Black and White 2

[tniem]

FGN said this about the next game from Peter Molyneaux.

Black & White 2 Begins

PC: Lionhead supremo Peter Molyneaux has begun work on the follow-up to Black & White. Details inside.

Molyneaux revealed that Lionhead has begun working on a full-blown sequel to its hit title at ECTS. Although it was a given that a sequel would be made, this is the first time Molyneaux has spoken of what to expect.

Basically the once peaceful island is no longer. IGNPC quoted Molyneaux as saying, "I really like the idea of these huge, quite vicious wars going on, and you as a god returning to this land that you left in peace at the end of Black & White having to choose a side."

Gameplay is said to offer many RTS elements, and players will be able to import creatures from the original. The development team is listening to what the strong B&W community has to say for new ideas.

Oh and the expansion for Black and White is due out between November of this year and February of 2002. The main element of the expansion is having your creatures be able to mate with others as well as a few other changes and added levels.

More on both games are available at pc.ign - http://pc.ign.com/news/37988.html

[Dis]

arghh this game sucked I may try once more to get into it since I shelled out hard earned cash for it. I could have spent that money on hookers and blow instead . Maybe they fixed that game with the patch. But I doubt it.

[tniem]

I kind of liked it. Had fun with it for a little while.

Probably not worth the money I paid for it. But both the expansion and sequel sound cool and if I play a demo or a pirated copy I might later decide to buy it.

[Dis]

I liked the animal part. I didn't like the village part or the "wars". Spells I didn't like either.

But it seems like he is going to focus more on the "wars". So I'm not interested.

[pchang]

Hookers and Blow?

I seriously doubt you could get a hooker or a decent amount of blow for the price of a computer game.

[Dis]

ahh but add up all the bad games I bought which I did not play much

Black And White
Star Wars Rebellion
Nascar Racing 2 (back before the game became halfway decent)
Madden 2001 (I actually played this consistantly for 2 weeks, but grew bored)
CTP 2
Flight Simulator 98 (this may be because I suck- but there were no instructions with my game!!- and the in game instructions weren't descriptive enough)
Command And Conquer (I bought it for the wrong reasons- everyone else did. I don't like these types of games)

probably a couple more I can't think of

[Zopperoni]

I haven't even started playing 1 yet...

[yin26]

"I seriously doubt you could get a hooker or a decent amount of blow for the price of a computer game."

Depends on the country and current exchange rate.

[John-SJ]

Originally posted by yin26
"I seriously doubt you could get a hooker or a decent amount of blow for the price of a computer game."

Depends on the country and current exchange rate.

Ahhh, the voice of experience!

Zopper, don't worry taht you haven't even started 1 yet, IMO you aren't missing much.

John-SJ

[Ken Hinds]

I had heard the interview with one of the developers on NPR's All Things Considered and thought the game sounded worthwile. Once I bought it I found that I needed a Network card to make it run. EA says you don't, but the only way my copy will start is with the network card installed. I'm running Win95 and a K6-2 500 so maybe that makes a difference.

As for the game itself, I like the storyline premis, but am not real happy with some aspects of game play. I'm a builder not a warmonger and now that I've reached the second level I'm beginning to suspect that my ability to play that way is shortly going to be trashed.

I'm definately less than thrilled with the mechanics of mouse usage and their hot key choices. Zopper, in case you haven't read the manual yet. You move forward by reaching out in front of you and dragging yourself along the ground and backup by pushing yourself backwards. This seems like a silly way for an invisable god to travel, but I can accept it and it is reversable in the options menu. What I really find irritating and difficult to work with are the Zoom controls. To zoom in you have to gauge where on the front of your mouse pad to put the mouse and then push away from you until either your mouse can't go any further or you reach the zoom level that you want. If you ran out of space then you repeat until you find the level you need. Reverse the process to zoom out by pulling toward you. I haven't found an option setting to let you change this. Many of their hot key shortcuts take 3 keys all pressed at once to operate, what kind of help is that?

I was truly disappointed in the quality of the graphics used to depict the villagers. With a game this new and the high level of villager interactions expected I thought there would be more detail than "tree trunk legs and sledgehammer arms". As much as I've seen the people graphics in Beyound Atlantis or Tombraider 3 beat up. Both of them have more realistic looking people than you get with closeups of your villagers.

Also during some of your Quests, be prepared for some of your powers to suddenly quit working because you are expected to use some other method to complete the mission.

Overall I expect that I'll keep playing just because I'm old and stubborn, but I'll be extra careful about which problems I try to solve and when I solve them.

Ken

[tniem]

Originally posted by Ken Hinds
Once I bought it I found that I needed a Network card to make it run.

A network card? You mean a 3D video card?

Why in the world would you need a network card?

[Darkknight]

I really liked B&W and will probably buy B&W two if it's cheap enough. I don't know if it's worth £40 I got a copy from a friend.
I keep on getting stuck on level three when my ape gets tortured and I cant free him
Is there any way to avoid that?

[Ken Hinds]

Originally posted by tniem


A network card? You mean a 3D video card?

Why in the world would you need a network card?

Not a 3D video, but a real Network Interface Card. The setup program wants to install Winsock 2 which needs to find a NIC and appropriate driver to run correctly. As I said EA support claims the NIC is not needed, but until I installed one for other reasons, the game would not run. As soon as I had the card and drivers installed but not even connected to anything yet the game ran just fine. When you go to register on line you get shunted to the Black&White only Community registration so maybe they wanted to be sure that everyone could reach the website or something. It made no sense to me either. Like I said maybe it has something to do with the fact that I'm running Win 95.

Another stupid thing is that all the documentation claims the game will run fine with a K6-2 500, but the EA Black White diagnostic program says the game only runs with a Pentium II or better. For my CPU instead of a green checkmark it gives me the red circle with a slash through it. Obviously someone somewhere did some very poor intrateam communications when the game was put together.

Ken

[tniem]

When I installed Black and White I did not have a network card and it worked fine. That seems really weird.

I am also running AMD - 750.

So I really don't know what was going on. Weird.

[Ken Hinds]

Are you running Win98? Or Win95 with the K6-2 patch as I am? And isn't AMD's 750 a K6-3 or a K7?

Ken