Black & White Review

Black & White’s only misgiving is it’s own fault, the fact is this game is too good for your own personal health. The message is clear, if you’d like to keep your friends and job stay clear away from this game, if however you want to get sucked into a game that rarely let’s you leave, then you need to get this game, simple. <br /> <br /> Basic premise is you’re a God, and to be the best you’ve got to have respect, it’s what all God’s crave and to get it you need villagers, who’s belief in you will make you more powerful. How you earn this respect is entirely up to you, and the game is structured in such a way that your underlying character will slowly emerge as you progress through the game, think idly throwing the occasional villager across the island into the sea isn’t going to do anything, think again you’re already on the path to the dark side. <br /> <br /> So it’s up to you to do whatever you want and here’s where it gets sticky to describe Black & White as a game, think of it as more of an experience, sure there’s a linear structure/story in there, but you’re free to leave that alone if that’s what you wish, it’s entirely possible to just stay on the one world and get involved in some deep “man-management” with your villagers, I think that’s one of the main reasons why Black & White appeals, even non-gamers in the office have been hooked, this really is not a video-game, and yet it’s structure can be rooted right back to it’s origins in games such as ‘Populous’ and ‘Dungeon Keeper’, Black & White seems to be the perfect amalgamation of Pete’s previous efforts and thankfully he’s turned up trumps with Black & White.. <br /> <br /> Ultimately you want to take control of the whole island that you’re currently on, situated on this island will be several villages, some of which will have no allegiance to any god and ripe for moving in and showing of your skills, other villages may have belief in a god and will need some fighting with to gain control. How you get the villagers to believe in you is entirely up to you, shower them with food when they’re hungry and they’ll thank you for your kindness, equally whip in a few fireballs to their wood store and they’ll worship you in supreme terror. Each village specializes in different miracles, and as they’re worshipping increases you’ll be able to cast these miracles, which help to win-over would-be worshippers. <br /> <br /> The balance between what you do is handled perfectly, if you’ve been annoyed at your villagers performance despite all your help, whip over a storm and they’ll realise that you’re not happy with their efforts. Just because you’re doing something ‘bad’ doesn’t necessarily mean you’re evil. <br /> <br /> Amidst all of the strategy work you’ll also have a creature to look after, your pet is the physical embodiment of godly power, and can be taught to perform anything that you can do, be it cast miracles, help villagers to build places or just generally wreck havoc among the place. A lot of time was spent perfecting the AI behind the creature, and at times it really does feel as if you’re bringing up a living creature, I’ve seen grown men resort to talking to a computer screen as if it was a new-born child, only to see them cuddling up with they’re creature. To encourage your pet you can give him pats and tickles when he’s done something that you approve of, if however the pet does something you don’t like, give him a few whacks and thumps in the chest and he’ll soon realise not to upset you again. <br /> <br /> However be warned your creature is entirely independent, so despite me being the meanest guy since Darth Vader my pet is a rather charming cow, who likes nothing better then getting down and dancing with the villagers, I’m sure he’s doing it just to make me look stupid at times!!! <br /> <br /> Other Gods who populate the realms will also have creatures, and at times you’ll just have to get dirty and have a great big scrap between the two giants, Godzilla style. Although the combat system isn’t nearly as complex as a console fighter, it works nicely in the game and allows you to link a few combos whilst also pulling out some special moves, one word of warning watch out for where the fights occur, having just captured a new village and raising it to the point of looking pretty special, my dumb ass creature decided to pick a fight right in the middle, all I could do was watch as each of them fell spectacularly into buildings crushing them to rubble and killing any villagers that were dumb enough to stand by and watch. <br /> <br /> Thankfully enough time was spent producing a control system that works beautifully, everything can be performed with just your mouse, with the left button controlling movement and the right button assigned to your actions, miracles are cast by simply producing the right gesture with the mouse, for example producing a ‘w’ shaped motion will conjure up the water miracle, and allow you to have an instant rain cloud to water crops or just comically place over one villagers head and bemuse him all day. After a few hours the hand on-screen literally becomes your hand, and if you can’t quite get used to it you can assign actions to the keyboard, though I do recommend getting used to the way it was intended to be played. <br /> <br /> If the game sounds daunting, don’t be put off you’re led through the game on a perfectly balanced learning curve, helped out with the aid of your good conscience and bad conscience, at times these two guys can be hilarious, leave the game for a toilet break and you’ll come back to the two arguing about something or one of them telling a joke to the other. It’s the little touches that help to gel this package into what it is, such things as interaction between the game and your Outlook application, mean the villagers will all be assigned as a contact in your address book so when you’ve got new mail the villagers will tell you (I’m sure this was intended as a way of keeping you in touch with normality), other things include internet weather, so the in-games weather will represent what’s happening outside your window. <br /> <br /> As you can see from the screenshots Black & White is a visual master-piece, at times you’ll just sit there in awe at the beautifully crafted environments that you control, you’re free to move the camera where you want, zoom right up to cloud level and view the whole island and then instantly zoom straight into the worm peeking out of an apple on a barrel, add some eye candy in the form of beautiful lighting and stunning particle effects and you’ve got quite possibly one of the most accomplished games from a graphical point of view. The creature models are excellently defined, and will morph to represent your creatures alignment, if you’ve got a bad pet look out for fangs and general bad stuff if he’s a good chap expect him to look quite cute and fluffy. The way these creatures have been animated also help to get across their charm and personality, the first time you have to discipline him I’m sure your heart strings will pull as his chin drops and he starts sobering. <br /> <br /> Sound wise Black & White turns up trumps again, zoom in close to a villager and you’ll hear what they want to prosper, although it can get annoying when you’ve run out of wood and there’s hundreds of villagers screaming out ‘We need Wood’… The music hangs in the background, and suits perfectly to this style of game. <br /> <br /> Comments <br /> So there it is, Black & White the best game I’ve played, I’m sure it’s not up to everybody’s taste and will disappoint a few, however for me it just doesn’t come any better then this and I urge you all to at least check it out and put some time in.