Black & White 2

[NoStem]

Anyone play this yet? I really loved the first one, although a bug never let me finish the game.

Peter Moneleaux(sp?) or whoever is behind this game is among many things, someone who I can never hope of out smoking. His lungs are a living iron fortitude of resin and cough resistance, so much so that one day the Gods will carve his name in the sky next to all the other heroes of yore... patricles, hercules, wynona ryder...

IGN gave it a 8.8

Outside of the extreme PC requirements, what is not to like about a game wherein you are a God of large farm animals, that will armies against each other and decimate crops and slay first born children.

When I'm done fucking around with the game for a few hours I'll give some more feedback about it.

[Lord Thanos]

I fell for the hype of the first one

It was fun for the first couple of hours, then I couldn't stand it

My "pet" cow just kept taking shits on my worshiper's crops and he randomly kept casting rain all over the place

I tried smacking the shit out of him, but he just never learned

I did however liked the casting of spells by making gestures with the mouse, I thought that was pretty creative

Let me know how the second one is as soon as you've played it for a few more hours, am a bit interested in it, but am not sure if it's mostly hype like the first one

[Eomer]

Review scores mean little. The first game got all around great scores, and virtually every single site that gave them a good review had editors who wrote articles 6 months or a year down the road where they more or less said "yeah, we fucked that one up." The first game had an extremely enjoyable first few hours of gameplay, but I quickly gave up on it because it was simply too frustrating to figure out how to train my creature to do anything. He'd shit in the middle of town, punt peasants around, all that stuff, despite me repeatedly beating the crap out of him when he did it. I tried using the learning leash and making him watch me drop food into the town center, or lumber, or any number of other tasks and he never seemed to clue in or pick up on any of it. It reminded me of some virtual pet sim, not an actual game. I gave up before I had even finished the first island or tutorial or whatever, out of frustration.

So yeah, don't come to a final decision on the game until you've put in a good dozen or two hours worth of play. Molyneux himself freely admitted that the first game was somewhat of a failure (which he seems to be doing a lot of lately, same thing with Fable) in that the gameplay just wasn't there, so perhaps things really did improve for the better in the second game.

[Whyme]

Black and White 1. Fable.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times? Oh fuck no.

[Eomer]

He still gets retroactive credit for Syndicate, Populous, and a shitload of other games, though. But he's quickly burning through that.

[NoStem]

I liked the first one... you just had to be nice to your creature for him to be nice to the villagers. Beating the monkey makes it sad, angry and impotent.

What really has me on this one (why I'm buying it later today) is because of the whole army aspect. Sieging a castle with hundreds of troops, god powers and a giant farm animal sounds hella cool - especially with how detailed it all is.

[Zehn - Vhex]

Dungeon Keeper was so much better. 8(

[NoStem]

well fuck me... not in till the 4th.

[to be continued]

[Thhin]

Dungeon Keeper, Magic Carpet, Syndicate. Fuck every bullfrog title was pure fucking gold.

[Ronne]

Dungeon Keeper is probably my favorite PC game to date. I have black on white 1 on my desk, haven't tried it yet though. I'm afraid it will suck too much and less my opinion of god style games.

[McCheese]

I remember when I was in 6th grade my parents said they'd buy me 1 videogame for some reason I can't remember anymore.

Just by chance I happened to see a triplepack at Toys R Us with Theme Park, Magic Carpet, and High Octane. I chose it just because Theme Park looked cool.

Little did I know that those three games would get more playtime out of me than any other game up until EQ. God those were some great games.

And to get back on track...

I really enjoyed B&W1, and still think it was an absolutely brilliant concept. It just had so many problems (bugs, extremely difficult to train pet, micromanagement, stupid civilians) that the overall experience was damaged beyond repair.

Hopefully they fixed all those problems in B&W2 without adding in new ones. If they did, then I'm sure I'll enjoy it immensly.

[Malakie Torsade]

I really liked B&W, but am going to wait and see how people like the 2nd one before I get it. Too many other good games coming that I want/have got (X-men 2, Soul Caliber 2, We <3 Katamari.)

[Ronne]

Anyone have a CD key for Black and White 1 that I could use? I got my copy in a 4 game pack of EA titles, and the one page that had the four CD keys on it apparently got tossed with the box. So B&W, Freedom Fighters and some Lord of the Rings game are all useless untill I find CD keys for them, not that I really care about the latter two.

PM to hook a brother up!

[Spankmonkey]

Of all the things I disliked about BW1, training the pet definitely wasn't one of the sticking points. I see it mentioned several times here as something people disliked a lot about BW1. After playing for a few hours it became evident that the only way to successfully train the pet was through strictly positive reinforcement with little to no punishment. I was able to rapidly produce a heroic, gigantic, muscular, gleaming pet that did nothing but help people. Also, it is a great boon to never teach your pet any destructive spells. If they simply don't know how to summon fire or call lightning, you will never have the problem of a roving monster igniting your peasantry for fun.

[Runnen]

I think Bullfrog, or whatever the company is called nowadays, should make a mix of Dungeon Keeper and Theme Park, where the goal is to make the creepiest amusement park for monsters and creeps everywhere.

I really enjoyed the old school Theme Park (I believe I had it on Megadrive), and Theme Hospital was pretty funny too (especially the Chewbacca disease). Dungeon Keeper 2 is probably at the top of the list of Bullfrog games that I played though.