Godhood, Sure Ain't All It's Cracked Up To Be

 Remember how when you were a kid you'd smush ants by the dozen, pull the wings off flies and generally demonstrate sociopath like tendencies which disturbed your parents no end? Well, thankfully the game industry sure does, providing us with a never ending stream of fantastical ways to kill, maim and otherwise destroy our way across a plethora of worlds, time periods and fantastical settings. And arguably the greatest genre for those daemons of the insect world is the RTS, where one can literally play god. Bringing entire continents to heel, raising cities and courting the death of thousands at a whim they really allow us to play with our inner despot. You'll never find Democracy: The Game sitting on your shelf, I can tell you that much (I have recently learned there is a game called Democracy, I stand chastened). Now, Black and White sought to open up the idea of simple god hood, of good and evil. It was all very moral and didn't reward the player all that well if he or she were more devilishly inclined. In Black and White Two the record has been set straight, you can be evil yet still build a beautiful city or be good and indulge in a little murder and pillage. It is an extremely well designed piece of software. That does not mean however, that it is a good game.

Point and click, damn being a soldier is easy.

 You see Black and White has always had the habit of promising more than it can deliver. The freedom exalted so much in the original never really materialised in my view.  Don't get me wrong it was an interesting premise but it wasn't as revolutionary as it was made out to be. Quite frankly I found it a little dull, call me a philistine, but it just didn't grab me by the throat and make me take notice. Much of that I felt was due to a singular lack of control, that my godliness was dependent too much on simple influence. I'm a god after all, surely I have the right to choose exactly how much I want to interfere with the little ants I call worshippers. So in Black and White 2 this was tweaked somewhat, now you can make your followers into the conversion war machine you've always wanted. An unstoppable hoard chanting your name and burning the heretics! But there is one slight problem in all of this rabble rousing. The game mechanics themselves. They're shit.

I was going to come up with a long winded and exceptional metaphor to fully help you comprehend how bad they are, but then I thought plain English did the job better. From lacking a drag selection function to having no upgrade system the entire set up feels flawed. If anything it feels like an RTS's for dummies. This is justified by your being a god, not a general on the battlefield like say, in Medieval Total War. Instead it just comes across as amateurish, the hefty number of units you can command becoming a burden as you have to select them one at a time. There is just too much micro management with too few controls to do the job. This is then compounded by an inferior AI that behaves in a manner one would expect from the original Age of Empires, for when a city or town is defended by a god a couple of units and a catapult really ain't going to cut it. There is no feeling that you can lose so the game lacks any sense of gravitas. It puts paid to the grand ideal of god hood by making it into a chore that has to be done, not a desperate struggle for ascension.

Impressive?  Imagine building dozens.  I was a weary god by the end of it all. 

If you're a more peaceable sort you can convert through awing the surrounding settlements with your mighty city building. I actually quite enjoyed this facet of the game, for there are plenty of different buildings to construct and how you decide to build your city has an effect on the happiness of your people. Are you going to build them beautiful villas or squalid huts, enough of which together will form depressing slums. Also, there's nothing like a good torture pit to vent your frustrations, it's all very satisfying. It can however become a little much, your godly abilities being judged on how much your people like that new temple you just built, rather than how much they worship you in it. Also, taking over the map through conversion alone is a ball ache and becomes repetitive all too quickly, forcing you to rely on your men at arms. I imagine this was the point, to force you to choose exactly how dedicated you are to one path or another, but the game seems intent on pushing you into the grey area and punishing you for making a definite choice.

So pretty, but not much else besides.

The devil is in the details, for while Lionhead Studios did a fair job with the graphical presentation, it is pretty to be sure, they failed miserably in the menu design department. It's little niggling things like having to scroll through each building to find what you want or having to construct each building in turn, it's all a bit irritating, especially when you're building the thousandth house. I have to say that that the only menu attachments I found genuinely effective were those relating to your creature, your avatar on earth. You can select him to be a builder one moment or a warrior the next, with the warning that leaving him under these commands for too long will turn him into a mindless automaton. It's perhaps the one facet of the game were the simplicity of it actually enhances the experience, instead of feeling like the Sims Do Godhood. It just feels patronising at times, that in trying to make the game accessible Lionhead also made it repetitive and stupid.

  So to conclude, Black and White 2 is not a seminal moment in gaming history. It's too casual and lacks true depth, for while it may entertain on a basic, pick up and play level, it doesn't immerse one in what it is to be a god. At the most it's an RTS with a few gimmicks. I will admit that the moral system is effectively developed, however the game mechanics, the two facets of war or awe don't mesh as well as they should. You can't play this game as a do-gooder because it becomes plain dull, while the combat mechanics are none existent. There's no strategy other than who has more men, materials, or in the players case, godly abilities. Excellent for defence, but poor at range. You can't even aim properly, something I find wholly unforgivable. So if you'd like a casual outing as a micro managing deity with all the abilities of a city foreman, be my guest. Otherwise chuck it in a draw and play a proper RTS, as this sure ain't it.