9 Apr 2001 ar   » (Observer)

I dosed up on 'V' (the drink, not the classic 80s soap-fi series) last Friday night and dived into Black & White.

For the most part it's a great game that lives up to the promise of playing god in a virtual world. For example, on the first island there are lots of silver quests (ie side plots) for various things. A particularly satisfying moment for me was such a silver quest for a remote hermit mountain guy who said he wouldn't believe in me until he had seen my creature. I dragged the creature all the way over there, only to have him respond "is that it?" I smote that bastard by throwing him halfway across the island into a mountain. Quite amusing. Yea verily I am a vengeful god.

Does anyone else find it a bloody complicated game? Fortunately there's a great tutorial which flows nicely into the story, and is pretty fun to play, but I find myself reading the manual and all of the helpful signposts a fair bit also. Maybe it's because the entire thing is a combination of RPG/RTS/fighting games (plus more)...

The creature stuff is interesting, but to be honest I don't really see the point. It's a bit frustrating teaching the creature, as they don't always learn what you want them to learn. (It doesn't help that I was punishing my creature to get him to eat something!) I guess all will become clear as he becomes smarter and more able.

The combat system really has me baffled. I've never been very good at the mortal combat sytle of game, but it took me about 3 gos before beating that ogre (Skeg?) on the first island. I still don't know what they mean by pre- selecting moves during combat.... ?

On the second island the realtime strategy stuff really comes into its own, and I really liked it. I can imagine that building up a village and fighting other gods in this way would be lots of fun, if a little difficult. Was pleased to see that not all is lost after you cut down all the forests - as a god you can just make more (it's a miracle!).

What else? Oh yer, the graphics are absolutely stunning. Bear in mind you will need a grunty graphics card though. My G400MAX can _just_ cut it, but would be great to add a few FPSs here and there. Also, try to get a wheely mouse, makes the camera control a fair bit easier (though I still get lost sometimes). Anyone know how to make the thumb buttons on the MS Explorer mouse work?

Anyway in summary I really look forward to delving more into this game - it really is an excellent, genre breaking piece of work.

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