Black & White 2
Encyclopedia
Black & White 2 is a video game developed
by Lionhead Studios
and published
by Electronic Arts
and later in January 2009 by Feral Interactive
as a port to Mac OS X
. It blends real-time strategy
, city building
and god game
elements. It was released on October 7, 2005 as stated on the official Lionhead website, but to those who preordered it arrived on October 5, 2005 from most sources. The Mac OS X version, however, was not released until January 6, 2009. It is the sequel to 2001's Black & White, also the brainchild of Peter Molyneux
. The lead designers are Peter Molyneux and Ron Millar
, who previously worked at Blizzard Entertainment
on titles such as StarCraft
and Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness
.
monotheistic
style god, but rather a god who rises and falls with his believers and the player must help develop their nature according to their good or evil
desires. The player also has a creature, their physical representation in the world, which takes the form of an anthropomorphic
ape
, lion
, wolf
or cow
and, with an unlocker, a tiger
. It can grow to an immense size, and adopt a good or evil persona separate of the player's. They develop their character as the player rewards or punishes their actions.
In addition to the god simulation and city-building elements of the original Black & White, Black & White 2 also features elements of Real-Time Strategy gameplay, with the addition of controllable warfare and fighting units.
Black & White 2 also features a more conventional HUD
(Heads-Up Display) system than its predecessor. Rather than the experimental HUDless gameplay seen in the original game, Black & White 2 features HUD notifications that inform players of their creature's state of mind, the effects of their actions on their creature, the status of villages, etc.
The only way the player can interact with this world
directly is through the player's hand, with which the player can pick up people, trees, food, and influence the ground. The player can also cast miracle
s. However, a certain amount of "Prayer
Power" (in essence, "Mana
") from the player's believers is needed to do this.
One of the game's most innovative features is that its user interface
is almost buttonless. The HUD is much simpler than other such "creator" games, such as The Sims
and RollerCoaster Tycoon
, and the player sees little else on the screen but the world, the player's hand, and toolbars which the player can make disappear. To do things such as cast miracles, the player moves the hand in such a way to make a symbol on the ground, which is called a gesture. This activates the miracle, and if the player has enough mana, it appears in the player's hand ready to cast.
Miracles have a variety of different uses. There are 6 ordinary miracles: fire
, lightning
, water
, shield
, heal
, and meteor
, (each of which can be thrown or poured), and 4 epic wonders, which are siren
, hurricane
, earthquake
, and volcano
.
The player's creature can do most things the player can do, such as cast miracles. They will grow slowly for a long time, and can become very large. Since the player trains him, his personality can become whatever the player makes of it. They may be an aid in supporting the player's kingdom or the ultimate soldier in the player's army.
There are three possible paths to take in this game: Good, Evil, or a more neutral combination of the two, although this decision is not discrete. The typical path of an evil god will be one of fear, torture, conquest and destruction using epic armies and building fearsome places, such as a pit of torture, while that of a good god will be one of benevolence, more positive city building, and lots of looking after the populace, particularly defending it from attack. Both of these require ore
and wood
, of which there is a limited amount (though some maps have bottomless mines, and water miracles can turn a single tree into a forest if used correctly), making players
choose a strategy — but there is plenty of slack in each.
The game features Egypt
(in tutorial level), Norse
(in demo), Aztec
, Japanese
, and Greek
tribes. The player's tribe is the Greeks.
As in Black & White, players can create disciples to do the player's job in certain areas of the game while the player tends to other business. For example, if the player needs to lead an invasion, they can set villagers, and even their creature to farm for them while they lead an invasion.
Each tribe at some stage owns a creature, much like you. As the game progresses, the enemies' creatures increase in strength, and their size correlates with that of your creature. The Norse tribe own a somewhat evil wolf, the Japanese own a tiger and the Aztecs a gorilla. In the expansion, Battle of the Gods, the gorilla is pulled from its resting place albeit with decomposing flesh.
The creature is usually referred to as "he" - not only by fans, but the consciences say it. This may indicate that the creature is a male, despite the presence of a cow with udders, or may be chosen to prevent needing a male/female version of voice recordings referring to the creature. The Lion grows a mane. There was an idea to sculpt the gorilla with a sagital crest and a silverback, as seen in the original Black & White. The reason for dropping the idea is unknown.
Unlike Black & White, in which the creature had to be taught miracles through repetition, this sequel allows the player to 'buy' Creature Miracles with 'Tribute' currency. Along with this, Black & White 2 allows a player to revisit everything they've taught their creature in order to alter and fine-tune it at any time, while the original Black & White simulated a more realistic teaching by only allowing changes to be made as the creature repeated an action.
Throughout the game there is a theme of "The prophecy" which states that a tribe will be destroyed by the mightiest power in the world but will receive a god who will lead them to glory and dominance of the world.
, the lack of packaged multiplayer and sandbox modes, and the feeling of being less of a god game, and more of a glorified city-management simulator, considering the lack of "divine" opponents, which were prominent features of the first game.
The angle taken by the sequel was vastly different from the original. There is no way to convert a village by impressing the village itself, but rather the other village must come to find yours superior. This can take a considerable amount of time and resources, leading many players to use war to conquer the towns.
The community has also been marked severely by users experiencing problems with playing the game, in the form of various bugs
or crashes
which practically rendered the game unplayable. The most vulnerable computer setup seems to be an AMD
CPU
chipset and Nvidia
motherboard
and graphics card chipset. The most serious of these bugs on the AMD-Nvidia chipset was the inability to save progress of an ongoing game. The result often was a crash-on-save after an extended period of time. Other problems included ghost images that were persistent across game restarts. Another bug made it hard to proceed beyond the tutorial unless the user has a mouse with a scroll wheel (and sometimes not even if they did; the game was only compatible with Microsoft
's wheel implementation) or the user went into the interface and changed the options to another button than the mousewheel. There was also discontent with the 1.1 patch
, released by Lionhead to resolve some of the bugs as well as balancing, which rendered previous saved games incompatible with the new version, forcing players to start over from the beginning.
Lionhead has made two patches so far, however, many users aren't satisfied with them. Mod tools were released in early 2006, and an expansion (Battle of the Gods
) was announced soon after.
The premise involved the player's return to Eden, where they discover that the Aztecs have raised their own evil deity, which must be confronted head-on for control of the land. The player has the freedom to choose how they will challenge this new god, either by countering the evil deity’s actions with good deeds, or attempting to defeat him with extreme evil. The players will have to watch out for two new enemy armies and the new enemy creature. Six new challenges and other new content are also available for players to explore.
tools, the Black & White 2 community was reborn. Some game modifications exist, most notably player engineered campaigns and maps (using the Lionhead Scripting Language) and the addition of creatures thought to be unobtainable via in-game means (Zombie Ape and Turtle).
Video game developer
A video game developer is a software developer that creates video games. A developer may specialize in a certain video game console, such as Nintendo's Wii, Microsoft's Xbox 360, Sony's PlayStation 3, or may develop for a variety of systems, including personal computers.Most developers also...
by Lionhead Studios
Lionhead Studios
Lionhead Studios is a British computer game development company led by industry veteran Peter Molyneux, and acquired by Microsoft Game Studios in April 2006. Lionhead started as a breakaway from the developer Bullfrog, which was also founded by Molyneux. Lionhead's first game was Black & White, a...
and published
Video game publisher
A video game publisher is a company that publishes video games that they have either developed internally or have had developed by a video game developer....
by Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts, Inc. is a major American developer, marketer, publisher and distributor of video games. Founded and incorporated on May 28, 1982 by Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer games industry and was notable for promoting the designers and programmers...
and later in January 2009 by Feral Interactive
Feral Interactive
Feral Interactive is a publishing company founded in 1999 that publishes games and other software that did not fit in with the release programs of the large established publishers. It publishes Macintosh games and has relationships with publishers such as Electronic Arts, Eidos Interactive,...
as a port to Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
. It blends real-time strategy
Real-time strategy
Real-time strategy is a sub-genre of strategy video game which does not progress incrementally in turns. Brett Sperry is credited with coining the term to market Dune II....
, city building
City-building game
City-building games are a genre of strategy computer game where players act as the overall planner and leader of a city, looking down on it from above, and being responsible for its growth and management...
and god game
God game
A god game is an artificial life game that casts the player in the position of controlling the game on a large scale, as an entity with divine/supernatural powers, as a great leader, or with no specified character , and places them in charge of a game setting containing autonomous characters to...
elements. It was released on October 7, 2005 as stated on the official Lionhead website, but to those who preordered it arrived on October 5, 2005 from most sources. The Mac OS X version, however, was not released until January 6, 2009. It is the sequel to 2001's Black & White, also the brainchild of Peter Molyneux
Peter Molyneux
Peter Douglas Molyneux OBE is an English computer game designer and game programmer. He created the God games Dungeon Keeper, Populous, and Black & White, among others, as well as business simulation games such as Theme Park and more recently, the RPG series Fable.Despite the success of his games,...
. The lead designers are Peter Molyneux and Ron Millar
Ron Millar
Ron Millar is the lead designer of Black & White 2, the computer game and is currently the lead designer for LucasArts' upcoming Indiana Jones game...
, who previously worked at Blizzard Entertainment
Blizzard Entertainment
Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. is an American video game developer and publisher founded on February 8, 1991 under the name Silicon & Synapse by three graduates of UCLA, Michael Morhaime, Allen Adham and Frank Pearce and currently owned by French company Activision Blizzard...
on titles such as StarCraft
StarCraft
StarCraft is a military science fiction real-time strategy video game developed by Blizzard Entertainment. The first game of the StarCraft series was released for Microsoft Windows on 31 March 1998. With more than 11 million copies sold worldwide as of February 2009, it is one of the best-selling...
and Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness
Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness
Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness is a fantasy-themed real-time strategy game published by Blizzard Entertainment and first released for DOS in 1995 and for Mac OS in 1996...
.
Gameplay
The concept of the game is that the player is a god, called from heaven to help those who invoked them. However, the player is not an omnipotentOmnipotence
Omnipotence is unlimited power. Monotheistic religions generally attribute omnipotence to only the deity of whichever faith is being addressed...
monotheistic
Monotheism
Monotheism is the belief in the existence of one and only one god. Monotheism is characteristic of the Baha'i Faith, Christianity, Druzism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Samaritanism, Sikhism and Zoroastrianism.While they profess the existence of only one deity, monotheistic religions may still...
style god, but rather a god who rises and falls with his believers and the player must help develop their nature according to their good or evil
Value theory
Value theory encompasses a range of approaches to understanding how, why and to what degree people should value things; whether the thing is a person, idea, object, or anything else. This investigation began in ancient philosophy, where it is called axiology or ethics. Early philosophical...
desires. The player also has a creature, their physical representation in the world, which takes the form of an anthropomorphic
Anthropomorphism
Anthropomorphism is any attribution of human characteristics to animals, non-living things, phenomena, material states, objects or abstract concepts, such as organizations, governments, spirits or deities. The term was coined in the mid 1700s...
ape
Ape
Apes are Old World anthropoid mammals, more specifically a clade of tailless catarrhine primates, belonging to the biological superfamily Hominoidea. The apes are native to Africa and South-east Asia, although in relatively recent times humans have spread all over the world...
, lion
Lion
The lion is one of the four big cats in the genus Panthera, and a member of the family Felidae. With some males exceeding 250 kg in weight, it is the second-largest living cat after the tiger...
, wolf
Gray Wolf
The gray wolf , also known as the wolf, is the largest extant wild member of the Canidae family...
or cow
Cattle
Cattle are the most common type of large domesticated ungulates. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae, are the most widespread species of the genus Bos, and are most commonly classified collectively as Bos primigenius...
and, with an unlocker, a tiger
Tiger
The tiger is the largest cat species, reaching a total body length of up to and weighing up to . Their most recognizable feature is a pattern of dark vertical stripes on reddish-orange fur with lighter underparts...
. It can grow to an immense size, and adopt a good or evil persona separate of the player's. They develop their character as the player rewards or punishes their actions.
In addition to the god simulation and city-building elements of the original Black & White, Black & White 2 also features elements of Real-Time Strategy gameplay, with the addition of controllable warfare and fighting units.
Black & White 2 also features a more conventional HUD
HUD (computer gaming)
In video gaming, the HUD is the method by which information is visually relayed to the player as part of a game's user interface...
(Heads-Up Display) system than its predecessor. Rather than the experimental HUDless gameplay seen in the original game, Black & White 2 features HUD notifications that inform players of their creature's state of mind, the effects of their actions on their creature, the status of villages, etc.
The only way the player can interact with this world
Planet
A planet is a celestial body orbiting a star or stellar remnant that is massive enough to be rounded by its own gravity, is not massive enough to cause thermonuclear fusion, and has cleared its neighbouring region of planetesimals.The term planet is ancient, with ties to history, science,...
directly is through the player's hand, with which the player can pick up people, trees, food, and influence the ground. The player can also cast miracle
Miracle
A miracle often denotes an event attributed to divine intervention. Alternatively, it may be an event attributed to a miracle worker, saint, or religious leader. A miracle is sometimes thought of as a perceptible interruption of the laws of nature. Others suggest that a god may work with the laws...
s. However, a certain amount of "Prayer
Prayer
Prayer is a form of religious practice that seeks to activate a volitional rapport to a deity through deliberate practice. Prayer may be either individual or communal and take place in public or in private. It may involve the use of words or song. When language is used, prayer may take the form of...
Power" (in essence, "Mana
Mana
Mana is an indigenous Pacific islander concept of an impersonal force or quality that resides in people, animals, and inanimate objects. The word is a cognate in many Oceanic languages, including Melanesian, Polynesian, and Micronesian....
") from the player's believers is needed to do this.
User interface
The user interface, in the industrial design field of human–machine interaction, is the space where interaction between humans and machines occurs. The goal of interaction between a human and a machine at the user interface is effective operation and control of the machine, and feedback from the...
is almost buttonless. The HUD is much simpler than other such "creator" games, such as The Sims
The Sims
The Sims is a strategic life-simulation computer game developed by Maxis and published by Electronic Arts. Its development was led by game designer Will Wright, also known for developing SimCity...
and RollerCoaster Tycoon
RollerCoaster Tycoon
RollerCoaster Tycoon may refer to:*RollerCoaster Tycoon - a series of video games in which a player must manage an amusement park**RollerCoaster Tycoon - the first game, which came out in 1999...
, and the player sees little else on the screen but the world, the player's hand, and toolbars which the player can make disappear. To do things such as cast miracles, the player moves the hand in such a way to make a symbol on the ground, which is called a gesture. This activates the miracle, and if the player has enough mana, it appears in the player's hand ready to cast.
Miracles have a variety of different uses. There are 6 ordinary miracles: fire
Fire
Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material in the chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction products. Slower oxidative processes like rusting or digestion are not included by this definition....
, lightning
Lightning
Lightning is an atmospheric electrostatic discharge accompanied by thunder, which typically occurs during thunderstorms, and sometimes during volcanic eruptions or dust storms...
, water
Water
Water is a chemical substance with the chemical formula H2O. A water molecule contains one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms connected by covalent bonds. Water is a liquid at ambient conditions, but it often co-exists on Earth with its solid state, ice, and gaseous state . Water also exists in a...
, shield
Shield
A shield is a type of personal armor, meant to intercept attacks, either by stopping projectiles such as arrows or redirecting a hit from a sword, mace or battle axe to the side of the shield-bearer....
, heal
Healing
Physiological healing is the restoration of damaged living tissue, organs and biological system to normal function. It is the process by which the cells in the body regenerate and repair to reduce the size of a damaged or necrotic area....
, and meteor
METEOR
METEOR is a metric for the evaluation of machine translation output. The metric is based on the harmonic mean of unigram precision and recall, with recall weighted higher than precision...
, (each of which can be thrown or poured), and 4 epic wonders, which are siren
Siren
In Greek mythology, the Sirens were three dangerous mermaid like creatures, portrayed as seductresses who lured nearby sailors with their enchanting music and voices to shipwreck on the rocky coast of their island. Roman poets placed them on an island called Sirenum scopuli...
, hurricane
Tropical cyclone
A tropical cyclone is a storm system characterized by a large low-pressure center and numerous thunderstorms that produce strong winds and heavy rain. Tropical cyclones strengthen when water evaporated from the ocean is released as the saturated air rises, resulting in condensation of water vapor...
, earthquake
Earthquake
An earthquake is the result of a sudden release of energy in the Earth's crust that creates seismic waves. The seismicity, seismism or seismic activity of an area refers to the frequency, type and size of earthquakes experienced over a period of time...
, and volcano
Volcano
2. Bedrock3. Conduit 4. Base5. Sill6. Dike7. Layers of ash emitted by the volcano8. Flank| 9. Layers of lava emitted by the volcano10. Throat11. Parasitic cone12. Lava flow13. Vent14. Crater15...
.
The player's creature can do most things the player can do, such as cast miracles. They will grow slowly for a long time, and can become very large. Since the player trains him, his personality can become whatever the player makes of it. They may be an aid in supporting the player's kingdom or the ultimate soldier in the player's army.
There are three possible paths to take in this game: Good, Evil, or a more neutral combination of the two, although this decision is not discrete. The typical path of an evil god will be one of fear, torture, conquest and destruction using epic armies and building fearsome places, such as a pit of torture, while that of a good god will be one of benevolence, more positive city building, and lots of looking after the populace, particularly defending it from attack. Both of these require ore
Ore
An ore is a type of rock that contains minerals with important elements including metals. The ores are extracted through mining; these are then refined to extract the valuable element....
and wood
Wood
Wood is a hard, fibrous tissue found in many trees. It has been used for hundreds of thousands of years for both fuel and as a construction material. It is an organic material, a natural composite of cellulose fibers embedded in a matrix of lignin which resists compression...
, of which there is a limited amount (though some maps have bottomless mines, and water miracles can turn a single tree into a forest if used correctly), making players
Player (game)
A player of a game is a participant therein. The term 'player' is used with this same meaning both in game theory and in ordinary recreational games....
choose a strategy — but there is plenty of slack in each.
The game features Egypt
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...
(in tutorial level), Norse
Norsemen
Norsemen is used to refer to the group of people as a whole who spoke what is now called the Old Norse language belonging to the North Germanic branch of Indo-European languages, especially Norwegian, Icelandic, Faroese, Swedish and Danish in their earlier forms.The meaning of Norseman was "people...
(in demo), Aztec
Aztec
The Aztec people were certain ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, a period referred to as the late post-classic period in Mesoamerican chronology.Aztec is the...
, Japanese
Japanese people
The are an ethnic group originating in the Japanese archipelago and are the predominant ethnic group of Japan. Worldwide, approximately 130 million people are of Japanese descent; of these, approximately 127 million are residents of Japan. People of Japanese ancestry who live in other countries...
, and Greek
Greeks
The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....
tribes. The player's tribe is the Greeks.
As in Black & White, players can create disciples to do the player's job in certain areas of the game while the player tends to other business. For example, if the player needs to lead an invasion, they can set villagers, and even their creature to farm for them while they lead an invasion.
Creatures
The creature choices include the ape, lion, tiger, wolf, and cow. All of these are available to play, except for the tiger which is only included with the pre-ordered or collector's/special edition of the game. The tiger is also available in the Battle of the Gods expansion pack, as well as the new armor-plated turtle. The Tiger (in the collector's/special edition of the game) can be spotted behind the other four creatures during creature selection. Contrary to popular belief, the tiger is always available, provided the player has used the unlocker in the collectors edition.Each tribe at some stage owns a creature, much like you. As the game progresses, the enemies' creatures increase in strength, and their size correlates with that of your creature. The Norse tribe own a somewhat evil wolf, the Japanese own a tiger and the Aztecs a gorilla. In the expansion, Battle of the Gods, the gorilla is pulled from its resting place albeit with decomposing flesh.
The creature is usually referred to as "he" - not only by fans, but the consciences say it. This may indicate that the creature is a male, despite the presence of a cow with udders, or may be chosen to prevent needing a male/female version of voice recordings referring to the creature. The Lion grows a mane. There was an idea to sculpt the gorilla with a sagital crest and a silverback, as seen in the original Black & White. The reason for dropping the idea is unknown.
Unlike Black & White, in which the creature had to be taught miracles through repetition, this sequel allows the player to 'buy' Creature Miracles with 'Tribute' currency. Along with this, Black & White 2 allows a player to revisit everything they've taught their creature in order to alter and fine-tune it at any time, while the original Black & White simulated a more realistic teaching by only allowing changes to be made as the creature repeated an action.
Plot
The player is called to the world from a "pure prayer" and thus comes upon a scene of a Greek city being devastated by a huge Aztec army. After the player saves a certain number of people, their people are transported to a new land with a handful of refugee worshipers, the player must re-establish a power base from which to eventually defeat the Aztec empire. To do so, the player must conquer the Norse, the Japanese and the Aztecs, either by peace or war.Throughout the game there is a theme of "The prophecy" which states that a tribe will be destroyed by the mightiest power in the world but will receive a god who will lead them to glory and dominance of the world.
Reception
Critic reactions were positive with an average critic score of 76% at GameRankings. However response to Black and White 2 has also been mixed, with powerful feelings on both sides; the supporters cite the obviously improved graphics, the grander scale of city building, the improved method of teaching and guiding the Creature, and the creation of armies. Those opposing the game note the somewhat limited actions of the Creature, the poor pathfinding and enemy AIArtificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
, the lack of packaged multiplayer and sandbox modes, and the feeling of being less of a god game, and more of a glorified city-management simulator, considering the lack of "divine" opponents, which were prominent features of the first game.
The angle taken by the sequel was vastly different from the original. There is no way to convert a village by impressing the village itself, but rather the other village must come to find yours superior. This can take a considerable amount of time and resources, leading many players to use war to conquer the towns.
The community has also been marked severely by users experiencing problems with playing the game, in the form of various bugs
Software bug
A software bug is the common term used to describe an error, flaw, mistake, failure, or fault in a computer program or system that produces an incorrect or unexpected result, or causes it to behave in unintended ways. Most bugs arise from mistakes and errors made by people in either a program's...
or crashes
Crash (computing)
A crash in computing is a condition where a computer or a program, either an application or part of the operating system, ceases to function properly, often exiting after encountering errors. Often the offending program may appear to freeze or hang until a crash reporting service documents...
which practically rendered the game unplayable. The most vulnerable computer setup seems to be an AMD
Advanced Micro Devices
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. or AMD is an American multinational semiconductor company based in Sunnyvale, California, that develops computer processors and related technologies for commercial and consumer markets...
CPU
Central processing unit
The central processing unit is the portion of a computer system that carries out the instructions of a computer program, to perform the basic arithmetical, logical, and input/output operations of the system. The CPU plays a role somewhat analogous to the brain in the computer. The term has been in...
chipset and Nvidia
NVIDIA
Nvidia is an American global technology company based in Santa Clara, California. Nvidia is best known for its graphics processors . Nvidia and chief rival AMD Graphics Techonologies have dominated the high performance GPU market, pushing other manufacturers to smaller, niche roles...
motherboard
Motherboard
In personal computers, a motherboard is the central printed circuit board in many modern computers and holds many of the crucial components of the system, providing connectors for other peripherals. The motherboard is sometimes alternatively known as the mainboard, system board, or, on Apple...
and graphics card chipset. The most serious of these bugs on the AMD-Nvidia chipset was the inability to save progress of an ongoing game. The result often was a crash-on-save after an extended period of time. Other problems included ghost images that were persistent across game restarts. Another bug made it hard to proceed beyond the tutorial unless the user has a mouse with a scroll wheel (and sometimes not even if they did; the game was only compatible with Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
's wheel implementation) or the user went into the interface and changed the options to another button than the mousewheel. There was also discontent with the 1.1 patch
Patch (computing)
A patch is a piece of software designed to fix problems with, or update a computer program or its supporting data. This includes fixing security vulnerabilities and other bugs, and improving the usability or performance...
, released by Lionhead to resolve some of the bugs as well as balancing, which rendered previous saved games incompatible with the new version, forcing players to start over from the beginning.
Lionhead has made two patches so far, however, many users aren't satisfied with them. Mod tools were released in early 2006, and an expansion (Battle of the Gods
Black & White 2: Battle of the Gods
Black & White 2: Battle of the Gods is an expansion pack for Lionhead's Black & White 2, in which the player is pitted against an enemy god for the first time. The expansion adds a number of additional miracles to the game, including the ability to resurrect dead citizens or transform corpses into...
) was announced soon after.
Expansion packs
The only expansion set released to date is Black & White 2: Battle of the Gods, released on April 28, 2006. It featured a brand new creature (the armor plated turtle) and the tiger from the BAW2 Special Edition, three new lands, four new miracles, and an all-new enemy, a god born of death, supposedly hinted to at the end of Black and White 2.The premise involved the player's return to Eden, where they discover that the Aztecs have raised their own evil deity, which must be confronted head-on for control of the land. The player has the freedom to choose how they will challenge this new god, either by countering the evil deity’s actions with good deeds, or attempting to defeat him with extreme evil. The players will have to watch out for two new enemy armies and the new enemy creature. Six new challenges and other new content are also available for players to explore.
Modifications
Upon the release of the official moddingModding
Modding is a slang expression that is derived from the verb "modify". Modding refers to the act of modifying a piece of hardware or software or anything else for that matter, to perform a function not originally conceived or intended by the designer...
tools, the Black & White 2 community was reborn. Some game modifications exist, most notably player engineered campaigns and maps (using the Lionhead Scripting Language) and the addition of creatures thought to be unobtainable via in-game means (Zombie Ape and Turtle).
External links
- Official Black & White 2 site
- Planet Black & White Official GameSpyGameSpyGameSpy Industries, Inc., known simply as GameSpy, is a division of IGN Entertainment, which operates a network of game websites and provides online video game-related services and software. GameSpy dates back to the 1996 release of an internet Quake server search program named QSpy. The current...
fansite - http://www.feralinteractive.com/game/blackwhite2Black & White 2 at Feral InteractiveFeral InteractiveFeral Interactive is a publishing company founded in 1999 that publishes games and other software that did not fit in with the release programs of the large established publishers. It publishes Macintosh games and has relationships with publishers such as Electronic Arts, Eidos Interactive,...
] - Official Black & White 2: Battle of the Gods site