INTRO:
Black & White 2 was not exactly the sequel that every single fan of the previous game was hoping for, but to those who appreciate it, there is quite a lot of content that was not seen in the original game. Battle of the Gods is an expansion pack that would offer fans of the original Black & White 2 more of the same goodness.
PREMISE:
The expansion has a story that is a sequel to the events in Black & White 2. In the original, the player character is practically the only divine being around (not counting the Creatures), but this would change in expansion pack. A particularly nasty god has been awoken, and as typical of ancient evils that have been revived, threatens the world with an ugly fate. Apparently, the player character is the only one that can stop said villain, though this is of course quite reasonable as he/she/it is the only other god around.
IMPORTS & NEW GAMES:
When starting a new game via the expansion, the player is prompted to direct the game to look for any existing saved-games for the original game. The game allows the player to port over any one of these, thus allowing the player to retain unlocked items, his/her in-game moral alignment and of course, his/her Creature.
Otherwise, the player can attempt to generate a new god and Creature, though perhaps at the cost of the continuity of the story. Furthermore, having an optimal playthrough of the original story can be beneficial, because the expansion pack happens to have some challenges that are best overcome with as many things unlocked as possible.
NEW BUILDINGS:
The mortals have advanced technologically, which means that the player can unlock a few new buildings for the mortals to build.
Of these, the Blacksmith building gives the most apparent convenience. In the original game, there are few, if any, easy means of increasing the fighting prowess (depicted by "levels") of mortal soldiers, other than outright exploitation of glitches. In Battle of the Gods, the Blacksmith building can be placed close to Armories in order to increase the initial level of soldiery units that were created from the latter. Blacksmiths cost a lot of ore to build, however.
Although this may make mortal soldiers easier to use as they are more effective from the get-go, it trivializes the experience-gaining system that was previously used to alter the level of surviving fighting men. It also does not solve the issue of the lack of sophistication in the capabilities of mortal soldiers.
Furthermore, mortal soldiers that were drafted with the aid of Blacksmith buildings are still quite defenceless against attacks by the divine and the titanic Creatures. Of course, high-level archers and siege machines can inflict considerable damage on the Creatures, but they can do little against incoming fireballs and boulders.
The player will be seeing the former, in addition to other godly miracles such as lightning bolts. When this happens, he/she may well be dismayed at seeing just how vulnerable the mortal soldiers still are. Of course, the player can attempt to shield them by giving them defensive miracles, which happen to see more use in the expansion pack.
Another new building is also intended to bolster mortal armies, though it has a civilian use. Hospitals that are stationed near Armories happen to increase the health rating of platoons that have been drafted near them. When used for civilian purposes, it can heal diseased mortals who choose to visit them. Oddly though, injured soldiers do not appear to autonomously visit hospitals for healing.
Other new objects that can be built include crossroad signs and such other structures that do little more than increase the Impressiveness of the settlements that are under the player's dominion.
There are few, if any, new buildings that can be considered as game-changers. This can disappoint players that are already all too familiar with the gameplay of the original Black & White 2.
NEW MIRACLES:
The new miracles are easier to appreciate, fortunately.
Most of these new spells are terrifically potent, and thus require a lot of energy to use.
The Lava Miracle is akin to a powered-down Volcano miracle (which is still a miracle that is accessed by building a wonder). It forms fissures in affected areas, and from these fissures, fire "flows" out and all over in seemingly random directions. This makes the Lava Miracle particularly devastating against packed cities, and it so happens that the opposing deity will make use of this miracle in this way if the player is resorting to building impressive cities.
If there is anything disappointing about this miracle, it is that it does not have graphical designs that make it appear like it is producing molten rock, which is what lava is.
The Life Miracle is one of the most amusing spells, mainly because it has so many uses. When used defensively, it can return life to the dead, reviving mortals that had died from violence. If used offensively, it can utterly annihilate undead soldiers. It even has its use during peace-time, when it can be cast on storehouses to duplicate resources like a miracle of plenty. Of course, in order to balance against its versatility, the Life Miracle is one of the most expensive.
The Verdant Miracle is perhaps more intended for laughs than any practical use. When cast, it replaces the terrain of the affected area with lush grass and conjures docile animals out of nowhere. There may be some use for the animals, but if the player is looking to have the mortals gain food, he/she is better off having them work farms, which does not consume energy that could have been used for other miracles.
NEW CHALLENGES, QUESTS & MINI-GAMES:
The main challenge offered by the expansion pack is that provided by the opposing god. Through the behaviour of its A.I. designs, the player may see it using tactics that he/she may have once used in the original game, or even the first Black & White itself. The player has to worry about incoming rocks and miracles, as well as trees being uprooted and resources being stolen right under his/her nose.
There are also of course scripted events, where the opposing god resorts to a trick under its sleeve. To elaborate any more on these would be to mention spoilers, but it should suffice to say that the player would have to know which miracles to cast, or not at all, if the incoming threats can be stopped using the player's divine hand alone.
Moreover, the opposing god has armies of undead. Although the opposing A.I. still sends platoons piece-meal for the player to destroy, there is no end to the undead, unlike mortal armies, which can be exhausted. The player will have to look for the sources of these undead soldiers and figure out how to neutralize these (which is simpler than one would expect).
(As a side note, these undead soldiers can be turned over to the player's cause via the Siren wonder. That these skeletons would then behave like civilian mortals that can die from starvation and old age can seem odd, but it is terrifically amusing. It may be an unintentional glitch, or it is perhaps homage to a similar amusement in the first Black & White game.)
The challenge that is posed by the rival god eventually culminates in a bleak land with many unnatural disasters, as well as the threat of a particularly powerful undead Creature that generally overpowers the player's Creature, even if he/she has nurtured it into a fighting machine.
Next, there are the new silver scroll quests. Following the tradition of the Black & White series, these are entertaining side endeavours. There are puzzles that require sliding of panels or swapping of objects in a limited area and demands that (usually) immortal NPCs make at the player, among other quests that would seem familiar to followers of Black & White.
There are also some unmarked quests that are practically mini-games, which are usually more puzzles or physics-manipulating exercises.
As in the original, these side endeavours reward the player with Tribute that can be spent on unlocking more things to play with. Some of them have rewards that are more immediately useful in overcoming the challenges that face the player in the current land.
There is a special land that can only be unlocked by noticing small statues with inscriptions that are scattered across the "default" series of lands. This special land has open-ended gameplay, albeit with recurring challenges such as undead armies that appear out of nowhere to threaten the player's holdings. The player also has to retrain a new Creature from scratch.
If there is any complaint to these otherwise solid offerings, it is that there are few of them to convincingly justify Battle of the Gods' asking price as an expansion pack.
GRAPHICS:
Despite the expansion pack's frightening package cover of stylish grimness, its graphical style is the same as that for the original.
There had been some optimizations to the stability of the graphics since the original game, though these would be familiar to players that have been following the update patches for vanilla Black & White 2. Most of the graphical designs that such players had not seen before are associated with the new content. These include the new textures that are used for undead-blighted lands.
The most impressive graphical addition is the design for the undead Creature. Although it appears to use the animations and modelling skeleton for the Gorilla Creature in the original Black & White 2, it does have a convincingly hideous model as befitting an undead entity. If the player can run the game at its highest graphical settings, the Creature exudes a miasma as well.
Speaking of miasma, there appear to be more smoke or smoke-like effects in Battle of the Gods than in the original game. This can be seen in the Blacksmith building, among other things like burning ruins.
SOUNDS:
Being an expansion pack, Battle of the Gods uses the same sound assets as the original package. There are new sound assets, but some of these were re-mastered from the first Black & White, or are variations of those in vanilla Black & White 2.
The more convincingly new sound assets are those for the undead armies and the Undead Creature, most of whom sound unsettling, as undead monsters should.
There are also a few new music tracks. By default, they are inserted into the playlists together with the original tracks, but the player can switch to the newer tracks at any time using the options screens. Understandably, most of the new music tracks sound ominous and suspenseful, though few if any of them are particularly memorable.
SUMMARY:
There is not much of anything excitingly new in this single-player offering. Yet, there are very few convincing disappointments to be had with Battle of the Gods, though its questionable value is perhaps one of these.