Black & White: Creature Isle

"This game is not nearly as good and its predecessor, but this game still deserves a good bash."

Introduction
Welcome to the world of black and white, a world beyond your imagination. Black and white: creature isles is one of the few 'god' games out there. What I mean by that is the way it includes small elements of other genres, and mixes them up and out of the oven comes black and white: creature isles.

Graphics: Excellent: 9
This is where black and white: creature isles excels. Awesome graphics. Unlike most games, the graphics aren't too blocky. The creature is the only part of the game which you ever notice anything wrong with the graphics. (When you feed him and get him to maximum fat, his stomach looks rather sharp and pointy). The land is almost perfect, where it seems that no stretch of grass has the same texture. Finally, we get to the villagers and their little buildings. As you can imagine, villagers were relatively easy to design, and that was because they are so tiny (about as big as a spoon, when on maximum zoom). Despite their incredible smallness, the graphics of villagers is still impressive.

Gameplay: Slightly above average: 6
Gameplay, a major letdown here. While the land in creature isles was huge, and the amount of trials will take you a while to do, the gameplay was lacking. Lets take a closer look at the trials: a trial is a gold story scroll. This means it is vital to complete before you can advance to another. I did not like this. The trials were designed to suit a large amount of different players, meaning that quite a few trails got rather boring after a while, assuming you liked it anyway. Of course, the trails aren't that bad. Some are great fun, like naxo's fighting trail and madino's bowling trail. It's just that you like about 25% of the trails, don't mind another 25%, and find the other 50% a real drag. But at least the trials are original, okay? Wait, I seem to have missed a vital: micro management. Micro management boosted the games score by a point or so. The villages are beautiful, and great to expand if you get bored of trials. You can build houses to amazing wonders. Both are a great fun, whether you like to have a large village or high belief.

Story: Slightly above average: 6
Another letdown, sadly. Creature isles was not meant to be a story game. Here is the story: after the sailors (remember, those annoying ****ers from land one of black and white?) crash-land on creature isles, they head to the nearest village to seek refuge. There, they gather around a campfire and tell the villagers of the magnificent god who once ruled their land, with the help of his enormous creature. The villagers believe the sailors, and, hey presto, a vortex opens transporting you and your creature to the island. You are told about the brotherhood, and that you must complete 16 trails to join and meet with eve, a female! That is it, and it is all told at the start of the game. As you play through the game, your only source of story is the trails. Sad, I suppose, but creature isles will draw you away from and need for a story with its sheer vastness.

Originality: Excellent: 9
Whoa, originality overload! Sweet. This is what really impressed me, and made this game stand out from the rest. In all my gaming days, I have never come across a game with such a blend of gameplay, micro management and humor. Villages are like nothing I've ever seen before, and the creature is something I could have only hoped for. The creatures are all unique, cute, and funny in their own way. Very original, but you would have to play this before you could understand what I mean.

Sound: Awesome!: 8
This game surely has the best sound effects I have played in a very long time. The music is calm and beautiful, which goes nicely with the lands. Other sounds, such as lightning, flying rocks and your creature sound very, very real. Each action has a clear sound, and can be heard quieter or louder depending on how close you are. And, I swear that the sound is so good that you can tell where something is happening, even if you can't see it.

Re playability: Below average: 4
Sad to say, but once the game is finished, there is no reason to play it again. Period. The thing is, once you finished black and white, you might play again and get a new creature, you may want to play good or evil, or even to complete the quests in another way. In creature isles, once a creature's trail is finished, you can swap to that creature of fight is. With all the trails finished, you can select any creature. The trials can only be completed in one way. So, that leaves good and evil. In this game, the focus is trails, so it is unlikely you will pay any attention to the villagers. However, if you wanted a challenge, you should try completing the trails and managing villages well without ever going evil :)

Overall: 9 + 6 + 6 + 9 + 8 + 4 = 42*100/60 = 70/100 (7/10)

Buy this game: Yes, but I hope you've got some patience.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 10/18/03