You know you've been playing B&W too much already because:

1) You try to use the Zoom function without thinking then wondering why its doesn't work...
2) You wonder how you can give your applications a good slapping when they crash so they won't do it again
3) You get mad at your brother and try to cast a fireball but get mad when its not working..

Heard quite a bit about this game but I still dont know what it's about

For those of you interested Gamespot also has a sort of "In the Making Of" feature at http://www.zdnet.com/gamespot/features/pc/btg_bw/index.html.
Its quite long, especially if your reading it off the screen, but its well worth reading.

More BnW sites:
http://black.ea.com
http://white.ea.com
http://bwgame.com (Seems to be up and down all the time. I don't think the server can handle the load)

Try reading books people. :-)

I played the tutorial today, and I couldn't find that stone! They showed you exactly where it is and I still couldn't manage it. I destroyed virtually the whole town and killed many in frustration. I love dropping pigs on people and drowning the children. Throwing big rocks at buildings is fun too.

I am a little worried mind, that this could be no more than a gimmicky version of Sim City which will remain fun for as long as the gimmicks are fun. Time will tell.

Peter.

Does anyone want to help?
Tune in next time for....

Wow I am really getting into this game now. I cannot believe how good it is. The storyline, the interface, the options, the humour. I love it! I like the idea of striking a balance too. So far I have only killed two people for not being holy enough, and I have treated my monkey very well (nor have I spanked him much, but that is anoher story ) so I am a very fair deity. What a great game.

Peter.

No-one has really answered my first question, what do you do in it?

Also, is it a game worth getting, it does look a bit over priced but maybe that's just because it's just out here

Anonymous,

Try today's edition of www.salon.com for a great review of the game. Basically, you get to be a god and have control over the lives and environment of some little people. You can be a nice god or a mean god or switch back and forth.

I cannot tell you if it is worth getting, but it looks so cool that it's on my list of things to get after I get my raise.

Merry

It is definitely worth getting.

Peter.

Hmm, "strike a balance"? What balance? The game works great in whatever way you play it... Bad has pros and cons, so has good. Not sure gray middle has much advantages either, since all your pros are dimmed along with the cons.

Your [player's] creature is brilliant, he just FEELS alive. *grin*

Especially when you annoy him and he gives you the finger. :p

I strike a balance by punishing those who do wrong and by helping those who need it.

VERY EARLY GAME SPOILER ALERT:

In my case, this meant proving wood, then grain, then a pig, then a cow to sailors, but also throwing them each in turn into the sea to show my anger (one of them drowned sadly, and had to be replaced). The other man died for sarcastically laughing at my inability to hit the pillar with those rocks. But I have also done all that has been asked of me so far, and helped everyone I could. I just want to make clear I am not a helpline.

Peter.

Sounds a bit like Age of the Empires II what what I've heard here

Just bought it Sunday, playing about an hour a night. Getting more addicted. Just killed my monkey by mistake, running him to Aztec village (gotta learn how to get him to eat! He was so skinny!)

The first time 'round I'm a "good" god. Although being so overtly "praised" makes me a little uncomfortable.

1st anonymous, Age of Empires II is a truly fantastic game, and so is Black and White, but they are not really alike at all.

In Black and White you basically are God, and most rule over your people, helping them or hurting them depending on your preference. The first challenge is from a young woman who has lost her brother in the woods. She promises to give you a vital gatestone if you save him. Now it is up to you whether you save him, because you can still trash the house and steal it anyway. Yesterday I had fun murdering them both, for example. If you are too evil though, people will die and disrust you, and too good then people will not be feaful or devoted to you. It is a tremendously detailed game, and I am only learning the basics myself, but this is the general way. The gameplay is hard to describe without playing yourself, but hopefully this will be of use to future visitors.

Peter.

Do you get attacked by the other side in it like the Whites if you are the Blacks and vice versa?

So I take it it is a game worth getting then?

It certainly is worth getting. Black and White is not about choosing one side over another. There are no set sides. Gods compete with each other for worshippers, and their creatures (giant monkeys and cows and things) fight. Black and white refers to the constant moral choices you are given throughout the game. You can be as benevolent or as evil as you like. Hence the advertising slogan "Find out who you really are".

Peter.

Yep. Also, I don't think punishing "the naughty" villagers does zilch unless they're some of the preprogrammed specials. You being good or evil is decided by the villagers themselves. If you punish someone, it just makes your alignment meter slide downwards towards the dark side a bit.

Also, some people seem to have the wrong idea of "enemy villages"... There is no such thing. They're villages, whether they worship you or the Other god, burning them is equally bad. That is also why the "bad" approach of *throw rock, burn store, get beliefe, WHAM, you're their god!* doesn't go unpunished... You're being baaaaad. ;)

*watches his white, glowing tiger*
Aaaah, good boy.

There is really no "other" side like you would get in AE2. The Black and White of the title refers to your choices during the game. Do you go for completely Evil (Black) or completely Good (White) or do you stand somewhere in the middle of the two.
There is the single player missions in which you have to defeat other Gods, which ones you choose to defeat will further the game in different ways. In the end any and all the decisions you make in the game carry weight and alter the game accordingly. Or failing that, you can just muck about on any particular level for as long as you like. I'm still having fun playing about on the first two levels.

The Creature AI in B&W is some of the best you'll find around, you really do start to believe they have a life and personality of their own, you get so attached to your critter eventually. At least I have to my tiger. J I think I've annoyed him though. I've been trying to teach him to chuck rocks about and now every time my hand goes /near/ a rock now he growls and snarls at me.

Lastly, to answer your second question. Yes it is <B>definitely</B> worth getting. If your still unsure then read the posts here - Creature Stories - I guarantee that after reading them you'll want to get it.

Wonderful intellectual review and explanation of the game.

Peter.

Wow! This game is awesome! No, I haven't bought it but I visited Office Depot and one of their display models (HP 1.2Ghz, 128RAM) had it installed, so I played it for awhile, which turned out to be an hour or so. I had some trouble learning how to move and eventually got up to where you choose which giant creature you want. I chose the tiger, but that's as far as I got cuz I felt I should finally leave. Otherwise, I'd've played it till they closed, which was in another couple hours. Now, if I get a better computer I just might buy this game. It was very fun, but only played at 30fps, and froze for a split second several times. I also expected it to look better, considering how fast and far computers are advancing these days. I read that by 2004 or '05 they'll be up to 10Ghz CPUs, with about 2,000 or 3,000RAM. How awesome would that be?

Well, this game is getting pretty good reviews!

Mark, it is actually a lot more fun once you get a creature too. You need to train him and help him in combat, as well as punish him when he does wrong - ie. pooing on the villager's houses and eating the people in side.

I really recommend this game to anyone who can run it. Apart from Total Annihilation and Age of Empires II: Age of Kings - the Conquerors, it is my favourite ever game.

Peter.

The guy at the store threw a couple people, but I didn't quite catch how he did it. I did drop a guy in the water a few times, though. When I first played it it'd already been started by whomever and the temple needed building. There were a lot of people standing around and cheering and then after moving the mouse around and coming back to where they were they'd all disappeared, so I couldn't build the temple. The salesman (a kid, actually) thought they may have all been starved to death. He eventually restarted the game, and that's when I really got into it. I was playing as a benevolent god, but if I had the game and a better system to play it on I'd try the evil god thing, too, just for the hell of it. Why not? Twice the fun, I figure. Come to think of it, now I see your perverse liking of that aspect of the game, Peter. If one likes FPS games, where one can blast away at CG human and/or nonhuman enemies then why not this sort, where you can be a god, and decide the fates of mere mortals?

The cheapest I've seen the game for is $40, but it'll go down in the months ahead, so I'm in no hurry to get it.

Hmm, well I paid £35 (about $58) for it, so I wouldn't worry too much about cost being unreasonable.

I don't understand what happened with the temple. People could not starve that quickly. To throw, once you pick them up, just move the mouse in any direction with the right mouse button selected before dropping them. To throw them North, just right click and drag north before releasing.

Peter.

Hmm, doesn't look good? You can be looking at a villager's face at a maximum zoom, then zoom out to a satelite-vew where you can see the entire island and surrounding see, all within one single smooth zoom out. THAT is power. Polygon count counts little, anyone can slap in polygons [its easer to make models with more polys than less], but a technology that does THAT kind of active degradation smoothly deserves praise.
And I don't know what kind of a graphics card that system was using, but I have a Celeron 333 and the game runs with 40FPS on average. And my 32MB GeForce2MX is /not/ the best-of-the-best by a long shot.

You throw things by holding something in your arm, then moving it rapidly in a direction, letting go while moving. Watch it flyyyyyy... ;)

Ok, thanks, guys. I'll try to remember that next time I play it, maybe even if I ever buy it. I didn't see what all the graphic card that that particular model had was, but I'm sure it was at least a GeForce2, a Voodoo or maybe even a TNT. I was wondering why the game's FPS was so low on such a new computer, unless it was configured to be so low by whomever, for whatever reason. That's all I can think of.

What determines the different levels? Is it the number of villages that exist? I've encountered a few small bugs, very minor. Checked the website and patches are being planned.

I didn't think I'd be getting into it as much as I am -- but limiting it to an hour a night. Does being able to raise the totem come later in the game? My monkey is fat and bigger now, and has learned a few miracles so far. The funniest thing is when he boogies with the villagers. Do his droppings serve a function? I would imagine that since there's a stat for them, they must be useful for something!

second several times. I also expected it to look better, considering how fast and far computers are advancing these days. I read that by 2004 or '05 they'll be up to 10Ghz CPUs, with about 2,000 or 3,000RAM. How awesome would that be?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

And when Window$ XPIII comes out, it will
be like using a Pentium 200 :\

Just joking (I hope)

I would like to withdraw all my earlier comments on this game. I hope no one has bought the game because of what I have said, or are planning to. I will explain later, but I know now how superficial the game is, and that you ought not to get it. Don't make the mistake I did.

Peter.

*hmmss* I've read the review and still fail to see exactly how "superficial", as you put it, the game is. It tired to read the review from that site you listed but as I'm using Netscape 4.77 the page would not load for some reason, bad programming on the webmasters part I suspect. I got a background and no text, obviously missed out a tag somewhere. Anyway, I loaded up IE and read the review. Anyway...onto answering some of the questions raised in the review.
Yes admittedly the "game" (And I use the word in its loosest term. B&W isn't really a game in the same way Quake or Command and Conquer are) does have a few areas where it could be improved but what game doesn't? For B&W most of the, what I would deem minor, infractions can be forgiven. Your bound to miss a few targets in a game as complex as this. Thfact they got it out the door at all is amazing.

I'll stick up for the graphics engine first. I have no idea what he is talking about, yes if you have a beefy graphics card then you will get the best out of the game, but how's that different from any other new game out there? Where B&W succeeds and others fail is that it doesn't /need/ a beefy card. The game looks just as gorgeous on the P2 33MHz with 64MB RAM and an 8MB VooDoo2 as it does on my P3 500MHz with 128MB and a 16MB VooDoo3. Now that takes some doing that does.
The B&W programmers have answered questions about all the micro-management issues on the boards at BWGame.com. Its too long to go into here.
As for the creature being useless? Nope. He's obviously not teaching or spending enough time with the creature. If you train your creature properly a lot of the micro-management issues go away as your creature can deal with them leaving you to go the other tasks like conquering villages. Bear in mind that this will /not/ happen overnight. Or on the other hand you could do what the reviewer has done and just watch the critter go about his/her business, but your not liable to get very far or much excitement out of the game. As for the battles…well their main purpose is as an aid to teach your creature and also to win valuable belief points. If a group of villagers see your creature trounce another then your credibility rating will take a good boost.

I cannot say anything in defence of the Multiplay issues the reviewer had as I've yet to try it online myself. But visiting the BEGame.com boards may be an idea to get the "other" perspective on the issue.

In conclusion: You get out of the game what you put in. If you are looking for a quick "Quake" style game, look elsewhere. If you want to see the best AI (and all the neuances that go with it) in any I've seen to date and you are willing to give the time needed to, well for all intents and purpouses, manage and entier micro world on your PC in the beginning then go for it, you won't be dissapointed.

Ooooh, a "review". Let us see.
I'm not really sure how that "#300US card" comment was meant to be taken. I can however confirm that the game looks and plays wondorously on my $150US card. *g*
He complains over sound for some reason- had he bothered to go check out the developers` comments he'd have noticed that the game lacks a real soundtrack on purpose.
"If I walked into the office and someone was humming one of the tunes I wrote for the game, I knew I had made a mistake. I tried to create a soundtrack that would create atmosphere."
Not word by word, but pretty much. Had they added actualy songs in there, I'm sure you would turn them off after a while, since noone can stand the same melody for hours on end. And B&W is not a game you play for 5 hours.

*q*
The resource management is monotonous,
*/q*

Yes, I'm sure sending harvesters in C&C was an event worth spooging over where fun was concerned...

*q*
villager management time consuming and lacks sufficient returns for the amount of effort required, village maintenance lacks automation and requires constant babysitting,
*/q*

That's on purpose. The game doesn't revolve around you throwing fireballs at your enemy's village while everything else works like it should. This is not an action game, you are a deity and must stay that way. You don't want to babysit them? Burn down half your village, they'll reaquire less food and pray harder out of fear. You'll be more exposed, but hey, the more fearsome you are, the more they will do on their own [would YOU work on your own initiative if you saw a deity doing everything for you? *g*]
Not to even mention that things lke building allocation, food, wood and heath CAN be done by your creature. OF course it requires hours of work throughout the game, but if you wanted a quite fry-em-up you picked up the wrong game to begin with.

*q*
goals are long winded and set backs almost make you want to quit playing due to the repetitive nature of tasks needed to accomplish objectives.
*/q*

Err, wha? He's refering to GoldenScroll goals. Which consist of "5 minutes of engine-made-plot-developent"... Most of them are nothing but plot development, some of them contain very little required extra work [like casting 5 miracles you're given to take over a village, thus learning how the belief system works]. I've just completed Land4 and have yet to his a Golden Scroll task that is much more than story really. Give me a break...

*q*
The true enjoyment from this game comes from the humorous actions of your creature, interaction with the environment and the secondary tasks better known as silver scroll quests.
*/q*

Some Silver Scroll goals take up to 15 minutes of concentrated work to finish. How can he enjoy these but not plot development due to its... Errr... Not sure what he was on when he wrote that.

*q*
Watching my creature poop on villagers was funny the first couple times but after the initial shock is gone your creature’s actions are tuned out like the background music.
*/q*

Um...
Make you wonder, how did this guy play Doom...
"Watching my rockets fly into the walls and damage me was fun the first few times, but then I just tuned out all the stronger weapons and played the game with my Chainsaw. Doom sucks, it's too hard!"

*q*
Unfortunately for B&W I do not consider humorous animations to be the hallmark of good playability.
As for the puzzles know as “silver scroll quests” they are entertaining and a nice break from the conquest goals.
*/q*

Aaah. now I get it, he hates the "direction" they give him. Hm. Can't resist...
"Whereas shooting my enemies is fun, I do find the entire concept of completing the level boring and unnecessary."

*q*
With neat NPC animations and often surprising rewards these puzzles are a nice addition to the game.
*/q*

"Pushing buttons and locating secret areas however is fun, you're usually rewarded with nice gifts!"

*q*
It was unfortunate that I found them more entertaining than the game itself.
*/q*

I seriously doubt this guy invested +5 minutes into the game.

*q*
Since the game content is static once you have completed a level repeating it offers no real value.
*/q*

Funny. Some people on the game's forum mentioned that they've yet to go past Land 1, since they've been playing with and training their creture for hours...
Then again, if you consider your creature to be there to be tuned out...

Multiplayer:
*q*
I was hoping for some creature battles and some serious miracle throwing. All I got was the same monotonous resource management and village expansion slowed down to about 1/10 the game speed due to lag.
*/q*

Erm. Multiplayer = skirmish. You have a small village for belief purposes and you play to take over your opponent's village and destroy his temple. Who did he play the game against, a corpse?

*q*
Cross between AoE, populous
*/q*

And Thief is a Doom clone.

*q*
People are creating maps and letting them run all night to increase their creatures fighting ability.
Creating maps that regenerate miracles in 1 second to teach creatures miracle use.
*/q*

Huh? Creating maps? Must be a good shroom tee he's sipping...
Ignoring that, yes, you can leave your creature to train himself. You export your creature to multiplayer and then reimport him a bit more trained back into the game. You can use the playground simply to train him. Why? Because that's the point of the game. There is no "cheating with a stronger creatue", that's why you can replay the single player game with your fully grown and well trained creature after you finish it.
Hell, in multiplayer you can fight with your 10-feet-tall creature against a 50-feet-tall behemoth. Is that unfair? Perhaps. Is it unrealistic? Nope. What, should the game change the players` creatures to make them more equal? What next, kill your opponents villagers if your own die for some reason...
Your creature cannot die. He lost a fight? Big deal. He's gained some knowledge on how to fight, he will recover. *shrug*

Franky Peter, I think you should base your opinions on your OWN experiences. First you praise the game like mad, then someone goes "it sucks!" and you do a 180, agreeing with him?
Baaa baaaa!

I have a quick question. I heard a few months back that B&W would also be released for the Sony Playstation. Does anyone know if that's still true and which Playstation it might be for (1 or 2)? I have a very sucky computer that can't support the PC version of this game and it sounds so very cool that I really want to play it.

Err... I know it's getting ported to Mac towards the end of the year. Probably to PS2 aswell. Check LionHead's homepage [I think it's www.lionheadstudios.com ], they prolly tell you there.

I bought this game hoping that I could prove everyone wrong who think it's a POS, but I can't. I cannot recommend this game to anyone.

Why? Well, I've played the game almost all the way through as a "good" god (for whatever that's worth) and it’s basically a good-looking micromanagement game. All my villagers do is beg for more wood, more food, more this, more that. And, of course, being a good god, I like to grant their wishes. After a while, that's all you do is grant their wishes. They have no independency whatsoever. They can't even make babies on their own or build new houses. Sorry if I impose my religious views on anyone, but we don't need God to build us new houses or let us have children--we do this on our own and God can do what he does, be it expanding his influence with miracles or whatever you believe God does. That is the major problem with Black & White: you can never play the role of a God (the game's major premise) because you are too busy micromanaging every little detail. I'd love to play through the game more as a God instead of micromanager. I'd use a fireball to set a building on fire to get some belief. Then I'd cast a water miracle to put out the fire and then supply the necessary wood to the builders to build the structure back up to get more belief.

Black & White’s best feature is the creature. It is very original, and fun at times, but has plenty of issues. My creature (ape) is flat-out dumb, and don't tell me I've trained him wrong. I’ve spent hours training him to eat fish (and fish only), but when I give him a pile of fish when his hunger meter is above 80%, he tosses it on the ground! I’ve also trained him to focus casting only two miracles, heal and wood, but I’ve caught him casting several water miracles. And no matter how many times I beat him for doing that, he still does it!

While I’m on the topic of the creature, the fighting system is crappy. What were they thinking when they made this system? Queuing up more than two or three attacks is suicide because the creature doesn’t know what to do. And there’s no way to remove an attack command. I know I speak for a lot of other people when I say I’d rather have a 2D fighting system similar to Street Fighter than the current fighting system.

It doesn’t seem that Lionhead is bent on fixing these issues. Last I heard, the latest patch will not be fixing all of these annoyances. The patch’s major feature is allowing the creature to dance to mpegs. Big deal.

Sorry for rambling on, but I’m upset about paying $35 for such a piece of garbage. Thanks for reading.

I entirely agree. The reviewers who praised it were not quite out of their mind, but they just saw the fun features of a game that you notice at first, without realising the lack of depth. Being a deity is about macro-management, not micro-management. The AI of the creature has been overpraised, but in any case it is entirely cancelled out by the AI of the villagers.

The entire interface stinks, the fighting included, and having to play through the whole tutorial every time you want to play again is maddening. I took this game back quickly.

Peter.

You can cancel queued up commands by left clicking. You are given the option to skip the tutorial when you restart the game. If you don't want to micromanage, be an evil god, they have much less paperwork. The site with your review seems to have been replaced by someone's dodgy search engine, but judging by the comments I've seen I don't think I've missed much. Black & White rocks.

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