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It's as good as a game can get

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 7
Date: July 11, 2002
Author: Amazon User

lack and White, it might not sound like a title for a strategy game, but well, it is a strategy game, and a great one at that. Black & White was probably one of 2001's most anticipated games. There was a lot of hype surrounding the game. But the best thing is, Black and White lives up to its hype and expectations. Though some aspects of the game might not appeal to the casual gamer, it's still one of the best out there. It is not perfect but hey! Nobody is perfect.
In Black and White, you play the role of God. And of course, God does not stand for Gathering Of Developers. You play the ordinary God with an extraordinary pet creature and ultra-stupid followers. After the opening cut scenes and a brief tutorial on how to move around the map, you are thrust right into the game. The first thing you will notice is that there are no icons! You will probably think "the hey! I am playing a strategy game, where are those icons, no buttons, no nothing at all! All you see is a disembodied hand. You control the whole world with this 'hand of god'. Lionhead wanted to create an interface free of icons in order to make it look more 'realistic'. However, they were partly successful in doing so. The interface is hard to control and difficult to adjust to. But once you get the hang of it, the game runs smoothly.
The other thing you will notice is the brilliant graphics. Lionhead really created a beauty of an engine for this game. The game looks terrific. The whole engine models day and night, rain and snow realistically. Even the game physics are highly accurate. The graphics are especially smooth. You can zoom in to see your followers faces and zoom out so that the whole island is visible as a tiny dot. Of course this means that you have to have a fast computer. But this isn't necessary. The game ran smoothly on my friend's celeron 433mhz computer. But to enjoy the full graphics, consider upgrading your video card and processor.
The third thing you will notice is a little red guy and a little old man darting about the screen. They are actually your conscience - a little red devil represents the evil conscience and a little old man represents the good conscience. They both not only guide you through the game but also bring much comic relief to the game. Their constant arguing and quarrelling will keep you interested for a long time.
Coming back to the game, the game's story isn't the work of a literary genius. You just play the role of a God who has to defeat the evil god Nemesis and unite all worlds and bring about peace. Doesn't sound very interesting, does it? Anyway, the story and plot don't matter as long as you get quality content, which Black & White certainly delivers.

After completing the first gold story scroll, which is Black and White's way of advancing the plot, you get to choose your creature. The creature is probably the best part of the game. The creature is at first a small, frightened animal but good care and proper teaching would make it into a fine, huge, loyal beast. Improper teaching and care will on the other hand, will give you a lumbering behemoth with the brain the size of a nut. It's true, you can develop your creature into a loyal ally or an idiotic, blundering fool. You can teach your creature miracles. You can teach it to eat villagers and little kids. You can teach your creature to heal the sick, water the fields, put out fires etc.etc. In fact, your creature can be taught everything you do and mimic your every action. It's because of these factors that you get so attached to your creature. You start thinking of the creature as your other, virtual pet. This is the depth of Black and White.
The sound in Black & White is as good as the graphics. The music is quite good and contemplates the nature of the game. The sound of thunder after you cast a storm miracle or the screams of frightened villagers hit by lightening is extremely pleasing. The voiceovers are nice too. I particularly like the voice of the evil conscience. All in all, Black & White has great sound effects.
Unfortunately, Black & White isn't without its flaws. The game is quite buggy. I could write down at least 20 bugs right here, but why waste the space. But most of these bugs have been corrected by a patch, which you can find at any black and white site (my recommendation would be www.bandwzone.com or www.planetblackandwhite.com). Also, the biggest issue is the amount of micro-management needed for running villages. Your villagers will never construct buildings by themselves. You have to spoon-feed them. The villagers are ultra stupid to say the least. Even your worshippers at the worship site need a lot of micro management. You have to constantly feed them and heal them occasionally. Failure to do so results in your followers' death and your alignment takes a nosedive straight towards evil.
You will have to constantly baby-sit your villagers, which means that you will have less time for your creature. This takes the fun away from the game since the creature is the best part of the game. The abundance of sandbox mode maps on the Internet only proves this fact further.
Another issue is the steep learning curve and the amount of attention and time required to play this game. Casual players will be bogged down by the amount of micro-management. I wonder why Lionhead forgot to put a "Warning: not for newbies and casual players" sign on the game box.
The steep learning curve, the micro-management and your idiotic villagers make it impossible to play this game as good. Often you will get so frustrated that you will probably kill your villagers, sacrifice them or feed them to your creature (which is much more fun than playing as good). All these issues aside, Black and White is still a highly enjoyable, a highly creative, and a revolutionary game, which is recommended to anyone who enjoys and appreciates perfection. It's as good as a strategy game can get.

Fascinating and Innovative. But is your system strong enuf?

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 7
Date: May 11, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Here is the Quick Summary from me:

<> *Fantastic detail, with extremely amazing zooming (world level to person level). *Interesting storylines, and plenty of smaller challenges to keep it fun *Good reactions (creature and villager) to your actions. *Humour *Definitely the best GOD game to date *Challenges are fun, different techniques required to manage things, with different outcomes.

<> *Use of the mouse is tough *Requires a pretty hefty system. Make sure you have a good video card and Memory *A little tedious with creature maintenance *Creature fighting isn't well designed *Should allow to skip cut scenes

It may seem like I have listed a fair number of cons, but overall, I was very impressed with the game. The visual effects are quite stunning, and I have definitely spent my share of hours in front of the screen playing God. It does require some patience, but I also find that if I plan my strategy better, the outcomes are very different. I like games that are challenging to master, and B&W has a lot to offer in that respect.

Fun to look, not so fun to touch...

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 5 / 7
Date: May 02, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Black and white has lots of "Wow Power", but almost no "Fun Power." The game is good in the sense that it is groundbreaking. The creature AI is quite interesting, and it is true AI. Your creature actually learns, and picks up your play sytle. It's quite wonderous, but you get the feeling that this is this technology is a prototype, not quite finished yet. The graphics never cease to amaze in their boldness and subtlety, from the bruises slowly healing on your creature, to the awesome look of the villages as you zoom out on your island during sunset.

The problem is that this game straddles 2 different genres (real time strategy and simulation) but doesn't deliver the best qualities of either! From a simulation perspective, this game is seriously lacking in creative outlets. You can place a few buildings, plant a few trees, and and put a few tatoos on your creature, but that is the total extent to which you can make these incredible worlds "yours". It's like lionead decided that "let's make a simulation game where you can look but not touch." If you are looking for the sense of building and accomplishment you can get from the Sims or Sim City, or Rollercoaster Tycoon, look elsewhere.

The real-time strategy aspects are similarly lacking in satisfaction. Objectives are hazy, and you never really get a sense of "competition". The creature battles can be won and lost with no consequences. Your people do not fight each other, and the gods don't really fight each other except to get the people to "believe" more. Once you go through all the work of extending your influence somewhere, you are rewarded with..... The ability to make it rain there. Wow.. At best you can use rocks and fire to kill the people that you need to win the game (no wait, why would I do that?)

The only real fun this game delivers is voyeuristic. Like in Rollercoaster tycoon, everyone has a name and personal statistics. They live and die, get pregnant, get hungry, and do some downright funny things. You can watch over them and help them with their little pointless tasks. It's cool to create a male "deciple breeder" and watch him stud around the village getting everyone pregnant, or watching a sick old man who's crawled miles from the temple to his house just as he reaches his front door then drop a rock on him. But this stuff gets old quick. Serious gamers look elsewhere.

Horrible Game

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 10 / 21
Date: May 30, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Bought it, thought it looked cool. I was right it does look cool with its graphics and stuff. But thats the all. The gameplay, AI, and everything else about it completely bored and frustrated the hell outta me.

I became enraged at the stupid pet, stupid hard to use spells, and especially my stupid starving people. I just threw everything in the ocean all day because it was the -only- fun thing I could find to do.

Do not buy this boring and stupid game that only has good graphics. You will probably be as disappointed as I was. Go get EVERQUEST! >)

This is a WARNING

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 10
Date: March 29, 2001
Author: Amazon User

This is a WARNING for all who would buy this wonderful game, it will control your life, once you start playing YOU CANT STOP. If you dont have time to play, dont, you will lose your job, buy the game, take sick leave and play, just dont expect it not to take a giant chunk out of your life. (Awesome game for those of you in school, especially the ones who have spring break)

It Works With XP

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 10
Date: November 27, 2003
Author: Amazon User

When you click install in the pop-up it wont respond and i have XP I Simply explored the disk and hit setup.exe and presto Works fine. Great game!

<>

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 6 / 10
Date: May 03, 2001
Author: Amazon User

In short, this is why publishers hype games so early.

"Hey, I've got a great game idea! Let's make everyone else think it's great, so we can make a sorry excuse for a game and sell a zillion copies anyway!"

This game is fun for the first 2 hours. And if you beat the game, you know that's about .005% of it. After that, it's just the same old routine. Feed villagers. Give villagers wood. Put wood in workshop. Put scaffolds on ground. Give villagers more wood. Smack creature upside the head for doing something stupid that you've disciplined him for countless times. This goes on for hours and hours and hours.

I'm not sure how anyone could think this degree of tedium would be fun. One could spend less money and run around in circles in his/her backyard all day.

I'm currently trying to sell this game to a friend for $20. It's hard trying to say good things about a game that I hate so passionately to try to get someone else to buy it.

In conclusion, I will never by another game just because of what I've heard about it. I've learned my lesson. I hope this will help others do the same.

Black&White Review

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 6 / 10
Date: June 27, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Despite the months and months of anticipation and saving up the 50 dollars for the game AND the 80 dollars for a 3d card, this game arrives on the store shelves and falls off with a pathetic plop."

I know many people consider this one of the best games ever made, I am sad to say, despite the paragraphy above, this probably is one of the best games ever made but at the same time it is one of the worst.

This game is jam packed with little goodies and neat programming tricks. Some of which have never been seen before, but this game lacks the very essence of what a game should be. That is fun.

This is one of the most un-fun games I have ever played before in my life. Every quest and tasks assigned to you in this game is a chore. From playing with your animal to just completely the tutorial. The only thing that compelled me to continue the chores and tasks in this game that were assigned to me was the naive hope that something neat might happen if I do it fifty million times. I fit the classic characteristic of an insane person. At least I got something out of this game.

And no, the creature that you get in this game is not neat or cool. My tamagachi had more character than my stupid cow. And I cared when my tamagachi died. When my creature died I felt as though a burden had been lifted. Stupid useless cow.

I would advise you to get this game ONLY when it is in the bargin bin at your local Fred Meyers. That way you can see for yourself, at a lower price, the new standard of what a game should not be.

Good... but don't believe the hype.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 6 / 10
Date: April 12, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Don't get me wrong, Black and White has some truly unique aspects: The graphics are simply incredible, the creature is cool, and it's fun killing people. But unfortunately, the bad outweighs the good: bad-no, horrendous-voice acting, the villagers are amazingly annoying, some things with the creature are confusing and hard to use, the silver scroll quests get real old real fast, and it's over waaaay too soon. Overall, not bad, but not a good first showing by Lionhead Studios.

Downward Spiral

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: February 06, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I bought Black and White because of the stunning reviews by gaming publications. All the publications gave the game great reviews and called it revolutionary. I was disappointed. The game is very repetitious and micromanage sensitive. This game fails in creating a good combination of strategy and combat for the time you play it. Each level felt very similar to previous ones in the general challenge and strategy presented.

This game was very creative and the graphics and sound were good. I got dizzy at times playing it though when learning how to change my view in the game. This is one of the few products I have reviewed that I could not finish. I have heard of many others who purchasing this game who felt the same way - not finishing the game.

I never tried the multiplayer aspect of the game although I can imagine practice would make perfect and like a real time strategy game, the user with the most experience will be an advantage.

This game takes quite a powerful machine to run on. I highly recommend you do serious research to see if this game is right for you before purchasing it.

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