While many hailed the original Black & White as a masterpiece, others found it to be flawed and lacking much in the way of recognisably fun gameplay. Sure, the AI of your creatures was amazing, and the graphics displayed a lot of potential, but over a paltry five islands the annoyance factor of your villagers got out of control, while the lack of anything to do beyond glorified housekeeping became tedious. This time round Black & White Studios, the offshoot charged with creating all future B&W games, aim to ensure there's a real game inside the box, the kind of god-game that we have to come to expect from the mind behind Populous and Syndicate. Yes, in Black & White 2 there will be massive battles, terrible destruction and, hopefully, a feeling of omnipotence that would put the arrogance of GWB to shame.

B&W2 is an evolutionary game. Survival of the fittest is the order of the day, meaning the weakest elements of the first title have atrophied while the enjoyable features have grown in number and stature. B&W2 has also developed some new abilities to better help it endure this cut-throat age, when interesting ideas on their own are not enough and must be backed up with an underlying structure that is fun to use and explore. So we should never again hear villagers whine and complain that they are hungry when a massive pile of food is beside them, no longer get frustrated by our creature's inability to connect its actions to your punishment or praise, and never again wonder why none of your little men will attack the other little men. The gameworld of Eden has evolved. Supposedly the intention is to make a series of B&W games, with each one mirroring a in human history. After the passive agrarian style of the first game, the tribes of Eden have discovered metal. They have also learned that you can make sharp pointy things with this new material. This time it's war, and this time everyone is getting involved.

Firstly we have a completely new graphics engine, built from the ground-up. Judging by the screenshots this will be a thing of true beauty, unlike the good looks of the first which just had too many little blemishes to make you fall irreversibly in love. The creatures, while reduced in number, have had a lot of attention put into them. The power of today's GPUs has been harnessed to really bring these critters to life. Notice the flowing manes of hair, the bulging muscles, the detailed battle scars. A lot of effort has gone into trying to ensure that the look of the game is pleasing no matter where the camera is. The variety in the design for the different cultures helps to imbue Eden with even more personality. Hopefully there will be no more of the nasty tiling of textures that spoilt the look of the first game. There will be thousands of units joining the deformable terrain, structures and spell effects on screen all at once. Whether or not any but the most gargantuan of PCs will be able to handle the fireworks at full blast will only be answered when the game is tested on home machines. It would be a great shame if the majority of players had to drop the detail levels so far in the search for frame rates that B&W2 winded-up looking like B&W1. That wouldn't be progress now, would it? If they do manage to get it running smoothly then we can expect a visual feast, as armies rage against each other under hails of arrows and flaming siege weapons while titanic animals hurl terrain and spells across a deformable landscape that is changed by the climate and the locale. Just look at those screens.

Getting your followers to do your bidding is still a central aspect to the game. It's just that this time around your villagers can do more than collect resources, pray and starve. They can build massive cities, they can form rampaging armies. Your choice as to whether to be a benevolent god or a god of wrath and anger will alter not just the look of the gameworld, your creature and your followers, it will determine how you interact with the bipedal denizens of your domain. So you can either encourage your people with taverns and praise and they will repay you with loyalty and productivity. They will beautify your cites with statues and gardens. If, on the other hand, you prefer to encourage your populace with torture chambers and bars, then they will be a miserable looking lot, with fear and menace painted all over their towns and cities.