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Platform Filters:   All Platforms  Xbox   GameCube   PlayStation 2   PC   Game Boy Advance   Site Sections:   Updates  News   Games   Publishers   Developers   Reviews   Previews   Release Dates   Editorials   Glossary   Contact Us		Review:       9th April 2001: Black and White  Is it the god of all games, or should it be banished to hell? Posted by Marc Hull - PC - UK and Europe So far, Populous has been perhaps the most famous 'god game'. Made by a company called Bullfrog back in 1987, it increased the ego of millions of people, giving them control over cities, and trying to steal control from other gods. Now, the creator of that game has gone on to create Black and White, having founded a new company known as Lionhead Studios. So, can the god game of all time be bettered by it's creator? First off, things have obviously advanced a lot from Populous' time. As you'd expect from one of the most anticiapted games of this year, Black and White is in full 3D, with some absolutely amazing lighting effects that occur when you, as a god, cast spells. The thing you cast spells on is a village, or a collection of them, and in turn you must get the villagers to believe in you, worship you, and increase your power. This is done by either impressing and helping them (the 'white' method), or torturing and terrorising them (the 'black' method). Throughout the game your two consciences try to persuade you to do one or the other, but really it's completely up to you. How you react to situations in the game affects what the game looks like, and what you face later on. If you are mean to villagers and force them to worship you then the world starts to look more like hell. However, if you are kind a gentle to your followers then the world turns into a nice, sunny Eden. However, as well as just managing your own village, there are other villages that must be taken over, and other gods to battle with for supremacy. Unfortunately, you cannot interact with much outside your own villages, so instead you have to send a physical representation of yourself out to do your dirty work - your avatar. A short way through the training-style first section of the game, you're given a choice of three creatures to take on as your avatar. The creature you select starts off thick and scared, and it's your task to fashion him as you like. He'll quickly start experimenting with things, and you simply hit him if he does something you don't like and reward him if he helps you. You can also teach him new things by attaching a leash to him and showing him what to do - after a few goes he'll try to copy you, although more often than not he'll get it wrong. Catering for the demands of your villagers isn't an easy task. Although the game may start off with you just helping out the occasional person and following a strict set of signs, soon you're left to your own devises and you have to make sure that you don't let belief in you dwindle while still continuing with the main task for each 'level'. What is particularly difficult is keeping up your power by making your villagers worship you, and not letting them worship to much and therefore starving them to death. If you let them stop worshipping you then you lose your ability to cast spells at will, and cannot impress other villages so easily. It's partly this balance that is the main problem with Black and White. Sometimes you're so occupied with satisfying the needs of your villagers that you don't have time or resources to complete the task for each level. A lot of the time the villagers seem to want too much and you can't help them quickly enough. What makes this worse is that as your followers decrease, so does your power, so your ability to act quickly decreases. Sometimes your consciences keep warning you about things you don't know how to prevent, and it all starts to get out-of-hand. Due to this, and the fact that making any kind of progress seems to take a long time even when you're giving it your full attention, and you'll start to see why Black and White has its fair share of problems. The game offers loads of innovation, and you'll love the first few hours of playing as you make yourself and your avatar more powerful and learn the basics of what the game has to offer, but soon the complexity can become overwhelming and you may end up destroying your villages in frustration. The interface for Black and White has been designed for ease of use - everything can be done through the mouse, and with minimal need for menus. However, this does sometimes make controlling the camera quite difficult, and traversing long distances can take longer than necessary. Also, there seems to be no way of selecting many objects at once. This is particularly annoying when you've run out of something like wood, there's a forest a short way away, and you want to transport the trees back to your village. Unless you spend the time teaching your avatar to perform the task, you'll need to transport each individual tree one by one. The same thing applies to villagers - you want to move some villagers from one place to another, maybe to populate a new village, and you have to move them individually. When you buy Black and White, you have a great want to love it. Being such a big game, it can be forgiven for having a few problems, but sometimes they cloud the fun behind the game. There are so many great, new ideas in the game that it well deserves a good score, but there are some niggles that stop it from being a definite must-buy. Not that this will stop sales of the game from going through the roof! Marc Hull             Latest Images:		Review Scores:    Graphics:   Sound:   Gameplay:   Length:   Overall: Click here for our Review Score Guidelines.  Review Summary:  This takes god games to the next level - there's absolutely loads to do, and every game is customised as you react to the different situations that arise. The game quickly becomes quite involved and sometimes there's too much going on for you to progress with any speed. Some minor camera and movement problems also prevent the game from getting top scores, but overall this is something you'll have loads of fun with regardless.  Related Games:  Black and White for PC  9  Screenshots  1  Review Click here for All Game Information.
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