Not the jackson song, the game! Just wondering how many people have played, enjoyed, completed, seen or have never heard of the masterful/terrible (choose your poison) Black & White.

I'm assuming everybody has heard of it at least? It went down a critical storm (not a zelda type media-tycoon, but a lot of press from the non-gaming press). For those that haven't it is a God sim with a difference, your the God, and you have to exert your influence (sometimes indirectly) to gain more followers. The more people worship you, the further your influence spreads, and the more the powers increase.

Two main things seperate this from RTS. Firstly, you only have basic control over your people. You can pick them up, drop them, throw them, drown them, burn them, hide them, strand them... a lot of stuff, but you can't order them like a real time strategy would have you do. You can set them to gather resources, breed, do missionary work or... well that's about it. They will have needs (more homes, civic buildings, food, wood, protection, etc.) which gains you more influence and them will stop nagging more if you provide. With the uninteractive control you have comes a way of control, albeit an indirect one. Your creature, aka. mini-me, aka. demi god. This little bugger, and you have your choice of bastard, is an 'AI' creature that you have to grow and feed (or let the bugger work it for himself), but more importantly train. You can instruct it to help gather resources, train it to cast spells, fight, destory, maim, kill, love, help, crap (incidently, you can beat it and instruct it not to crap, or to eat its own turd if your that way inclined).

The major thing about black and white, and where it gets its title, is that your a God, you can be the most evil son of a bitch to ever walk the heavens or be some bitch ass choir boy, the choice is up to you... or so went the guide as you were busy flinging your villagers as far as possible.

There are some major ciriticisms. B&W can have a steep learning curve, be very difficult to control (no real GUI, you have the hand of god you need to use to manipulate the your environment and position), the lack of direct control is fustrating, your creature is retarded and never does what you want (even after 2minute beating sessions), matches can last for hours, the villagers are little bitches, as well as some other outspoken issues. With all that said, it is extremely unique and innovative... it tried a lot of stuff that was quirky (name villagers after people in your contact list anyone?), and a lot of stuff it didn't quite pull off, but it still deserves a lot of credit in my book.


The game itself is pretty old now, although it doesn't look half bad (I just installed and play it at 1600x1200 and it looks extremely 'nice'), but the reason I reinstalled was because I really want to get into some game that isn't really commiting so it can eat up some time before I go off to the pub [i was thinking of an online game @ first, but I really can't be arsed with that marklarky atm and it can be extremely crap], and because... yes kiddies... a sequel is on the way. I'm very much looking forwards to this. The first was great, despite its quirks, its difficult and very strategic, and this sequel offers some major innovations and changes. The graphics of course are updated, and very suiting of a game of this kind:
<img src="http://pcmedia.gamespy.com/pc/image/volcano02_1085179969.jpg" width=800>
<img src="http://pcmedia.gamespy.com/pc/image/blackwhite2_051304_007.jpg" width=800>
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<img src="http://pcmedia.gamespy.com/pc/image/blackwhite2_051304_003.jpg" width=800>
<img src="http://pcmedia.gamespy.com/pc/image/bw2diary6_040704_003.jpg" width=800>
<img src="http://pcmedia.gamespy.com/pc/image/bw2diary6_040704_002.jpg" width=800>
<img src="http://pcmedia.gamespy.com/pc/image/march04_bandw2pc__032604_000.jpg" width=800>
<img src="http://pcmedia.gamespy.com/pc/image/march04_bandw2pc__032604_001.jpg" width=800>
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I luved this game... in fact I REALY liked this game... it was a lot better in consept than in exacution, somthing that I hope will be solved in the new one evolution. (In this one you start out with a load of caveman sims and have to provoke them to evolve into space faring socity)

I found that as you played the game though the "amazing" ai of the animal got less and less impressive than wat you first think. The first coupole of times I played I couldn't get the bloody thing to grow properly. Though now there are loads of guides around so you can figure it out.

The best course I found was to have a evil god (me be evile... hmmmmm can you feel thw power!!) and for the creature to be good. For example I demanded that the people make human sacrifices to give me the super charhed power making my god battels always a winner, but had the creature as a good guy..

Also if you like creature stuff more than rts killing gods then the add on pack is a lot better idea for you than the original game... creature island I think it is called.

This ment tha tthe CREATURE did all the watering of the crops, HE would assign breeders, farmers etc etc, put out fires, encourage the little dudes to have parties and dance all night with em etc etc. The creature did all that leaving me to fight it out god style.

Remeber that you can stay in the first level as long as you want before moving to a area with rival gods, so spend a lot of time training your little guy before you leave.

And how! I know a lot of games companies are raved about for innovation (which in my book is going to be the survival technique when graphics totally level out)... this one was inovation... too much so in fact, that as you say, technology lags behind. There were so many little things too, can't wait for the new one.



Downloading it as I type, but the creature annoys the hell out of me sometimes. little bastard! Need to go back and train him properally. I hear that its actually pretty damn intelligent, the only thing he can't do is properally associate actions with consequences ie. if he accidently drops a rock on a village, if you beat him, he thinks its something to do with the rock, not destorying a village and half the population by accident

I own the original... didn't even play the demo infact, just went out and bought it. Only other games I've done that with for the pc (this is machines with demos) was JK2, Duke3d and Quake

I only really played on it a few times though and then had to leave it (exams I think it was ), so although i know the basic story and what have you, I don't think I'm particularly good at it atm, since I only just reinstalled 2 days ago. That, and the presentation/update of Black and White 2 at E3 sparked this thread.

Check out the game peeps

is there a new black and white game coming ???

lmao, sharp as a button as usual there Shurlock.

Yes, its due out later this year, its been in development before Black and White was even released and those awesome screenshots are from this years E3. The development time has been well in excess of the original, over four years now. Should be awesome if it lives up to the original.

I have played this game, but never really got into it. Had a bit of fun throwing things/ppl around, played it for a week or so. I could see the depth and understand why ppl liked it, just not my cup of coffee.

Got it off kazaa way back, but it didn't work. I might have to give it another try. Or not. I have to decide if I have the time and HDD space.

it eats loadsa time

Thus my dilemma