18 Apr 2001 ar   » (Observer)

My view on this game has gone from white to black.

Micromanagement of the villagers is a PITA. I'm stuck on the second land, and whilst I was off busily getting the next village coverted to believe in me (which was kinda fun actually, with the creature dancing around and stuff), my home villagers all but died off! I'm left with 7 of the little buggers, and they were ALL worshipping me, none were procreating or getting food or wood.

So this led to me spending 15 mins playing the dating game. Pick a male villager and try to match him up with a female. Even finding a spare female was a task in itself! (Hey I can remember when this took a substantial proportion of my real life, why I'd want to go back and do it in a game is beyond me!)

So anyway whilst I'm doing all this, the silver quest that I triggered in the new village is counting down the seconds, and I cant complete it because there are no worshippers left for me to cast miracles with! Now they think I'm an evil god. I'm not evil, just overworked.

And if all this wasnt enough to contend with, you've got to think about training the creature. Not an onerous task, except when you're off doing something and the little 'whitey' guy pops up and says something like "from now on your creature will eat more of that kind of thing". WHAT bloody kind of thing? He could have barbequed half my village for all I know. This means you have to instantly focus on the creature and reward/punish him whenever he does something. Annoying.

So just too much micromanagement. I guess this is 'challenging' in some games, but I guess I expected more puzzle solving and moral dillemas rather than perpetually feeding worshipping villagers. Maybe I should be more of a vengeful god and avoid all the stress, the little bastards can fend for themselves!

Other minor annoyances. The gesture system sucks; I cant seem do it when I want to, and vice versa. Save game takes ages. Occasional crashes. Oh, and "We must conquor Lethys' villages ally!". Say no more.

Sometimes I just want to blow shit up. Is that too much to ask? Serious Sam looks like fun.

Anyway, think I'll give B&W another go, this time as an evil god. Hopefully the rumoured patch will come out and make the game easier to play. We shall see.

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