Black and White Lite?
So what does Black and White 2 bring to the gaming masses? Well right there is the answer. It brings itself to the masses, a more accessible version of the game with more mass appeal. The structured gameplay will appeal to those who found the first game far too open and meandering or those who’ve never played it before but this comes at the price of a linearity that many fans I suspect will find disappointing. The focus of the gameplay is set far too much on creating and maintaining a city than anything else… so much so you start to feel more like a celestial town planner than an all-powerful supreme being.
Click for larger imageIt looks as though all that flexibility and open gameplay has been eschewed in favour of ‘quick results’, with this being most apparent in how you now train your creature. Rather than the hugely satisfying old method of gradually training your creature until he does you proud you feel more like you’ve just programmed a simple robot… there’s a total lack of this feeling like a living thing. The same goes for your followers where you can easily find yourself pandering to their every whim in the hope of gaining an increasingly useless amount of tribute until you finally turn on them and become the evil almighty that they fear and loathe, purely because their incessant demands drive you to murderous distraction.
Click for larger imageSadly, what Lionhead have achieved here is to dilute the essence of what made Black and White so good then simplify that even further by stripping out the open ended gameplay. Now some will prefer this more linear, structure based game but those fans of the original will be disappointed with how little they can do this time around. Peter Molyneux and Lionhead have always been pioneers in the world of computer games and Black and White 2 is no exception with this being the first sequel that offers you LESS than the original did. Uniquely, I can’t even say that this is a game that will appeal to the fans as it won’t… it’ll just disappoint them. So I’m left having to say that fans should stick with the original and new players who like to dip into their strategy games will get more fun out of it…
Pros
Easy to pick up and play
Linear gameplay and structure guide you through the game
Genuine humour with the Good and Bad consciences
Looks superb
Cons
Repetitive gameplay from the start
All the open-ended gameplay of the original has been stripped out
Too much emphasis on city building
RTS side weak with only two units
AI a couple of hymns short of a service
Not enough side puzzles to break up the repetitive gameplay
Throw away all the best bits from Black and White, jazz up the graphics and call it Black and White 2.
Black and White 2 was reviewed on the HEXUS.gaming Test Rig.
