Black & White 2 - Preview
Listening to: Up Above My Head - Alabama 3
Eurogamer has a wide
ranging interview/preview of Black & White 2 with Peter Molyneux:
In being more intelligent than previous iterations (Molyneux struggles to quantify
just how much each creature can do, given its vast persona and range), your minion
develops a personality with all the quirks of your behaviour, complete with random
traits that naturally threw up some unexpected elements during development. “There
are surprises all the time,” Molyneux explains. “From generally surprising behaviour
to cataclysmic ‘bugs’… for about a two-month period the creatures would become psychotic
and totally destructive and when they got angry they’d just literally smash everything
- other creatures were absolutely terrified to the point they’d hide in trees. It
wasn’t really a proper bug as such, it was just the way that creature’s mind
worked.”Another example is offered, in which a tester decided to “toughen up” his creature
by grabbing its teddy bear and repeatedly setting it alight, putting it out of reach
and generally behaving like a bastard to the point that the creature would be emotionally
scarred. Which in turn made it a horrifically angry and brutal beast. Not great for
protecting citizens, true, but handy if you decide to put it as a unit in your army
for fighting - an option for those looking to tread the Dark path in Black & White
2.
Oh how much time did I waste with the first version of this game? A good many
hours I can tell you now.
