"One of the wittiest, original games ever made."

After 3 years in development, a game can achieve notoriety in many ways; take a look at the failed Daikatana, for instance. Thankfully, Black and White sets hope for every other game long since overdue, as it is without a doubt worth the three year wait.

The game works like this: You are a God. Yep, it's that simple. After the saving the life of a small child (according to the introduction), you then receive guidance via two consciences: one good, one evil. Through their advice, you will soon become a force to be reckoned with. But, here's the twist (which isn't much of a twist for those of you who've been hanging on to every word about this game since its inception): You decide, through the way you treat the world around you, whether you will be a benevolent god or an evil god. Choose good, and you will earn spells (known in the game as Miracles) that help the people around you; you can rain on dry crops, heal the wounded, etc. Choose evil, and your character learns Miracles of mass destruction to keep the pitiful human folk in line. As you progress in the game, you will undoubtedly meet other gods vying for control of the population, which you will need to defeat in order to reign supreme over the people.
One of the really nifty features about this game, though, is the fact that you're not alone in your endeavor. Your god, very early on in the game, gets to choose a Creature, which is an anthropomorphic animal that stands about 20 feet tall. That is, at first. As time passes, you will need to train your creature to work and do the things you want it to do, which is more difficult than it seems. Trying to teach a twenty foot tall creature to stop eating people is a laborious (and hilarious) task. Eventually, with enough care, your Creature will eventually grow into a 100-foot tall beast capable of doing combat against various other creatures of the land, as well as taking some of the burden of people-caretaking off of you. Of course, in the same fashion that you yourself can be good or evil depending on your actions, so can your Creature, and it's appearance changes accordingly.

GRAPHICS: 9
Due to its years in development, the graphics look slightly low-res, even with detail maxed out. However, they are still very good, especially the close ups of your Creature as you reward or punish it (the tiger's eyes are slightly glassy and look around amusingly). The biggest example is the people, who are blocky and don't have moving mouths. However, considering how amazing this game sucks you in (and the fact that your consciences having moving lips), you'll be too busy to care. The miracles are especially good looking, though.

SOUND: 10
Sound effects are crisp, clear, and suited for everything. Your Creature crashes its feet as it moves on the land, your miracles make proper ethereal tones, voice-acting is superb...I could go on and on. The music is also excellent, sporting a wide variety of tunes that perfectly match the sim/exploration environment.

CONTROL: 8
The only reason control is this low is because of the the movement cursors. It's sometimes hard to get a good look at something because the cursor works under a click-here-and-drag system. Turning and looking up are best accomplished by using the keyboard. However, sometimes the controls are so intuitive it's amazing. When punishing and rewarding your creature, you use your hand in the same way you'd use it in real life. A soft, graceful movement acts as a soft petting and praises the Creature, while a more vicious sliding movement acts as a slap in the face. It's really very amazing. Combat isn't too difficult to deal with either; mere clicking accomplishes tasks that fighting games require 50 button presses to pull off.

OVERALL: 10
You will not stop playing this game, not even to write college papers or finish business reports. The game is so much fun that it's hard to even imagine there's a world outside your computer. Never has a game had this sort of impact on me. I guess it's really all in the details: your Creature has to answer the call of nature, a bunch of sailors sing a song (which is hilariously combined with one of those old bouncing dot 'sing-along' things), people run in terror as they suffer from vicious acts, screaming bloody murder, and last but not least, you can ASSIGN people to do nothing but keep the population going (wink, wink, nudge, nudge, say no more). Actually, I'd say more, but I need to let you get away from this review and buy this game. I've recommended many games in the past, but never one quite so ravenously as this. It's that good.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 04/03/01, Updated 04/03/01