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Heavenly idea gone to ...

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: June 25, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I really enjoy strategy games. They can be intellectually challenging and provide an environment where you can step outside your normal, day-to-day life, for a little while.

I have played many different games as the industry has evolved over the years (my first computer was a Commodore 64-how many of you have heard of those before?!). In all my years of computer game interaction, B&W is, by far, the buggiest program I have ever encountered. I feel uncomfortable being so negative because I really want to like this game. But I have had the privilege of being a Beta tester for some other commercial releases and I can not think of a single instance of testing where I have been totally unable to play the game. In contrast, I have tried, sincerely tried, to run this game only to be completely disappointed as the game froze, time and time again. I thought the problem might be my system, so I tried installing on multiple systems and multiple OS, all with equally poor results. As a consumer, who shelled out ... for this game, I can only state how very disappointed I am in Lionhead/EA. This is the type of experience which causes me to doubt whether or not I will ever risk ... on another one of their products.

Lots of bugs!

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 6
Date: July 12, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Very Very interesting idea and one of the buggiest games I've ever played. The auto-save feature is necessary because of all of the crashes BUT after you've been playing awhile the auto-save can take up to several minutes per save, which can be very annoying when you are right in the middle of something interesting and then, bang, auto-save, go take a nap and come back. After looking at Lionhead's site on this software and seeing some of their comments about Quality Assurance (ie: they basically seem to think that it wouldn't be necessary if EA didn't make them do it), I know that I will not be paying full price for any more Lionhead games until they fire whoever is in charge of QA and actually put in place a real QA process. The idea is VERY interesting and that's why they get some points for originality (or at least an original spin on the populas model of games). But they really need a debugger. Quite frankly I'd be happy to play a FUN game with less then state of the art technology, if it is stable and fun. Bells and whistles are great but I'm looking to have fun not get frustrated. Also, the micromanagement required to keep your people alive is very excessive. It takes alot away from the fun of the game. So in the end, look for someone to make a copy cat game and if they copy-cats are known for making a good product that doesn't crash everytime you blink, then buy it from them. Don't encourage Lionhead by letting them think that buggy software is ok!

Buy The Longest Journey instead, if you are looking for a great (stable and visually appealing) game at an excellent price!

All the game play excitement of an empty bag of rice cakes

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 6
Date: May 01, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Not so much a game as an intelligence test (i.e., are you smart enough to figure out how to install it?), Black & White was something I longed to play -- and am still longing for. You have to question the common sense of the people behind this game -- my copy was shipped without the essential CD identification code necessary to install the program. After hours investigating online FAQs and making expensive long distance calls to technical support, I discovered that the game assumes you will be connected to the Internet and that, if you are not, a line must be added to the program shortcut just to get the program to run. And I don't have the space here to talk about the game's arthritic speed.

In short, the chief fun behind this game will be ripping the box and documentation it came with into shreds and then burning it.

Is It Really Necessary For Another Review?

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 6
Date: January 21, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Well, this games sucks.

It is not even a finished product. Big gaming companies should be punished for not delivering a finished product. It's a different story if a game is not good, but it's totally unacceptable if people have to pay for imcomplete product.

Wow. Just... Wow.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 6
Date: April 02, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I picked up this game 3 days ago, and I have already spent at least 24 hours playing it. B&W is simply the most incredible game that I've ever played. To try and explain it on its own terms (if you haven't played it already) would be fruitless, and to try and explain it by comparing it to other games... well, here's an attempt:

The Sims - B&W is called a "real-time strategy" game, but it is much more of a simulation than an RTS. And you fall in love with your Creature.

Populous - One of the first, and best "god games". You really feel as though these people exist to serve you. Emphasis on "exist".

Myst - The sheer beauty of the graphics in Myst made the game one of the most popular ever. The graphics in B&W are top-notch, especially the creature. Also, one of the easiest user interfaces ever.

Age of Empires - Perhaps the ultimate resource management game. Keeping track of the materials (and people) you need to have a thriving community is only part of the challenge.

There's a very good reason that Populous is on the list. Peter Molyneux, the creator of Black & White, also created Populous, when he worked for Bullfrog Studios. He's taken the original ideas of Populous, and turned it into something that can best be described as a living, breathing world. The game contains some of the most complex AI I've ever experienced. For example, my Creature learned how to dance. _I_ never showed him how... he learned it from watching the villagers. And when I rubbed his tummy to show him that I was pleased, he called all the villagers around him, and threw a dance party, breakdancing while they chanted and danced around him.

And if all this weren't enough... your Creature gets to eat, drink, play, fight, grow, bruise, get tattoo'd... and yes, even poop when he needs to. And even _that_ is cute.

In short... buy this game. Live this game. Love this game. You won't be disappointed.

A real review from a long time fan

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 4 / 19
Date: March 29, 2001
Author: Amazon User

First off, let me say that I have been waiting for Black and White for a LONG time. Two and a half to three years. I am definitely the kind of guy who went around saying what other reviewers have said "AMAZING GRAPHICS!!" "OUTSTANDING AI!!" I never thought I'd give this game less than 5 stars on Amazon for sure.

But here's the deal. This game has major stability issues. It can't stay running for more than a couple of minutes on my system before I see the blue screen of death. It is the least stable shipped title I have ever seen come out of a major production house (EA) from such a celebrated (revered) designer. My specs are: Asus A7V mobo TBird 1000 processor 256 megs RAM GeForce GTS2 (CL Annihilator 2) ...and the damn vibrating mouse I bought just for this game

Maybe they'll release a patch tomorrow that will perfect it. It seems no game comes out thoroughly tested these days, and they all need patches. But to me, as someone who waited through delay after delay, drove 4 hours round trip on opening day to get my copy, and stuck with this game through it all, the honeymoon ended before it began. This game is flat-out unplayable if it doesn't agree with your system.

A game isn't much fun when you can't get it to work

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 7
Date: June 19, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Before purchasing Black and White, I read several reviews of mixed opinions. Some people loved it, while others hated it. Most of the negative reviews seemed to be from people with lower end machines, so I figured that with my Athlon 1.3, 512 MB memory, 64 MB video card, I wouldn't have a problem. Wrong!

I've NEVER had so many problems with any software application before. It locks up on launch. It locks up in the middle of the game. It locks when the sun's out. When it's cloudy. Get the picture? The game simply doesn't run well.

Go read reviews on Lionhead's website, and you'll see many of the same comments. To date, no officially supported patches are available, but you can download a "developers version". It's as buggy as the original release.

My advice: stay away from this game unless you're willing to drive yourself mad trying to get it to run.

Doesn't Work Right

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 7
Date: March 31, 2001
Author: Amazon User

The game doesn't work very well, it seems to be VERY glitchy. On my computer it crashes a lot to where I have to reboot my computer alot. On my friends computer, it crashes, and he can't use sound or it freezes right away. I would wait until there are patches out, or just not get it. It seems really fun, and it probably is, if you can play it.

FRUSTRATING controls!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: February 07, 2002
Author: Amazon User

This is a really fun game but the controls for movement of yourself and your creature are extremely frustrating! You are constantly off-center and trying to focus or running into mountains and trying to turn around and zooming in and out only to find your are zooming on something you didn't want to zoom on. The game is incredibly cool so I could not rate it a 3 but omg they need to do some work on easier handling; maybe take some tips from the ppl who made Everquest. It really is a shame to ruin a great game that way! I would play it much more often if it didn't anger me so.

Very good game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: March 10, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I recently played this game at my friends house and enjoyed it a lot because the gameplay is so uniqe and well, somthing different.Well, anyway, you play the role of a god that rules over an island.You are represented by a hand that moves the camera around and picks things up. After, you go through a rather boring toutorial, and once you get into the game you get a creature who represents you. The creature is either a tiger, a cow, or a monkey. Raising and waching your creature become either a giant monstrosity or a kind and gentle beast is one of the best parts of the game! The creature has its own personality and can be good or evil, it depends on how you raise it. Taking care of the villagers is the most annoying part of the game because they cant take care of themselves so, taking care of a creature and a villige of idiots can be rather chalenging but once you get the hang of the controols and how to manage the town it becomes easy. Overall, the AI is excelent considering the creature can learn.

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