Black & White 2 E3 2005 Impressions

We had a chance to revisit Lionhead Studios' long-awaited strategy sequel Black & White 2 at E3 2005. This time around, we were able to watch a level from the game played from the start. Like in the original game, in Black & White 2, you'll play as a sky-dwelling deity who can manipulate the world using a disembodied hand. At the beginning of each mission, you'll be joined by the two halves of your conscience, an angelic old man in white robes floating on a cloud, who will encourage you to seek peaceful solutions to your problems, and a plump, red-skinned devil, who will encourage you to resolve any challenges with violence.

We watched as designers Peter Molyneux and Ron Millar demonstrated both alternatives in a mission, playing as a Greek civilization on a huge landmass, which was home to a warlike Norse tribe. Apparently, as part of your godlike powers in the game, you're able to listen in on the thoughts of your enemies at several points in the mission, as an indication of how you're doing in the game. After being debriefed by our advisors, we also heard a brief sound clip of the hostile Norse leader's thoughts. The belligerent leader grumbled about the presence of our Greek nation and how it should be eliminated, and later, when our population exploded, the Norse leader expressed fear and concern about "too many Greeks" on his island.

We began the scenario with a sprawling Greek metropolis that included neighborhoods with dozens of houses built around central structures like a forum and a coliseum. Molyneux took this opportunity to demonstrate how the placement of your housing and citizens can affect the activities of your city. Place your houses closer together, and you'll end up with an overcrowded city. Houses in overcrowded cities have more capacity to house citizens at the cost of their happiness and general well-being. Molyneux also demonstrated how citizens will take context-sensitive commands if you pick them up with your hand and drop them next to something. Drop a citizen next to a field, and that citizen will immediately become a farmer. Drop a male citizen next to a female citizen, and your two faithful subjects will interpret the gesture as an order to "give each other a special hug" that will result in more children. Get careless (or cruel) and dash one citizen to death by hurling him to the ground, and other citizens will mourn their fallen comrade, crowding around the corpse and weeping uncontrollably.

We then watched as Molyneux changed gears from attempting to peacefully persuade the Norse nation to join our cause, which we might have accomplished by building up the city into a fantastic center of culture that would have enticed our Nordic neighbors to pick up stakes and move into our city. Instead, Molyneux used a "soldier" command to immediately convert all his citizens into foot soldiers and have them march off into the field. As Molyneux demonstrated, each soldier in your army will have a name--plundered from your e-mail contact list, no less, so expect to see your friends and colleagues marching into battle on your behalf. Black & White 2 will be capable of creating huge battles with hundreds of units onscreen at once. We watched a huge and messy melee between our Greek soldiers and the savage Norsemen, though the game will have tactical options like organizing your troops into linked squads if you prefer to take a more ordered approach.

Black & White 2 has seemed less and less like an impressive tech demo and more and more like a game each time we've seen it. We're getting a better sense of the game and some of its basic features, but exactly how some of the more-advanced systems will work, like the evolution of your creature, remains to be seen. Molyneux pointed out before we left that the creatures in the still-in-development game have already somehow garnered an induction into the 2005 Guinness Book of World Records for "most artificially intelligent being," so that certainly bodes well. The game is scheduled for release, in Molyneux's words, "in fall."