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dull and tedious

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 4
Date: April 20, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I remember being really enthusiastic about this game. I have liked similar games, dungeon keeper and the populous series.

But this one failed on many levels.

Good-
Interesting ideas and large area to play with.

Bad-
Buggy, there were many small errors and crashes that I had to deal with for the short time I was playing it.

Too much micromanagement. If I were a god for those people I would wipe them out and hope the bee's were better subjects. they seemed inept at just about any aspect of life needing help for the smallest tasks, seemingly unable to learn from their mistakes and always demanding you do more for them.

Creature, good idea, but bad in practice. It was an interesting idea to have this animal and train it. but it was time consuming, vague on how you were supposed to do it, and not terribly useful.

Controls were terrible. I spent eons on one part throwing rocks since they didn't take into consideration that some of the movements would be difficult with a trackball mouse.

Narrators were annoying. The little devil and god were overly cartoonish, overused, and their voices quickly got on my nerves.

in a whole unless you like monotonous work, go with some other game. This game wins on coneptual department, and fails in playability and fun department.

Black and White is a waste of time

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 4
Date: January 09, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I recieved this game as a gift and all I can tell you is that I have spent more time trying to get it running than playing it. Started out okay, was able to play to Land #2, then the game crashed. Went to the website, and noticed that there was a patch. I followed the directions and downloaded and since then have not been able to get it running. ... Don't take my word for it, check it out. The only thing that I have to say, is that as much as I wanted this game, I really wish that I hadn't gotten it.

So disappointing... not for anyone... in any way

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 4
Date: October 17, 2001
Author: Amazon User

The reviewers who went nuts over this game at the popular magazines and web sites probably felt the same way I did after completing the first of the game's "worlds".

After the "tutorial" world where you are walked through the game's premise, story, and how to get things done, I was having a lot of fun and was very excited about the game.

Then it all went down the tubes.

The supposed Creature AI is non-existent. It has nothing to do with artifical intelligence, it is merely an if/then database that plays percentages. It is frustrating and not complex. The AI won't link consequences to actions so you punish or reward actions regardless of their consequences.

The game is very unhelpful. Since you have to spend a lot of time away from your creature doing quests, monitoring villagers, or scouting around, it would be nice if the game's messages meany anything. However, when the message "Your creature will now do that sort of thing more often" comes up, it make syou want to scream. What did the creature do? Was it good or bad? Is it too late to reward/punish and teach the creature (and of course it is)? Who the heck knows? The game doesn't tell you.

When you do get around to rewarding and punishing your creature, you really have no idea if you "got to him in time" or if he is ridiculously associating your reward with another action.

Creature Combat is ridiculously lame. It's a glorified mouse clicking battle that doesn't really mean anything.

Finally, let's say you've played a while, feel like you've gotten the hang of it, and want to start over... too bad, there's no such thing as starting over. First off, you have to go through the tutorial, no skipping, no fast forwarding... so there goes a good hour of your time. It doesn't really matter if you save or load your game, your "creature's personality" is persistent. Basically, they were far too lazy to work in a real save/load, so instead they just hardwire your "creature" in, even if you "get a new creature".

Yes, the community has developed fan made workarounds and patches. But this underscores the point. The fan community has to rush in to save a game that is too restricting and too deceiving. There is nothing going on under the hood of this "game". You don't really train anything, since a truly trained creature would not have to be retaught every hour or so, but simply rewarded properly. And its a fact that many trained psychologists will disagree that punishments are as predictable as the game pretends to be. But don't worry, your "creature" will clean out its database of "training" while you are away doing other things to add to your frustration.

And after a while, you'll get sick of the controls to reward/punish. You'll be clamoring for a hotkey.

What is the one single innovation in this game? Well, there IS one. It's the "scribbling" method used to cast spells by drawing with the mouse. Some people memorize hotkeys, others don't. This is easy and intuitive, with a helpful legend in the lower right hand corner so you remember that moving the cursor in a swirl brings up the spell you want, etc.

One innovation for a truly pathetic game. This isn't worth your time, although for the first hour you will be amazed and in awe. Then your frustration will turn to anger, and an oath to never buy another game from Peter Molyneaux (it's no joke his next venture is named Project Ego... how fitting).

Refreshing Originality in Gaming

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 4
Date: April 06, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Have you ever tried to explain what Black and White is to somebody? That's what often happens when friends wander into my dorm room and point to the screen at my large cow, wandering through my village amongst forresters, farmers, breeders, disciples, and worshippers. "What is it?" they ask. "Well," I start. "You play God..." How cool is that? But you see, it's just the tip of the iceberg. It would be quick if I could say "Well, basicially it's just like this other game, the..." But it's not. Black and White is, as they say, a true original. No matter how long I take explaining to someone what Black and White is (and trust me, for some people, I've taken quite a while), I'm still left with this feeling like I haven't said enough -- there is still more to say, but still saying anymore would be futile. It's very hard to describe a game like this. To be cliche once again, it has to be experienced.

One thing does come to mind that I must emphasize: In the day where graphics are emphasized over a good gameplay experience, Black and White is the iconoclast: The real pearl of this game must be the artificial intelligence, or AI, of your creature. The AI in this game is incredible. Teaching your "pet" is a very rewarding experience. How good is it? I've taught my creature to skip rocks; I've taught him to eat sheep and not pigs; I've taught him to poop in the fields to provide natural fertilizer. The AI, in my opinion, is what makes this game -- not the high-resolution support you'd typically see plastered on a first person shooter (which I dig too, but not like this).

Experience this game. Buy it -- you won't be disappointed.

So much fun!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 36
Date: March 25, 2001
Author: Amazon User

This game has the best features ever seen in any game! The AI is beutifull, physics is included, and it it, the best game for a long while, of its kind!

OMG!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 27
Date: March 27, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I urge everyone that even had the smallest thought of playing or at least trying a game to give this one a huge try! OMG, I need to breath!

Over-rated and over-hyped. Buy THE SIMS instead.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 6 / 28
Date: April 03, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I was all for this game. I was convinced that BLACK and WHITE was not going to be the next DAIKATANA. No, I didn't want to believe that. But it is true. BLACK and WHITE is an over-hyped game. It was in development for about three years and gaming magazines and such labeled this game as something revolutionary. Well, BLACK and WHITE may be that, but did EA have to make it so boring?

The chance to play god should have been fun. In fact the opening moments of the game are the best. My two stars goes to the absolutley fantastic opening sequence of stunning visuals and graphics. And the music that plays really pumps me up for what I thought would be a special game. Alas, this was not to be. After, I choose my creature, the game really slows down the point of bordom. You make choices in the form of "Silver Scrolls". These are quests that happen on the little island your on. This is where the game lost me.

As for the controls, I think the folks at EA made them a little to complicated than it needed to be. This to me was the most frustrating part of the whole BLACK and WHITE experiance. If you can't have good control using the mouse with a game, then in my opinion, that game just cannot be fun.

Yes, this game is original, but I think some people will be bored. If you want to play god, I think THE SIMS is a far superior game, not to mention fun.

Ten minutes of fun in a $40 package

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 10
Date: August 08, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Don't waste your time.

This is forty dollars worth of tweak, and not as much fun as a typical sim.

If you have Windows98/ME & A LOT of Ram. You need see this..

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 5
Date: February 07, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I saw some people have problems running this game. If your system is Windows98/ME and you have more than 512 MB memory in stalled, you need to see this ... otherwise you will get game crashes more frequently ... not just in Black & White, but other games as well. You need to follow the workaround method as follows.

I first come across this knowledge from www.nvidia.com FAQ : Windows 98 and ME were based on the original Windows 95 kernel which was never designed for handling a lot of memory. These systems will experience various operational difficulties if more than 512MB physical memory is installed. These problems are due to how the 32-bit protected-mode cache driver (VCache) for Windows 9x/ME reserves memory. With more than 512MB memory, VCache may reserve most of the virtual addresses available. This issue does not affect Microsoft Windows XP or Windows 2000. Directions for correcting this problem are outlined in Microsoft's Knowledge Base article number 253912: [...]
CAUSE :
The Windows 32-bit protected-mode cache driver (Vcache) determines the maximum cache size based on the amount of RAM that is present when Windows starts, or 800MB, whichever is less. Vcache then reserves enough memory addresses to permit it to access a cache of the maximum size so that it can increase the cache to that size if needed.. These addresses are allocated in a range of virtual addresses from 0xC0000000 through 0xFFFFFFFF (virtual address occupy between 3 gigabyte and 4 gigabyte area - a space of only 1 gigabytes) known as the system arena.

On computers with large amounts of RAM, the maximum cache size can be large enough that Vcache consumes nearly all of the addresses in the system arena, leaving little virtual memory addresses available for other system process.

This problem may occur more readily with Advanced Graphics Port (AGP) video adapters because the AGP aperture is also mapped to addresses in the system arena. For example, if Vcache is using a maximum cache size of 800 MB and an AGP video adapter has a 128-MB aperture mapped, there is very little address space remaining for the other system code and data that must occupy this range of virtual addresses.

WORKAROUND :

- Add the MaxFileCache line as follows in the System.ini file to reduce the maximum cache size that Vcache uses to 512 MB (512x1024 =524288 KB. Note: The value for these settings are in kilobytes) or less :
[VCache]
MaxFileCache=524288

- Then reboot computer to have setting take effect. You should suffer FAR LESS crashes in many games. Your game can still crash, though. But it will be due to other problems - game bugs, drivers too old, etc.

Had To Return Game

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 5
Date: April 10, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I had to return the game because the software locked up my PC. I have a Gateway 650mhz/128 MB which could not run the game. I spent 1 hour with the Electronic Arts Technical Support and we were not able to resolve the issue. It seems like a cool game but my machine could not support the software.

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