Rating: 
Summary: Fun Advanced Frustration
Review: This is a really interesting and deep game that is crippled by a few minor issues. Managing the villagers really sucks. I was going to download the soccer add-on for when they have no desires, but quickly realized that they ALWAYS want something. It's impossible to keep them happy all of the time. Secondly, the gesture system for miracles is a major pain. It seems that whenever you need to cast a miracle in a hurry (water, lightning, heal, etc), you're apt to make the wrong gesture and end up with a useless miracle like teleport. The developers should have enabled keyboard shortcuts for miracles - at least while fighting another creature.The creature is obviously the best part of the game. It's pretty neat when you see this skinny little know-nothing chimp grow into a godzilla-sized avatar doing the macarena to impress villagers.
Rating: 
Summary: Addiction has a new name
Review: I love this game, from the graphics to the unusual story line. You will pretty much become addicted to b&w, get irritated but keep playing. <frustration similair to EverQuest>
But I would suggest it to most gamers. =)
Rating:
Summary: Interface woes
Review: Sure, this is one phenomenal game - the stuff it's trying to do far eclipses anything we've seen before. Problem is, it tries too hard. I still have trouble with the interface control after hours of playing, I can't get my beastie to be good (just evil), and those freakin' villagers are a constant pain. In the words of Edward de Bono: "Simplify, simplify!"
Rating: 
Summary: Why can't I pick no stars?
Review: Brutal thats all I have to say. I read alot of online reviews on most computer sites and eventhough many of them gave it top billing I could tell from the type of game that I would hate it. (So I guess I am biased from the outset.) However a friend of mine raved about it and my brother had bought it and said it was okay. So I grabbed his disk and gave it a shot. Glad I never bought it. I have a brand new rig and the sound and talking chop out on me. Doesn't do it with anything else so I will blame the game. Strike One. Secondly although it says I get to be God. I don't think gods like to babysit people that are dumber and more helpless then my 2 year old son. Strike Two. Lastly the tasks are so mundane that I would rather file my nails (and maybe my teeth) Help rescue the drowning fishermen!! If you fish you should be able to swim. I let them drown. Help some guys build a boat! If they can build the boats themselves then by rights they should be able to cut down the trees for wood. Strike Three. After about 5 hours of this game I uninstalled it and just to be safe I formatted my hard drive, just on the off chance that some of this games residues still lurked on my system. I would have broke the CD in half to (for safety reasons) but thankfully it wasn't mine.
Rating:
Summary: Habit forming
Review: Black & White is a powerfully addictive game. You will find yourself playing it for hours with absolutely no awareness that so much time has passed. Mouse and keyboard controls are exceptional. After ten minutes of game play, they are intuitive. Graphics are outstanding. They hold up flawlessly on a 32-bit color 1600 x 1200 pixels display. There is only one problem: you have very little opportunity to delegate authority. You must simultaneously juggle a large number of villager, creature, and opposition deity needs & challenges. Your managerial and logistical skills are tested. But this is one test that you actually enjoy taking.
Rating:
Summary: Sometimes you are not sure it's really a game
Review: The world that Lionhead managed to create is so fantasticly real that it brings up questions of the reality of our world. All the physics are modeled to the smallest detail, objects act like they are supposed to, the trees bend when you drag a rock through the forest the houses break differently dependig on how fast did you thow a rock from what angle and what part did you hit, the cows thown on the groung bend in the flight and then spend some time struggeling to stand up. The AI in the game is fantastic, the creature that you chose at the beginning can truly "think" , compare facts decide in favour of one or another ..it learns from the world around it from villagers, nature, you(as a god), other creatures. A good example of the learning process would be one episode that I obseved: The creature (ape) just learned that he(it) can impress the villagers, so he started doing various trics dancing with then and so on..but then he got hungry and ate a cow but and villaers were impressed so he came to a "conclusion" that he can combine both pleasant emotions and from that day wouldn't do any tricks, he would eat in front of the crowd. This and many more examples of the AI system are amazing and show the level of sophistication never before seen in computer games
Rating:
Summary: Good and bad game, too.
Review: I really looked forward to this game, it all seemed so incredibly cool. Once it was released, I got it, and played it quite often. It was a lot of fun. But after a while it started to wear down. Training my creature went from being fun to being work. Managing the villages just got annoying (I don't CARE if you need wood, get it yourself!). The game has it's merits, and it is quite entertaining, but if you don't have a lot of time and a lot of patience, I have to warn you away from it.
Rating: 
Summary: Relieved to see it isn't just me!
Review: I was excited about B&W in concept, and started out with great intentions of enjoying it. It is beautiful! However, I quickly learned that my creature was obsessed with its own [bathroom] habits . . . that I really hated my obnoxious "good" creature . . . that the wood'n'food were more arbitrary than not . . . and that it is almost impossible to get some of what are supposed to be simple puzzles (the early ones) to stay solved. I'm disappointed and don't recommend this game.
Rating:
Summary: good game but awkward in places
Review: I am a big fan of the god games and Black & White is quite unique among the genre. B&W can be very challenging and is one of the few games that make you think about how to do well. Learning how to manage your creature is one of the most difficult aspects. The management of the villagers isn't very different from other games, though they can be quite demanding. Visually the game is excellent. My biggest problem with the game is the interface. Moving around the island with the hand icon is a pain. Since the game is realtime I found it very frustrating to have to waste time positioning myself to get the best view of what is happening. My only other problem is that the game seemed to grow very tedious in some sections. Players can spend many hours in B&W and the more repetative sections made me lose interest in the game. Black & White is a very challenging game. If you don't mind the awkward interface this is the game for you.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting game, some flaws
Review: I like the whole god-game genre. Admitadely, most of them are crap.
Black & White, however, is one of the very, very, best god games I've played in a while. (The last good one was Populas and it's subsequent sequal and prequel)
I love the whole gesturing system in the game because pop-up menus and HUDS can be really distracting in the game.
The graphics and sound are good. The villagers, although somewhat helpless (they'll just sit around doing nothing until you tell them what to do) aren't completely clueless. They will run if attacked, and (here's something REALLY helpful) tell you what they want. If there's one thing I've hated the most in god games, it's trying to figure out a way to solve an overly vague problem.
The game also lets you have a creture, who acts as your flunkie, really. How you treat it really does have some bearing on what your creture turns out to be (good or evil? Einstein or dumb as post? Self-sufficeint or utterly clueless? It's all up to you)
Now for the parts of Black and White that I'm not so fond of.
First off, Lion Head and EA should either beef up the manual or not include one at all. It might as well be written in fluent Swahili for the amount of use someone new to the game can get out of it.
Second, this game lacks a "skip" button for all of the many FMV sequences. Some of them, like the forced tutorial at the begining of every game, are really annoying if you have already played the game and just wanted to start over.
Third, your good and evil sides (people who have played B&W will know what I mean) can be annoying. Good is especially grating on my nerves. He consistantly pops up and says "Look,look! Over there! I won't shut up and go away and let you run things until you look at what I want you to! Look!"
Sometimes I wish I could smack Good around instead of my creature.
This game is very intertaining and has a lot of replay value. As for those annoying in-game things I mentioned, you can watch TV or do whatever while Good is babbling away.
All in all, I am very impressed with Black and White, although the high cost for this, and many other PC games, is a bit disappointing.
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