527th played so far
Genre: Life Simulation/Strategy
Platform: PC
Year of Release: 2001
Developer: Lionhead Studios
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Black & White isn’t a game we’re going into blindly. We’ve both played – I don’t think I ever finished it, but I always enjoyed playing the game a lot.
Black & White is a god game from Peter Molyneux, one of the first games where the designer overpromised and didn’t quite deliver (also see Fable). The twist this time is that you control a giant creature who influences events and can be molded by you. Sort of.
Our Thoughts
Black & White is pretty much what we described before, a god game where you encourage your tribe to build up an area, but don’t have much control yourself. You can move them to place to get them to do jobs, but you’re just as often hoping they will do the right thing.
But the creature makes all the difference. Again, he has his own mind, but you can leash him to teach him things. One makes him nicer, one makes him more evil, the third helps him learn faster. He has his own personality, formed by your action – do nice things around him (helped by the leash) and he’ll do the same, do bad things and he’ll copy that. You can punish him by hitting him, or scratching him to reward him and teach him behaviour. Add to that that he can learn to cast spells and manipulate the world in the same way you can, and you get an interesting challenge, where you have to balance watching him, teaching him and tending to the rest of the world.
All of this is in an interface that tries to integrate as much as possible. Therea re no real menus (other than an option screen that requires temple access in the first place) and so all control is through the hand cursor you’re using. It’s minimal and immersive, but at times annoying – for example, a lack of minimap navigation means you can get lost and have some trouble trying to find a mission location again.
But it works. The interaction feels more seamless and the world and creature responsive enough to seem impressive, showing off the AI. It gets you and is an amazing toy. Some of the missions don’t work well (and I can’t get the hang of creature fighting), but it’s all good enough to get you through.
Final Thoughts
Creaky around the edges, the game is ambitious in a way that doesn’t always quite work out. Where it does, though, the game is immersive and fun, setting up a great toybox to play around with. The storyline adds to that, but enough of it just has you wanting to see what the game brings out next.