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behayes2's Black and White 2 (PC)
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| [October 19, 2009 07:01:51 PM]
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Gamelog Entry #2:
GAMEPLAY
Black and White 2 was a fun game to play but short lived. I’m one land away from beating the entire game. What’s worse is that after the final land, there aren’t any sandbox modes to play, which is usually standard in most free form city builders and some RTS games. I’m at the point in the game where I’ve gotten all of the buildings I’m going to need, my creature has long stopped growing, and I’m just repeating a worn out formula for building my city.
This time around, I tried out the evil side of things. This was surprisingly similar to the good god strategy. Building a structurally sound city is still a must, and sacrificing all of your villagers for miracle power is not recommended. The main deviation is in building a strong army and encouraging your creature to fight enemies. I found that being somewhere between good and evil was the best combination for success.
I was disappointed by the lack of story in the game. Aside from providing a basic reason for why you were fighting and traveling from land to land, the game didn’t tell much of a story. The optional quests were never tied to the main story or to each other (except for the brew brothers quests) and added very little to gameplay. Overall, I enjoyed the game but it has a number of areas in which a great deal of improvement is needed.
DESIGN
In my opinion, Black and White 2 took the best features of multiple genres, skimmed the main idea of each off the top, threw them in a mixing pot, and expected this formula to render a great game. The graphics were impressive, the art was cute, and the premise of having a god, city builder, and virtual pet RTS game sounds like a good idea. But here’s the catch, a good city builder requires unique ways to build a city or different ways buildings can be implemented, neither of which are present in Black and White 2. Creating your city in a spider web like fashion is the only logical way to build in the limited space. Virtual pet games can be fun and are optimized by having multiple things that the player can do with the pet and requires dependence of the pet on the player. After the fourth land, I would check up on my creature only if I had nothing better to do or needed him to attack a nearby army, aside from those two exceptions, my creature was completely autonomous. The creature has three basic needs: food (which he can be trained to get himself), rest (which he can be trained to know where to sleep when its needed), and attention (which can be remedied by a couple of strokes every twenty minutes).
The most important element of any good RTS would include multiple types of units to direct into battle. In Black and White 2, the player may build archers, foot soldiers, and catapults. Again, a simple formula can be applied to creating a decent army and that same formula is applied over and over again throughout the game. Of all of the things Black and White 2 can boast about having, very few can be considered more than shallow, poorly developed features. Some sort of specialization would have done this game a great deal of good. There was an attempt to create emergent complexity, but that attempt was rendered useless by the sever lack of options needed to complete each level in a different way.
As for the narrative of the game, there was only one weak storyline: Stop the evil Aztec god who nearly destroyed the Greeks. The game world has a fantasy setting with Greeks, Nords, Japanese, and Aztecs races. You are a god created out of a single pure prayer from a Greek man. Save the Greeks and fight the evil Aztecs. Don’t get me wrong, this is a great basis for a story, but after the chaotic destruction of the Greeks in the second land, the story progression ends. The only encouragement to continue playing is to either complete the game or to enjoy the increase in difficulty. Rewards through cutscenes or progression in the story would have been a nice addition.
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| [October 19, 2009 03:09:09 PM]
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Gamelog Entry #1:
SUMMARY
In Black and White 2, the player takes on the role of a god and interacts with the world through a hand that can lift trees, cast miracles, and move objects (including rocks and people). The objective of each level is to conquer the surrounding villages and cities by either building an army or by creating an impressive city. To assist in this objective, the player is given a giant creature that can cast miracles against your enemies or aid your people.
GAMEPLAY
The game’s beginning tutorial was helpful in teaching the basics of play, but even in my first round through the tutorial, I was aware of the inability to skip through the pointless banter of your good and evil “consciences.” The most entertaining part of my initial hour of play was just after my pet (a wolf) awoke in the first Norse land. I quickly learned how to feed, train, and workout my pet. I feel like the novelty of watching some of his goofy animations and actions is going to take a while to wear off. For example, I caught him pooping on a villager and after a couple of slaps, he promised to never poo on a villager again.
Black and White 2 is an interesting RTS in that the core game mechanic is managing resources and units to conquer the land, but with strong city builder and tamagotchi influences. In order to beat each level, care must be taken to designing the city strategically as well as maintaining your creature. City defense, leaving the most fertile ground for fields, providing adequate housing, and strategic placement of storage facilities are all necessary strategies that the player must utilize in order to succeed.
So far, I’ve been a good and patient god. In order to gain light side points, each level has been won through building an impressive city with happy citizens. For the time being, my wolf won’t attack (or eat) my villagers but will happily help them in construction or gathering. This method of playing the game is time consuming and doesn’t provide that interesting of gameplay. My biggest complaint up to this point is that when you’ve impressed a village to join you, they take f-o-r-e-v-e-r to immigrate to your city. By the time most of them reach my influence ring, many have become elderly or died.
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behayes2's Black and White 2 (PC)
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Current Status: Playing
GameLog started on: Monday 12 October, 2009
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