Black & White
by Electronic Arts
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Our Price: $38.95 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $15.95 (click here) Category: Video Games See more product details |
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Video Game Reviews of Black & White
Customer Review: Underwhelmed
Summary: 2 Stars
I purchased Black and White on the advice of a friend and was told about the fun aspects of training a pet. After playing for several hours I can honestly say I was underwhelmed.
While the game's graphics were good, and I had fun for about an hour playing around with my pet and the world, there was little to keep my interest. I quickly moved onto other games and forget that I had purchased Black and White. For me, there was little substance and little to get me "hooked".
While I do not deny that there is a market for games like Black and White, I do believe that this market demands more challenging and compelling products.
If you make it past an hour, tasks become tedious, lifeless and dull.
Customer Review: Lots of potential cram packed in a mediocre, ultimately disappointing product
Summary: 3 Stars
I have a love/hate relationship with this game. Black And White had so much potential and it p*sses me off to see it squandered. The creature AI is wonderful and I spent MANY hours training my creature, watching it interact with its environment, grow, destroy stuff, etc. But as a "strategy game" this title simply fails on a number of issues. In lieu of the originally scheduled rant documenting my fall from Black and White loving grace I am going to summarizes my thoughts on this title.
Point 1: Interaction with the creature IS THE GAME, and the game designers dropped the ball. Instead of involving the creature in a number of meaningful quests, they regurgitated a bunch of trite puzzles like the Tower of Hanoi and bog the player down with micromanaging an extremely dull "strategy game" -- envision playing StarCraft WITHOUT military units, where everyone plays as the Zerg and you win by having the biggest creep... only it is much worse than that! Honestly, even if the strategy portion of the game were more interesting I am not sure if this could be reconciled with creature interaction so that both are possible. I mean, how do you find time to train and play with your creature when you have a thousand psychotic villagers blaspheming your name and asking you for permission to build houses and breed while an angry enemy god throws fireballs at you! It will be interesting to see if Black and White 2 can solve some of these issues.
Point 2: The interface is innovative and also needlessly complicated. Spell and Leash Gestures are particularly questionable, especially when combined with the strange navigational interface (a God should not have to move by pulling itself on the ground with its hands for Christ's Sake).
Point 3: The plot is COMPLETELY linear. So much so that, even when it is possible to deviate from "the path", the program just ignores your actions until it gets what it expects. For instance, in lands 3 and 5 I managed to destroy the enemy's temple before taking all of the villages, and the game didn't respond at all until I went back and captured the villages.
Despite my complaints I would recommend buying this game (especially since it is so cheap now), but I also STRONGLY recommend stopping on land 3 and just enjoying yourself with your creature. Having won the game I can tell you that you are not missing anything in the ending (which quite frankly sucks along with most of the plotline preceding it), and level 4 and 5 will have you pulling your hair out. For those who choose not to heed this warning... god help you. :)
Customer Review: Crah and Burn
Summary: 1 Stars
Crash and Burn should have been the name of this gaming attempt. I recently acquired B&W/B&W Creature Isle and would ship them back to EA if the shipping didn't cost more than both games combined. What were they thinking?? I haven't been able to play more than 15 minutes without my system crashing. I've tried the patches, my drivers are up to date and all other games play without incident. There's only one file/solution left to try with these two games and that's using my stand-by file: file 13 aka as "the trash recepticle". Good luck to those who are able to play this one, for I am returning to a tried and true favorite: Civilization III. Good luck and good gaming!! Customer Review: Highly enjoyable, but 50/50...
Summary: 5 Stars
This game will apeal to half the simulation game lovers. It is a highly realistic training micromanaging masterpeice. However if you are the sort of player that likes civillization, or action type games, you may have trouble enjoying this. B&W is more for the Sims lovers. This game tends to be more about the journey and the actual time played (not rushed) then about a finished result or purpose.
One problem with this game seems to be the later levels. Past level three the gameplay starts to get a bit confusing and a little frustrating, the story also seems to fall apart a bit. Its almost like the game developers spent years making the start as incredable as possible but then rushed the end to hit a deadline. I personally found the first two levels the most enjoyable.
On the plus side, the color and graphics in this game is an experience unequaled!
Customer Review: Frustrating!
Summary: 1 Stars
I played this game for about a month, but it got so tedious and frustrating that I quit. I am 12 years old and I've beaten Civilization III and other games like that but this game I just couldn't finish. Do yourself a favour, and don't even try it.