidding as long as you kept it trained properly. This time around the creature just feels like a more accomplished and powerful unit of your army and not something you’ve had any hand in moulding into it’s current form.
Click for larger imageIn fact, its almost like a giant robot… you spend maybe five minutes teaching it how you want it to behave and then don’t have to worry about it for the rest of the game except to teach it new rules when something new comes up. So to start off with you can tell it to poo in the fields, gather wood and food occasionally and help build houses. When you first encounter enemy troops you teach it to kill them and then let him get on with it. You still have the leash system in place to teach your creature various tasks but this is pretty much made redundant by the menu system which in turn removes the ‘organic’ feel to rearing your creature.