Black and White 2 - First Impressions

On the day of release, they have a patch. This does not bode well.

Even worse, the patch is not compatible with old save games, so if you're a hopeless optimist who thinks that mabe B&W/Lionhead studios can create a game that's fine straight out of the box... don't be so silly!

Actually, mine did work fine and they say that this patch is not a requirement. Then they go on to say that they hope the save games for the next patch will be compatible with this one?

Say what? You hope? You're writing the bloody thing, make it compatible! Or at the very least, provide an options that SHUTS THOSE IDIOT TWINS UP!

Fuck, I hate the tutorial characters, I really do. For those of you who didn't play the original Black and White game, there are two guys who float about offering advice, a devil and angel who call themselves your conscience and provide advice. They're annoyng and intrusive and they don't shut up. And this game has been designed so that you have to listen to them all the time. You can't click a button to skip their lines, you can't skip cutscenes and they're humongous and float right at the front of your screen, so you can't even play while you're ignoring them coz they're totally in the way. Little fuckers.

Out of the box, there's no option to skip the condescending movement tutorial - they ask you if you want a reminder on how to move but forgot to provide the "No" option. The patch does fix this but the movement tutorial is the only section you can skip. You still have to play through the "how to build roads and buildings" and "how to move your creature" sections. This would be slightly less unbearable if it was a video that you could put on and walk away from, but no. It's interactive. And yes, you have to sit through it again if you want to play both sides of the game.

To be fair, as characters they're very well done. They fly around and they're highly detailed and the voice acting isn't terrible. Also for some reason the devil's nipples bounce about an awful lot. But that doesn't make them any less intrusive.

The rest of the game is very pretty, the controls take a bit of getting used to and be prepared to be treated like a four-year old. Someone on the Lionhead forums was very proud that they could sit their four-year-old (who couldn't yet read properly) in front of this game and the kid had no trouble learning how it all worked and didn't need the parent's help at all. That's the level you're treated at in the UNSKIPPABLE tutorial. Which apparently continues through half the game. So if, like me, you played for half the night, so you could get past the tutorial and into the game proper... 1) You have about another 6 hours of condescending instructions to go. And 2) You have to do it all again if you want to patch it so it works properly.

I'm looking for good things to say about this game, but so far it's pretty difficult. Hopefully it gets better in the later lands.

Tagged: games lionhead