Black & White 2

"This redifines freedom in strategy games."

Black & White 2 gives you freedom like you've never before played in a strategy game. In Age of Empires or Age of Mythology or a dozen others, the objective is simple; crush, kill, destroy. Not this time.

You can still take the good old (and much more fun) path of destruction, but if you're a peace-loving hippie or a goody-goody, you can choose a different route to victory. Instead of building up a gigantic army and running rampant in the opponent's city, you can build impressive structures; temples, for example, may impress your opponents enough to seek refuge in your town.

Now if you, for one reason or another, wish to kill your own villagers, it's not just a press of the delete button. Oh, no. You can drop rocks on them, thrown them into mountains, drop them off mountains, sacrifice them in a torture pit, feed them to your creature or a dozen other sadistic methods.

Speaking of your creature, I haven't explained that yet; you can choose from a monkey, a lion, a wolf or a cow to start the game. From there you can choose to make them help your villagers gather food or make them gather food in the form of villagers. If your creature is in a field of grain, he'll ask you, for example, "Shall I eat this grain?" from there you can stroke him to say it's alright or slap him to scold him for just the thought of it. You can encourage him to do other stuff, too; eat villagers, uproot trees, entertain villagers, play with toys and more. Even toys will affect how your creature turns out. If he spends his time cuddling a teddy bear, he'll become a fun-loving creature. But if you'd rather give him a voodoo doll to stick needles into, its idea of fun will be tearing people limb from limb.

Now not all quests require you to help someone. In one quest, a man asks you to shift a huge rock out his garden. You can do that if you want, and become a peace-loving good god, or you can drop the rock on him instead and rack up some evil points. You can use the tribute from quests to buy stuff; new buildings, toys for your creature, miracles (read 'spells') and more.

In the original Black & White, how good or evil you were could be seen by what your hand looks like; red and deformed means evil and white and fluffy means good. Now there's a different way; in your town center is a large basin. If you're good there is a gushing fountain in this basin; if you're evil a roaring flame.

Overall my conclusion is GET THIS GAME. Whether you love to destroy or wish a game could be won without violence, this game has something in it for you.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 01/09/06