I picked up "Black & White 2" this weekend. The premise is that you are
new-born god, created from a prayer of desperation as a nation of Greeks
is being destroyed by invading Aztecs (obviously geography was not the
game developers' strong suit, but don't worry about that.) Your divine
role is to bring the last few survivors to power and strength once again
and eventually take vengeance against the Aztecs.
Guiding you is your Conscience, a hairy red demon who encourages you to
do evil and a bearded, white haired old man who coaxes you to do good.
You can win either way, by punishing your followers in to hard work or
by encouraging them to freely devote their lives to your service; to
conquer opponents by military might or by impressing them with your
righteousness. It doesn't matter whether your followers hate you or love
you as long as they *believe.*
With that belief, you get "tribute." This is a form of divine currency
that lets you buy new building types, divine miracles and epic wonders.
You gain tribute by taking over each land (there are 9 in all, the first
two being tutorial and story set-up), by meeting goals that each land
holds, and by finishing special quests.
Also helping you is your Creature. In the first "land", you must choose
an Ape, Cow, Lion or Wolf to be your divine servant. This creature can
be your best worker, your best builder, your best soldier. You must
teach him to be autonomous, by rewarding him when he does what you want
or slapping him when he does something you don't. He can be as good or
evil as you want, and his alignment is separate from yours. You can be a
benevolent deity holding the reigns of divine vengeance ("Creature! Go
eat that villager, he offends me.") or a god of destruction whose
faithful Beast was once a good god himself and now stays leashed to his
Master's hand, gathering grain and casting healing miracles when the
city comes under attack.
I really like the game so far. Very imaginative, interesting premise,
fantastic graphics. The AI could use some tweaking, but so far it has
been a lot of fun. The game's website is at http://www.lionhead.com/bw2/
--
Gregory Gadow
techbear@serv.net
http://www.serv.net/~techbear
"Without faith we might relapse into scientific or rational thinking,
which leads by a slippery slope toward constitutional democracy."
- Robert Anton Wilson
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