Like its predecessor, Black & White 2 is a god game that puts you in the role of a deity whose evil or benevolence depends on your choices. Your disciples—in the preview I played, the Greek civilization and a creature of my choosing—do your bidding as you attempt to bring their civilization to prominence. Whether you do so by economic and cultural dominance or military power—the RTS portion of the game—is up to you.
00:01 The opening cut-scene introduces me to two creatures who explain that they are my good and bad consciences. My good conscience sounds like a kindly grandfather with a vaguely British accent. My bad conscience sounds like an extra from The Sopranos.
00:09 My consciences urge me to choose a creature to raise, explaining that the way I treat my creature will turn him into a kindly and mischievous pet or a weapon of destruction. The cow keeps grinning and shaking her udder at me, so I reject her overt cuteness factor and go with the monkey.
00:13 I’m supposed to be able to control the entire game via the mouse, but the cursor has become a disembodied hand that, much like a boy at a junior high school dance, doesn’t always grab where it’s supposed to. Arrow keys, you are my friends.
00:16 I meet my villagers, who are immediately attacked by the Aztec army, which is a little weird since my villagers are Greek. A great battle scene ensues. You can zoom way in, pretty much right into the faces of the villagers, most of which are currently contorted with fear. I learn how to move my little Greeks out of danger, although I can pick up only one of them at a time, so I manage to spare maybe 10 of them. They end up in a new, peaceful place to start a new, peaceful town. I start tending to their needs, which, if I do a good job, will ultimately amount to making them a great and prosperous people. I can do that in two ways: either help them build such a great town that other towns want to migrate to it…or train them to be killing machines that go out and take other towns. I decide that for now, instead of making war, we’re going to….
00:21 Make love, baby! My villagers’ current desire, according to the desire status box, is to become “breeders.” I make them into breeders by picking them up and dropping them on top of one another. It’s a lot like a Craigslist personals ad. Before long, my town is filled with waddling pregnant women who, when it’s time to deliver, lie down wherever they happen to be standing, which is usually in the middle of the street. Five seconds later, they get right back up and go back to whatever they were doing. In one case, that was hauling wood. They are tough ladies, these Greeks.
00:25 I wake up my sleeping creature, who immediately eats one of the pregnant villagers. It’s my job to steer him toward good or evil by punishing or rewarding such behavior, so I give him a scratch by moving the mouse (and thus my disembodied hand) forward and back, which teaches him that snacking on pregnant Greeks is just fine! I feel bad about that, so I move the mouse back and forth, causing my disembodied hand to slap him across his little monkey face. Then I feel bad about that…but it’s a really satisfying sound. I continue sweeping the mouse back and forth, feeling a little like Joan Collins on Dynasty.
00:30 I can tell my creature to do things other than eat villagers, so I set him to work building villas for my Greeks. Hey, it’s an RTS—the amount of stuff you need to think about can get overwhelming, so I’m happy to have the extra pair of hands. The game’s wonky controls are getting to me, too, and I’m starting to wonder whether I want to keep at it. Then I see the following in a word bubble above my creature’s head: “Sometimes I’ll poo on trees.”
I may not drop everything when Black & White 2 comes out—especially if the controls remain so tough and the framerate so finicky—but for the promise of pooing on trees, I’ll probably give it at least another few hours.
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