Black & White 2
Feeding the God complex one villager at a time – the Battle of the Gods expansion
Tags: Black & White 2 Categories: PC Reviews, Reviews
Posted by Mike Morgan on May 31st, 2006
| Title | Players | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Black & White 2 (title page) | 1 | ||
| Developer | Publisher | Genre | Online |
| Strategy | No | ||
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By now you should know that I, yea, am the almighty ruler of all that you see. At least thats they way that I feel when I play Black & White, and its a very gooooood feeling. B&W2:BOTG (hows that for an acronym?) puts you into the shoes of your deity after you have vanquished the Aztec god and brought peace to Eden, but not all is right in the world. The Aztec god has been resurrected by followers that you didn’t obliterate and is now raising an undead army to attack your home and peoples. It is your task to help your people survive and to clear out the threat to your home.
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Where does it go from there though? Well, since its B&W you can do whatever the spoot you want. Before everything gets going though, it asks you to select your tribute of Good, Evil or Neutral, each having their own benefits, good starts you out with a decent city and miracles, pretty much the same for Evil and Neutral gives you plenty of tribute to create the city and evolve your god in whatever way you want. Once you’ve done that the expansion almost forces you to commit to some aggressive actions before you really go nuts. The Aztec god is the first and most immediate threat, his armies are practically at your gate and the city you call your capitol is sorely lacking in defense and manpower. It pretty much forces you to take up a military stance before you even start, and thats pretty negative for a god looking to win hearts with impressiveness rather than sword and steel.
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That aside, they have given you an awful lot to jig around with once you get beyond the intro area. They have given you a brand new creature, the Turtle, several new miracles like Lava, Death, Life and Verdant and many a new buildings what to build in your city. The Turtle, I have to say is the best creature I have seen in B&W. He has a great defense, is very good looking and also is a wonderful scrapper when forced to battle. The animations for the creature are fantastic as well, but I did run across some graphical hiccups during his battles with the Aztec Avatar. Nothing that would really detract from the experience though. If the Turtle isn’t your thing though, and I could understand some not liking it, you can always import your creature from B&W2 and continue playing with it. Speaking of the Aztec Avatar, ooooh man is he gruesome looking. All full of holes and droopy bits he is a walking mountain o’ Zombie that commands respect. Sweet.
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The new miracles are things to behold too. Perhaps the most impressive is the Lava miracle. It runs downhill, lasts an awful long time and buuuuuurrrns everything in its path. I am not ashamed to admit that I cast this in some of my higher populated areas… several times… *cough* Also up is the Verdant miracle. This turns enemy armies to animals which can then be let to wander or collected for food, (Soilent Green is people!!!) not surprisingly this is superb for defense and also incredibly fun. The darker nature of the story helps lend a great sense of atmosphere to this title. Zombies and skeletons runnin about provide a macabre background to the game and honestly it does it very well. Zombies are surefire win in my book. The fact that I can now turn them into delicious cow, well, its just too much.
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All of that behind us, we have to take a step back and think. Is it worth it? Heck yeah, especially if you enjoyed the original. This is a great continuation to the story, there are new lands that are still quite stunning to look at, new quests and Zombies ZOMBIES ZOOOOMBIES. Who could say no to Zombies? The only real issue that some people may find with it is that it is more of the same, just with some new frills.
| What Works | Score |
|---|---|
|
+ Macabre story + Zombies, More Zombies! + Turtle Powah + Neato new miracles + Did I mention the zombies? |
8.9 |
| What Doesn't | |
|
- More of the same - It almost forces you down one path as opposed to true freedom |
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| Under the Shrink-wrap | |
| A worthy expansion to the game and admit it, you want to cast Lava in your town. I know you do. | |
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Tags: Black & White 2
Posted by Mike Morgan on May 31st, 2006 and is filed under PC Reviews, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
