An ancient prophecy tells of a god returning to the godless world of Eden, to lead the weakest tribe in its time of need to becoming the strongest. As the Greek people are slaughtered by the powerful Aztecs, you and your godly powers are awoken once again by the prayer of a people in desperation. You awake to see the Aztecs waging a massive war on your people, as volcanoes rip through the ground and pour molten lava and rock onto the once peaceful Greeks.

As the god of the Greeks it is your task to fulfil the ancient prophecy, but how you fulfil it is your divine choice. The ultimate battle between good and evil is in your hands - will you wage war or strive for peace, create sprawling metropolises of luxury, or segregated slums for slaves?

The world of Eden has changed in your absence. The once peaceful world is in turmoil after the invention of weapons and the people's channelling of the divine life force running through them to create Epic miracles, with the ability to control the forces of nature. It's your choice whether you return it to its once peaceful state or add fuel to the forges of warfare.

In Eden your creature is your ultimate tool and can do anything you teach him, from building to entertaining or from gathering forces for war to any combination in between. My creature is affectionately named Big Fat Bob, after he decided to eat all the town's grain! I decided to train him as a builder and I left him about his work until I felt like checking up on him, where I saw his thoughts were, "I'm going to dump a log by that house." In my naivety I thought he was going to build it, not fertilize it!

After that little, erm, 'accident' I decided to train him as a warrior. The first charge on the enemy town consisted of him running into an enemy platoon, stamping and then collapsing, the miracle of a King Kong ape. The second charge went a little more successful and got him to the enemy wall, where I ordered him to throw a rock at the wall and, well, he missed. It's the size of the Great Wall of China and he couldn't hit it with a pebble; it would be insulting to little girls to say that he threw like one, because I have no doubt that the weakest child could hit the Great Wall of China whilst standing next to it. Subsequently he collapsed onto my army from enemy archer fire.

At this point I hoped that the third time really would be lucky. I charged my creature to the enemy's gates with my swollen army in tale, after a few kicks the gate flies open and my infantry charges inside. After a brutal battle and several lightning spells cast by my creature, the enemy was vanquished, with one thing left to do. Bob, being unable to contain himself, decided to poop on the nearest village's head, to a very disturbing cheer from my army.

After that rather odd sight, I decided to retire my creature to the easy life of an entertainer, where he first pooped on the city's children and then ate them! This was the point that I decided to start some serious disciplining and the use of the greatest tool, the creature memory. Unlike the original, you don't have to nanny your creature and can teach him long after he's done something, or re-teach him if you want to change his alignment or behaviour.

However, to get to this point in the game you have to go through the tutorial, which is great for a first time player but for anyone who has played the first game it is the most inane process ever. Sadly it's inescapable, and not through lack of trying; it's irritating to be forced to play through a tutorial because as a huge fan of the original, it really didn't teach me a single thing that I didn't already know.

At the start of the game your two consciences, good and evil, are really cool, look great and are voiced very well, but as the game progressed I got extremely annoyed at the good one, Mr Angel as I call him, as he can constantly reiterate the same piece of useless advice when you know what you're doing. I also may have punched the screen once or twice while playing one of the mini-quests, because Mr Angel guy kept saying, "Well that's poor." Really, shouldn't the devil guy be saying the negative comments? At least he's funny! Stupid angels… I wonder if this is why I went down the path of evil?

There are lots of mini-quests in the game and I think I can officially say that they all suck like an industrial vacuum cleaner. The first Black & White had some great mini-quests that were challenging and fun, whereas in this one they're jinxed by bad camera angles and the annoying Mr Angel; they're simply not worth playing for the tribute that you gain from them. Tribute is a reward system that allows you to buy buildings, spells, miracles and such. You get it from the main Gold Story Scrolls and some extras from the mini-game Silver Story Scrolls, which are my arch-nemesis of fun. The tribute does however buy some cool stuff, which if you're good can make your people happy, but if you're evil they can make the people of other towns unhappier than yours.

Now for the positives and negatives of listening to Mr Angel, oh how I hate him! Most importantly when your people are happy they are also productive, but the negative is that they're extremely whiney and want everything, which means that you're left with zero tribute for anything cool. Of course, this spoilt brat mentality can easily be quashed with random killings and Victorian style urbanisation, slum city style! Playing as good will impress the other towns to migrate and come to join yours; many of the starting towns are in a good position to grow and stay defended. However, if you're evil you just build skyscrapers and masses of fields, then rally a massive army to become the scourge of the world. [Sounds like many of our modern-day corporations! Ed]

I have purposely neglected, until now, to mention the true bonus of being evil - and that's the Epic Miracles. You can hoard tribute and build a wonder to channel mana into an Epic. The most destructive of all is the volcano Epic that spews lava and rock all around, while the least destructive is the Siren that converts troops to peasants. If you're evil, beware of both the Siren and the Hurricane Epic, as it is devastating to housing but won't touch most buildings used by the good guys.

The sound on all the miracles is immense; the lightning spell can be thrown and shoots of showers of sparks or can be poured, like all miracles, causing lightning bolts to shoot out from your hand electrocuting everything with a satisfying discharge as if from a Tesla coil. The fire spell crackles as you poor it over the battlefield, creating an impenetrable wall of fire and it explodes as you throw it into an enemy army. The Epics also have stunning sound and most surprisingly to me come with a music change, which like all the music in Black & White 2, is absolutely stunning to listen to.

The graphics look amazing, and when combined with the animations on all the tiny people as well as your creature, it really is astounding. Combat in any game is best when it looks good, and boy does it look good here; your soldiers kick the enemy over, back stab them and cut their throats from behind, whilst your creature kicks, stamps, swipes or just swats them with a tree. Combine all these with the excellent physics and you have your creature kicking up soldiers, causing them to fly over the battlefield like Sauron swinging his unstoppable sword in that opening scene of The Fellowship of the Ring.

As your platoons rise in rank, they ill get better armour and weapons, with archers firing further with flaming arrows causing more damage. Your creature can be given spell knowledge with the use of tribute or you can train him to be a better warrior, meaning he'll instinctively pick up a rock and hurl it at a group of archers before charging into the fray. There's so much more variety and features to the totally open-ended gameplay of this unique and wonderful title, but I'll leave you to discover the rest for yourself.

Black & White 2 is a shining triumph that looks and sounds as fantastic as it plays. It makes war fun, city building easy and your social life non-existent; but let's face it, do you really need friends when you're God? It may however be a good choice to keep in contact with some of your friends while awaiting the multiplayer patch, as you never know, gods may just insult each other for putting up a feeble war.

Reviewed by Nik Gregory for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).