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Mac|Life has published a new review of Black & White 2. In the game players take the role of a god who must manage followers and train a creature avatar as it quests to rule the land by either conquering or impressing rivals. Mac|Life gave the game a score of 2 out of 5.

From the review:

You don’t need to have played the original Black & White, since this sequel takes a different path. That prior game was about training and playing with a huge creature, essentially a pet or life simulation. Black & White 2 still lets you pick a colossal lion, tiger, turtle, cow, or other animal, but you only need to give it attention occasionally. Unlike the original, Black & White 2 focuses on building and expanding towns.
Common real-time strategy conventions only occasionally surprised us, for good or bad. You’re balancing resources--ore, wood, and food--against costs to expand. Instead of instantly building houses, granaries, temples, and other structures, your giant god’s hand lays out the pattern on the ground. Your people then decide to build the object, and the creature can even help out.

Unlike other games that follow these rules, you can also micromanage construction, speeding things up with your divine touch. This building process is generally fun, and other resources--”tribute” from accomplishing world tasks and mana for calling down god-like miracles--add more initial variety.

Unfortunately, levels too often follow the same pattern. You’ll build up a town, and either expand the “good” way by enticing neighboring villages to join with your impressive structures, or, if you’re evil, you’ll just roll over them with an army. And the repetition seems worse because it can take hours to beat a single level in the “good” path; we were frequently bored, waiting idly for the town to improve instead of enjoying the process. The game keeps track of your good and evil deeds, but the practical difference is minimal.

Mac|Life: Black & White 2 Review

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Black & White 2

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