Black & White: Creature Isle

"A good game? It depends on how much you liked the original."

Black and White is probably one of the most famous games with the most mixed reviews in recent history: there are people who absolutely love it, those who absolutely loathe it, and a very narrow middle ground.
How much this game is worth to you ultimately depends on which of the above categories you fit into.

Story: The original Black and White isn't known for its dynamic plot, which basically consisted of ''defeat Nemesis and his godly lackeys.'' The story in Creature Isle is only slightly more complicated (and I mean VERY slightly).
The synopsis for those of you who haven't read a preview of the game: the singing missionaries (why won't they just die?) from land one in the original game come across an island with no gods. After a cutscene with the missionaries convincing the local tribe of your mightiness, you appear on the scene with your creature. During the course of the game, you learn of a band of creatures on the island, called the Brotherhood. This motley crew of creatures all hail from different places and lost/fled from their masters. If your creature can complete the trials that the members of the Brotherhood set, he will have the honor of joining them. You also learn that there's a female creature amongst their ranks, and that your creature may be able to get his groove thang on if he can impress her.
The problem is that this is where the plot ends. The trials you complete don't affect the plotline in any way. Basically, after the first hour, the plot ends and won't come back into play until near the end of the game.

Audio/Graphics: The audio and graphics are, for all intensive purposes, the same as the original Black and White. However, they were able to add on a couple of nice additions. One of these is that creature's mouths will move when they're speaking. This doesn't sound like a big deal, but when you compare them to the creature guide in the first game, it makes the game a little more believable. Unfortunately, they also gave the missionaries a new song. Basically, if you hated their music before, you'll wish you'd killed them when you still had the chance.

Gameplay: It's a relief to know that the main focus in Creature Isle is mainly the creature this time. Unlike in Black and White, you don't need to keep an eagle eye on your villages to keep them running, so you can focus on the trials.
Unfortunately, the trials are in and of themselves a bit of a mixed bag. Some of the trials (like marbles, the tiger cannon trial, and the giant board game) are actually somewhat entertaining when taken to a creature scale. Unfortunately, there are a fair share that are boring as sin. The only way you can fail Arkle's farming trial is if you have the memory of a goldfish, and it takes several game days to complete. Others, like Guddle's shepherding trial (where you get to round up 10 sheep into a pen...lucky you) are 20 minutes of pure boredom.
I hesitate to factor in Tyke in the gameplay category, because ultimately how difficult it is to train him depends on how well you've raised your own creature. The better trained your creature is, the better trained Tyke will be. That's pretty much all there is to it. At times, however, it can be a delicate balancing act between raising your feathered friend and completing trials.

Replay value: While there are a couple of additional things to find and a few sidequests that aren't required, ultimately there's a low replay value on this game. Once your creature enters the Brotherhood and/or wins Eve's heart, there isn't much else to do besides continue training Tyke.
If Creature Isle was as long as the original Black and White, this wouldn't be a problem, except that Creature Isles is short. It took me 2 days playing off and on to complete all the trials. While you can replay some of the trials over, unless you find one that you really love, you're probably not going to want to do any of the trials over again. The replay value could have been better if Creature Isle was backwards compatible with Black and White (as Lionhead claimed it would be), but as of the date of this review this has not yet happened.

Final thoughts: I remember reading a review somewhere that said that the band of the Brotherhood would provoke a lot of arguments between the haves and have-nots. To which I respond, ''why?'' None of the trials require any extensive brainpower to complete, and you can easily complete them all in under 5-6 hours. And, you'd think that the band would give your creature advanced abilities or competence, but as far as I can tell, it's a shiny thing that it wears, and that's it.
It's also debatable as to whether Tyke is an asset to your creature or not. It seems that his actions don't impress villagers, and that Lionhead apparently didn't take the time to program the distinction between your creature and your opponent's creature into his feathery little brain.
After much debate, I give Creature Isle 7/10. It has a lot of ups and downs, but for 20 bucks I was expecting a longer game. As a final note, only consider buying this game if you liked the original Black and White and your creature. You're going to be stuck with your creature for a few hours. You might as well like him.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 01/29/02, Updated 01/29/02