Black & White

"Deciding between good and evil - it's your choice."

Considered one of the most popular games and had been given the title ‘Best PC Game of the Year’ (if I’m not mistaken), Black & White is arguably enjoyable, despite having a few bugs in the game that may slightly decrease full enjoyment of the game. Black & White, in short, is absolutely mesmerizing.

Graphics – 9.6
The visuals in the game is completely breath-taking. Um, of course, you’ll need a completely fast computer to get those graphics run smoothly without glitches. Slower computers, though, will render the graphics horrible with absolutely minimal details available and weird colours splashed across the screen. That is, the experience of a friend I have.

Of course, there is also the brilliant lighting effects, like the sun during a sunset. Those things in the game – details – though may not be as great as one might had expected, they’re still good. As you roam about your world in Eden, you’ll see the beautiful colours and details set in the game, but there the polygons might be slightly visible if you zoom in too much.

Music and Sound Effects – 9.1
Not too bad... the background music that you’ll hear is just OK, and the sound effects are neat – like when you throw across a fireball or zap with a lightning bolt. The voices are OK, though some might be slightly annoying. Yup, a god does have a voice.

Gameplay – 9.8
An absolutely amazing effort in maintaining and creating a game like this – and I must compliment the creators of this game. It’s created, if I’m not mistaken, within 2 years only. Black & White is basically a god-simulation, where you take over the role as a god – and becoming either good or evil, depends on you.

You do have a ‘pet’, called a Creature where you can train it to be either good or bad. Your Creature will develop its own personality, and it will learn gradually (learning is a gradual process) all the things that you might want to teach, such as Miracles, or certain actions like raising Totems, helping villagers, etc. By watching you, you will be a role model for your creature.

The fun thing in the game is that you will have complete freedom in what you will be doing. This is the common example from the game itself: a woman pleads to you for your help to save her sick brother who’s out in the rain. You can smash her house with a rock, kill her, bring her corpse in front of her brother so that he’ll die of shock, and many more other endless choices. Those are, the evil ones (if you are intending to be evil). The good choices are limited though, and you’ll have to help them in what they wanted to you to do.

There are only several lands that you will travel to in Eden, meaning that there are very few places that you could go, in the storyline. Even though there are very few lands, the objectives in the game could keep you going long enough, in trying to keep up with the goal. There are of course side-quests (called Silver Scrolls) that you could go to gain more Miracles, new Creatures or other rewards besides in completing them. The rewards could only be given if you are doing it in a good way, but completing the quests evilly will result in perhaps the same Miracle, different Miracles, and most likely, none at all.

Your villagers could worship you at the Temple, but they’ll be stupid enough not to go looking for food that you, as a god, have to manually supply them with food constantly to prevent them from dying of hunger. But as your villagers worship you, you will gain what is called Prayer Power that will allow you to cast Miracles. There is even an altar where you can sacrifice almost anything (except for stones and rocks), like trees and animals; if you try sacrificing a human being (especially kids), you’ll gain even more Prayer Power.

But there are small bugs in the game that will be slightly annoying, but some glitches will be an advantage to be used as cheats. The bugs could be fixed when the patch that’s downloaded from the Internet is applied.

There are two ‘consciences’ constantly telling you useful hints and tips about what is happening around, and both of them could tell you things to decide whether you should to do the good thing, or the bad thing. It’s pretty funny to have them around, making funny and silly comments occasionally while you’re playing.

Story – 7.5
The story is pretty linear, and for all you know, you’ll have to stop another god named Nemesis from dominating the world – and be the only god.

Replay Value – 8.7
Possibly there will be quite a lot of replay value. Your Creature (more like a virtual pet) can be trained indefinitely so that means the replay value will last longer. Plus, there is a Multiplayer mode where you could play online (I think) and the Skirmish mode could be used to train your Creature.

Overall – 9.6
Black & White is rather enjoyable, the more fun it is when destructing things and hearing the agonized screams of your villagers. There are certain aspects which I’d like to have them enhanced, or ‘repaired’, especially the bugs that are in the game. Well, nothing else is better than having an addictive game to play than none at all. Black & White is a truly powerful game.

White
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+ Great visuals and lighting effects.
+ A unique gameplay for anyone to experience.
+ This game is addictive, and it’ll last for some time.

Black
- There are some bugs here and there…
- Not to mention that you’ll need a powerful computer to get the awesome graphics.
- This game can be hard at times.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 06/14/02, Updated 06/14/02