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Black and White Reactions. (Advice on whether to buy.)

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 106 / 115
Date: May 02, 2001
Author: Amazon User

In over 20 years, I've never seen a game provoke such diverse response as this one. The five stars here reflect my reaction; you should not, I repeat NOT, use this as a gauge to whether =you= will like it. There are some simple questions to ask yourself before plunking down your hard-earned cash.

First of all, how good is your mouse? Seriously, I went from a good logitech wheel mouse to a cheap optical while playing this game and the optical mouse was dramatically better. I've also played it with different kinds of finger-pads, and with at least one (with the right mouse button on the side), the game is almost impossible. I can't even imagine using a trackball (but I haven't tried, so I don't know for sure). B&W uses a revolutionary gesture recognition system which is great once you get to using it--but not if there's even a slight hitch with your pointing device.

Second of all, how fast is your machine? B&W runs well on 800mhz, 32MB graphics card, 128MB RAM--but game saves take quite a while and there are some jitters. I wouldn't even venture this on less than 600mhz. Smoothness is key.

These two points can't be over-stated. If your hardware is not up to snuff, B&W will frustrate you. (Some reports have it that any sort of "odd" hardware will make B&W mis-behave but I haven't seen this.) Now, looking at the finer points:

What kind of gamer are you? B&W is not a fast-paced action game. There are some time constraints placed on you at various points, but mostly, B&W is more of an experience than a game in the traditional sense. If you're the kind of person who likes to "beat" computer games and drive toward the finish quickly, you won't get much out of this. If you can take pleasure out of the actions that you can do and the effects that these creates, you might find B&W very pleasing indeed.

In some ways, B&W feels like an adventure game. You have tremendous freedom to do what you want, but until you do certain things, the story isn't advanced.

Are you a casual gamer? This is less important depending on how you answered the last question. If you're a casual gamer who likes Quake, you may find the learning curve not worth the return. I spent several sessions doing nothing but learning how to interact with the game. I found this process interesting, but if you've only got a half-hour every other day to play, and you favor quick results, this probably won't work for you. I did find that once I learned how to interact with the game, I could leave it for a week, come back and pick right up again, though, which makes it less involved (to my mind) than your average RPG or adventure game.

If you're a casual gamer and playing the game at a leisurely pace, I suspect that you won't find any of the bugs some people are complaining about. The more interesting question in some cases is "Is it a bug?" I may have hit bugs while playing and just not recognized them. B&W is that kind of game.

What pre-conceived notions do you have going in? Back in '77 I was out of the country for a month, and when I came back everyone was talking about "Star Wars". When I finally saw it, I was, of course, disappointed, since no movie could be =that= good. No game could be all that this has been hyped to be. Worse for game author Molyneux, people were expecting "Star Wars" from B&W and got "Dr. Strangelove". (Both great movies but =entirely= different experiences.)

The key thing to enjoying this game seems to be deliberate pacing. The longer you take on each level--training your creature, getting your skills up, mining the world for all it's worth--the more enjoyment you'll get out of it. You'll have fewer nasty surprises and you'll have a "godlike" understanding to go along with your "godlike" powers.

But that absolutely requires you to be able to enjoy the very action of playing, and for you to set your own goals that you can meet while discovering things about it. Otherwise you'll just get bored or frustrated or angry.

Hope this helps! Above all, have fun! That's what it's all about!

Amazing

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 49 / 51
Date: March 28, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Okay, I'll admit it. I was skeptical. The game couldn't be as good as everyone says it is. Thanks to a couple industry connections I got a sneak peek at the game -- a day before it goes on retail shelves.

Well, it's better than excellent. This game is a classic. It really is.

Some highlights:

- Superb graphics. The ability to swoosh and zoom in on every little bit of the island is incredible. You can zoom over mountains, zoom into huts, zoom up into the sky: it's really amazing.

- Superb sound. If you have positional speakers, the sound is quite effective. Moreover, it's one of the few games where sound actually enhances the game: you hear splashes, can hear the villagers go about their business, can even hear the cries of the villagers if (heaven forbid) you choose to become an "evil" god and start tossing them willy nilly into huts, flinging them across the town square, or dropping them from dizzying heights. It's amazing.

- And, of course, superb AI: you're god and you choose a creature -- cow, ape, tiger -- to represent your god-like self. The creature -- with only minimal learning -- begins to adopt a personality. You pet it when it does good things (the creature giggles and laughs) and you whack it -- slap it back and forth -- when it does bad things (like, er, eating the little villagers, not that I advocate that ... ahem.)

- A fascinating tutorial. If it's your first time playing, you're guided along by dual consciences -- a devlish little red guy (advocating destruction) and a blissed-out, sandal-wearing little British gentlemen (advocating kindness and compassion). As you get your bearings, these two little creatures float about the screen and point things out ("Pick up the little rock here and bring it to the sculptor!" "Check the scrolls. Scrolls are good!" "Hey, get real, do you *really* wanna save that villager from drowning?") It's pretty entertaining just watching these two little avatars compete for your attention.

The tutorial shows you how to move -- which is a little difficult at first, but you can remap the key board keys -- shows you how to construct your "temple" (and takes you inside of it for a really whacked out view of *TOTAL* control. The temple contains rooms -- a save game room, a help room, a library room -- which, in turn, contain various "picture frames" that allow you to replay certain events, zip right to specific tasks, and more. The temple is pretty darn cool in itself.)

Aside from teaching you the finer points of the game -- movement, in particular -- the tutorial really unveils the incredible richness of the world -- and truly gives you a god-like feeling. The tutorial offers you several challenges -- a few are a little difficult since you're not familiar with the world and it takes some time to figure out how move about and find things -- but as you complete the challenges you come to understand the complexity of this game. The "cartoonish" of the Sim games suddenly becomes apparent as you play 'Black & White' and face some pretty interesting moral dilemmas. You can choose how to resolve each dilemma, but once you choose, you must of course face the consequences. Do the villagers worship you? Do they fear you? Do they respect you? Is there a more subtle (and perhaps complex) chain of events that is triggered by your individual "god-like" actions?

It's interesting, too, that it's possible to be a morally "complex" god. You don't *have* to be 100% good. You can throw in a little, er, terror to make the villagers stand up and take notice.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not advocating that this game presents gamers with an "authentic" moral universe. But I understand -- and this only after a few hours of play -- that as far as "games" go, Black and White offers unique moral universe of its own devising -- with a specific set of rules and consequences.

For that alone, the game goes slightly -- ever so slightly -- past the idea of "gaming" and approaches the realm of sophisticated simulation. (It's better, I'll add, then the traditional "historic" wargame that attempts to very carefully model real world events. B&W is a game which creates a unique universe and then models it amazingly well -- both graphically and (yes, I'll admit it) emotionally.)

Maybe B&W succeeds so well because it offers (even more so than the "SIMS" simulations) the sophistication of truly *interesting* (and often unpredictable) artificial intelligence.

Or maybe it's the fact that the game encompasses a complex world that (taken on its own terms) offers a variety of subtle challenges not usually found in computer games.

But buy this game: it's fascinating.

The Most Highly Anticipated Game Lives Up The Hype!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 10 / 25
Date: March 29, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I won't lie I've been waiting for this game for about 2 years. To kill time I've been playing other hits such as Counter-Strike and because I was so bored I played some Knights and Merchants. Well finally it arrives at my doorstep in the same old Amazon Box I love to see when I get home.

The interior: I open the box and boom there it is Black side of the box facing up. I immediately toss the amazon box and open up the front of the box to see what they put together. WOW! The black side of the box explains the evil. The White explains of course the good. The box was one of the coolest I've seen but then again its just a box. So I open up the box and theres this stupid AOL disc and then a bunch of registration stuff and then theres the CD. Sitting in a nice case. I open it up to suprisingly one cd! I don't know how they did it but they did it.

The Game: LET ME TELL YOU RIGHT NOW IF YOU DO NOT GO AND BUY THIS GAME YOU ARE MISSING ONE OF THE BEST GAMES OF THE YEAR. This game is already in the hall of fame in my book. I have rings around my eyes and I can't sleep. I give this game a 9.9 out of 10 because at first the sound didn't work then I restarted my computer and then it worked so that was kinda annoying and it did the same thing for my friend but oh well must have been the Direct X but it didn't give me anything about restarting my computer. Anyway buy it. I don't need to explain the details to tell you how good it is. You've seen the hype it lives up to it double. BUY IT!

Forget any doubts...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 7
Date: March 29, 2001
Author: Amazon User

My friend and I went to the mall yesterday and camped out at the store that was to recieve Black and White. My friend was the first to get it, right out of the UPS delivery boxes. I told him "Let's not expect too much, because that only means we can be disappointed". How wrong I was. We installed it, and began playing. Incredible is about all I can say. I didn't know how incredible until just last night and this morning. I played this game for like 10 hours straight. I didn't get any sleep tonight, and unfortunately, I don't think I will be getting sleep for awhile longer. I don't want to go into the details because half of the joy is finding out the little touches in the game for yourself, but make no mistake: this is the game to buy. Im gonna go play some more.

WHY ARE YOU NOT PLAYING THIS GAME RIGHT NOW?

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 7
Date: March 29, 2001
Author: Amazon User

If you like simulation,rpg and strat games, this is ur game. It has the best AI, graphics of any other game I have ever played in my 30 years as a gamer. Why am i wasting time writing this review, I must return to the game!

Holy mother of God

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 12
Date: March 29, 2001
Author: Amazon User

This isn't a game, it's your new way of life. Be prepared to shun your friends, lose 20 pounds and turn very pale, because you won't be coming outside anymore. I am 10 hours into the game and I've barely scratched the surface. BUY THIS GAME.

New Era in Gaming

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 17 / 19
Date: March 29, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Take a Tamagochi, Populous 3, and Starcraft and throw them all into a 3D blender. You get Black and White. It's hard to call this software a game. It's more like an experience, or like having a small world in an aquarium and dipping in your hand to put things the way you want them. I have only played this game for two days, but I am going to put Diablo 2 and Starcraft on the shelf for a long while.

Basically you get to help the little people in these worlds in whatever manner you see fit. If they need wood for a project you can get them wood, or smash the project so they don't need wood any more. Either way, the game doesn't care. Good and evil choices are made clear through two spirits that are your conscience. Good and evil choices also produce different results. The landscape changes over time to match your personality as a god. To top this off, you must select a creature. The artificial intelligence in this thing is better than any I have ever seen. It may not seem that way on the first level (it's mostly tutorial) but the AI fully kicks in for the second. You can teach your creature to do anything from watering trees, to uprooting them, to setting them on fire. Anything you want.

This game is for anyone. It's entertaining and fun, and highly innovative. I can guarantee you have not played anything like it (although little bits of Populous and Dungeonkeeper do shine through) My computer does meet the recommended hardware, but that is by no means a supermachine these days, and it runs extremely well. So don't waste anytime, this thing is flying off the shelves. Good luck and have fun!

This is the ultimate in Strategy Gaming!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: March 29, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I've been waiting 2 years for this game, and it is definatley the ultimate in strategy games!!! If you want to buy your kid a game that isn't, usually, violent, and might actually teach them something, this is it. If you buy you child this game you will 1.) teach them to be responsible with their own increadibly intelligent pet 2.) teach them moral values, because the whole game revolves around how you play it, and the whole game world will change accordingly 3.) give them a whole lot of fun with 400 missions/tasks 4.) keep them from begging at your feet... and so on. The definative features of this game are the amazing graphics technology, and the slow, it isn't so fast that you'll start sweating just to keep up, and manipulative, you can do just about anything you want, game play. Also, this game is one of the first computer strategy games to have !!!NO INTERFACE!!! clouding up the screen. This means that everything you do in the game will be done with the mouse. Finally this game doesn't use texture patterns!!! There will be no repetative graphics, because it will create all graphics by blending textures to the exact detail, thus creating increadible graphics. THIS IS THE ULTIMATE IN MANIPULATIVE GAMING SO DONT MISS OUT ON IT!!!

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)

Wow!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 9 / 21
Date: March 29, 2001
Author: Amazon User

This game is amazing! It is the best game I have played in a long time. I also read that IGN gave it a 9.7 which is the highest rating they have ever given a game. I whole-heartedly support their rating. Buy this game!

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