The graphics are top-notch and downright gorgeous. The islands are beautiful,
with flowing rivers and waterfalls, forests, and green mountains, but are
rivaled by the sky. Time marches on in Black & White, and as the days pass
along you'll see clouds float by, dropping occasional downbursts of rain upon
the island the below and absolutely picturesque sunrises and sunsets. In fact,
twilight is one of the more colorful times of day, washing the island in hues of
purple and crimson. You'll sometimes find yourself pausing the game just to
admire the scenery. Another nice touch is that the island changes to reflect
your personality. A good god will rule over a world of green plants and
sunshine, while an evil god's island is dark, twisted, and volcanic.
The creature AI is amazing. They not only learn the actions you tell them,
but develop complete personalities of their own. You'll sometimes find yourself
less concerned with the game than with just observing your creature as he goes
about his day. When playing Black & White, we had a creature that decided to
become a rock collector. Every time he came across a rock of a certain size, he
brought it back to the pen attached to my temple that served as his home. He
even once planted a tree in his pen to make it more aesthetically pleasing.
The attention to extras in Black & White is incredible. The game will
read your Outlook address book if you want, and will name the island's villagers
after the people in your contact list. You can also enable the game to check for
your local weather report on the internet and change the in game weather to
reflect the weather outside your window. Future enhancements will also allow you
to play your own MP3s during the game. If you always play the same song when
punishing your creature, your creature will become frightened every time he
hears the song!
So far we've had a lot of praise for this game, but it's necessary to point
out that it does have its shortcomings. Creature training takes a lot of
patience, especially if you select one of the less intelligent creatures such as
the tiger. You will need to repeat your miracles and actions many times and in
the right context before your creature can be relied on to do it on its own.
Creature growth is also quite slow - too slow. It will be a very long time
before you have a giant creature to command. Patience is key here, if you want
instant results, you'll be very frustrated.
The game's interface takes some getting used to. To move around the world,
you need to 'grab' the ground with your hand and pull yourself along. You'll
often find yourself getting stuck on a mountainside or struggling to get the
right view of things, especially when just starting out.
The game also suffers from a high degree of micromanagement. Your villagers
are voracious and very demanding. You'll spend way too much time keeping their
food stockpiles filled and building them homes, instead of trying to capture
enemy villages or training your creature. What's worse, if you ignore the
villager's demands, they will lose faith in you or being to die off. If they die
through your neglect, you may find yourself turning into an evil god even if you
are trying to follow the path of good.
Finally, a couple of the game's islands are very tedious levels.
Unfortunately, if we told you why, it would spoil the game for you. Suffice it
to say that your creature will not be fully available to you at certain points
of the game. At these points it becomes apparent that the enjoyment of the game
relies heavily on the creatures - the management aspect of the game does not
stand on its own very well. It seems that so much care and attention was
given to the creatures, that the designers left a lot lacking in the village
management aspect of the game.
In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated: 88%.
Ground-breaking and very fascinating, but the game is hurt by an overemphasis on
micromanagement. Improved village management and some poor level design kept
this game from rating higher.
System Requirements: 350 MHz Pentium II CPU; 64 MB RAM; 8 MB
Video RAM; 4x CD-ROM; 600 MB Hard Drive Space; Mouse.
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