Black & White (produced by Lionhead Studios) is game of great import in the interactive media world. B&W pushes the envelope of gaming technology and story, while managing to make the game a riot to play. This game is the brainchild and Magnum Opus of legendary game designer Peter Moulyneux, most famous for his Populous and Dungeon Keeper series of games. The man is a veritable genius, managing to combine, to great effect, several different genres of gameplay into one driving game. It is both a fighting game and a roleplaying game. It is also a real-strategy game and a god-game.

The fundamental goal of Black & White revolves around a simple objective: become the most worshipped and influential god in the land of Eden. However, that simple goal is expanded and enhanced by a dynamic world, stunning graphics and special effects and a story that is both driven and open ended. In fact, the story itself is so open ended, that as you progress through the story, the decisions you make will impact the way the people worship you. There develops a constant series of moral and ethical conundrums around the story- you can be kind and benevolent and help out your worshippers, or you can be apathetic and simply ignore them. Or, you can become evil and fling your villagers about and toss them into trees and mountains; whatever your heart desires.

Another aspect of the game is the creature. As your avatar in the physical realm, your chosen giant animal is your hand to the people of Eden. You can interact with your avatar/giant animal, stroking him or slapping him... There is a complete system of rewards and punishments, to train your creature to be kind and generous to the villagers, or vindictive and evil, throwing them about. As you encounter other gods, you will undoubtedly encounter their avatars as well. When two giant animals want to fight, the game enters a ‘combat arena mode’, staying within the graphics engine, and the game temporarily goes from a replaying/RTS game to a vicious fighting platform.

The artwork and graphics in Black & White are simply amazing, with a fully dynamic and 3D world, in which individual trees are rendered, individual villagers, cows, sheep, and buildings, everything in luscious 3D. Though the graphic settings are scaleable, when you look at the splendor of the world of Eden at the highest resolutions and color depths, you’ll lose yourself in the beauty and splendor of the world, everything being rendered realistically, with full gravity, friction and water effects. Example: you can pick up a rock with your godly hand (a beautiful looking rock at that) and send it flying across the landscape to crash into a wooden house, damaging it. You watch as the rock impacts that house, and the house is broken at the point where you smashed it, with little clouds of dust rising and splinters of wood falling. Or, you could cast a magic spell, which is powered by your worshippers, and light a forest on fire with a fireball, and hurl burning trees at your rival god’s villages. Nothing is impossible in this game, and the technology behind it is powerful enough to back up that claim.

The only issues that are a minus to this game are it’s rather steep system requirements (PII450 with a TNT2) and it’s interface is a bit hard to get used to. But once you get used to the game, it is an amazing game to play, with an engrossing storyline and excellent gameplay, augmented by excellent graphics and sound. I wholeheartedly recommend it.


Recommended: Yes