Black & White

Rating:
Summary: Underestimated excellence
Review: Black & White goes down as one of few games that I call a work of art. I've played on hundreds of games over a few years and this and only a few others do I think should be remembered as one of the best. I only review games that I think are worth it and so a lot of them say how good a game is, but this one is certainly worth the five stars that it is given.
Obviously unless you live in a cave you'll know that the game is based around you as a God. It's far more though. You not only govern your own population in any way you want, but also you get to rear a creature from a tiny little guy to a massive creature that if taught properly can help you no end to create a working system for your population.
And no kidding, he really learns what you tell him, if you were near him and you perform a miracle like shower, then he'll point at it in amazement and learn eventually how to do it himself, and if you make sure he's on the side of good (white) he'll help your population by creating food using miracle powers you have taught him, and he even helps with carrying things like wood to the store. You can tickle him to tell him he's done something right and he'll learn from that, or you could hit him to tell him off if he eats a person or something, and believe me, if you let him and he's hungry, he will.
A large part of the game is looking after your creature. The story line is that there is an evil God called Nemesis who wants to take over the world, and it's up to you to stop him. He has allies that you'll meet and wipe out hopefully in a good or bad way.
By making nobody believe in a God in this game will destroy him. Because it's belief that makes a God, when someone believes in one, one is born, and so obviously if you take over his realm in a good or bad way, he will cease to exist because nobody believes in him anymore. That's the whole point of the game, make everyone believe in you and not in him.
The game does require patience. It's so varied that it takes a very long time to learn and half the main game is a structure of training teaching integrated into the story line.
Only half way through will if all make sense.
The atmosphere is by far the best ever experienced on a computer game. You being God and providing your influence stretches far enough can zoom right out so that the island is a small object surrounded by blue sea, and so far in that individual grass's can be seen.
You can go anywhere on the whole island again providing enough people believe in you to create a big enough influence. Once you have gain control of one island you'll go through a portal onto the next.
Throughout the game there are scrolls. Some silver and some gold. The silver ones when clicked on are side missions that get you something to play with like a beach ball. I never go to another island without it. As soon as the portal opens, I chuck in my beach ball to play with when I'm bored. Some Gods prefer to through rocks, trees, sheep, cows and people, I prefer the beach ball.
So the single player game is an excellent experience that you can play in any way you want. You look after your creature at the same time and you can even fight other creatures with him and he can get hurt and need some TLC, it's cool.
The management side of the game really requires patience and good thinking. It's pretty demanding to make your people totally happy, so don't worry if their not, just give them the essentials through miracles and make sure enough are breeding to continue the population and make sure the keep improving their belief so that you can go further from you town centre.
There is also a Gods playground, which you can visit at anytime you want to muck around and throw things about. And also as a side to the excellent main game you can play a skirmish game against one, two or three Gods simultaneously and try to win over the populations.
Also, finally, the game has what I think the is best ever seen and largest quantity of game statistics ever. It's got loads of graphs and numbers showing births deaths, population of male, and female people, and even the amount of food eaten and number of houses.
So, to say that this game isn't good just because it's a tad hard on the brain isn't fair at all. It's one of the finest and original games I've played on so far and deserves nothing but praise.

Rating:
Summary: Simply not fun.
Review: This game recieved a colossal amount of hype, and from all the hyperbole, was destined to be as large of a step forward in gaming as Populous, also created by Peter Molyneaux.

Instead, we have an orangutan flinging feces while peasants starve at the temple because you forgot to dump grain every 30 seconds.

I am a huge fan of open-architecture games. I am very excited about AI in gaming on a philosophical level. I was profoundly disappointed.

It is true, my animal learned. And my animal seemed to think. But, and this is the crux of it, my animal was EXTREMELY BORING.

city maintenance was the essence of tedium. picking up trees one by one and placing them into the lumber depot = not fun. Teaching my pet to do this for me = not fun. Fighting other creatures = not fun.

Additionally, encountering the level that reverese ALL THE TRAINING YOU HAVE DONE TO YOUR CREATURE = wiping it off my computer. I have heard that there was a patch to remedy that particular insult to injury, but I do not care. My creature was already damaged goods.

So. If you have a friend who wants to hand you a copy for free, give it a shot. Sometimes your pet will be interesting. Some of the spells are pretty. But honestly, this is not worth purchasing.

Rating:
Summary: a huge disappointment
Review: this could have been a really excellent game. it was so full of bugs though, it was unbearable. not only does it take 5 minutes to start up, but then it freezes all the time! and now when i try to load my games, the game starts over at the beginning. the customer support was awful as well.

Rating:
Summary: DO NOT BUY!!
Review: This is the most frustrating game i have ever played. it would always take several minutes to actually get the game running, and it was constantly freezing. then, on the fourth island, it froze for the final time- now i can't even load my games, it just restarts. this could have been a great game, but it turned out to be a huge disapointment. the customer support is awful as well. if i could have given it less than one star, i would have.

Rating:
Summary: Both an RPG and a SIM
Review: This game combines both an RPG and a sim game. You play the role of a god among other gods that rule several islands. You have a creature as a compantion to do some of your work and you have to train it. You build villages and raise food and all sorts of god-like things. You can cast spells and battle other god's creatures. The game appealed to me when I first paid for it (I paid about [money]). I'm so sorry that I ever did. The game is playable for about the first couple of hours. After hours of having your creature disobey you and having to deal with the other evil gods it gets boring. The game has levels and at one point it refused to save. (The game has many glitches) and eventualy I lost much onformation. The one good thing about this game is that you can be an evil god and just kill people left and right if you wish. Don't pay full price for this thing if you are considering to purchase it. Just find a cheap used version. You'll get the same mundane god-like powers but not have to pay [money].

Rating:
Summary: I tried to really like this game...
Review: ...but even my optimism couldn't help me on this one. I was really excited about getting this game, I'd heard some good things about it here and there with the innovative AI and all, but I wasn't really that impressed.
Of course there are good things about this game. I love the fact that you can basically do what you want, there's no set-in-stone mission at all times. Now this isn't true throughout the whole game, but at least in the beginning they let you explore and play around.
Its a very challenging game at times. This is both good and bad. The worst part, I think of the whole game is the fact that you're supposed to be playing God, as a human being, but you're expected to be an actual god! I'm not omnipresent and I can't be in 18 different places at once. If I'm throwing wood and food miracles at my greedy worshippers and villagers who are constantly in need of something, then I miss my creature over behind a hut eating a villager and I don't punish him, he'll just keep doing it.
This game is like trying to raise quintuplets while housebreaking a puppy. Its crazy. Then they expect you to take over and manage more villages and get more creatures.
Don't get me wrong, I'm always up for a good challenge, but this game gets so challenging, its broken past the fun barrier.

Rating:
Summary: Don't Buy it!
Review: This game even with a patch not only still has many bugs, but once you install the patch many if not all could not run the game. You had to download runblack.exe or unSafeDisc to get it to even load. I had to deal with tech. daily, all they tell people is check your video drivers for update, directX is wrong, adjust the accelerator. I never was able to get Creature Isle to work. This game should have never hit the market. There has not been any mention of another patch to fix the still many bugs remaining. It's a waste of time. The only good note is that the Tech's. did reply pretty fast, even though their solutions were off the mark.

Ter

Rating:
Summary: A fun game
Review: I just bought this game, so i'm not very far into it, but so far, here's my reveiw:

1) Graphics: the graphics are slightly dissapointing when it comes to the villagers. all the villagers look blocky and chunky and strange, and they don't move their mouths when they speak, which i find sort of odd to watch. But, the creature graphics are good, the creatures are very expressive and interesting to look at, and the terrain graphics are nice, colorful and clear.

2)Creatures: You start out with either a tiger, an ape, or a cow. The ape is the smartest but not a good figther, the Tiger is an amazing fighter but not very bright, and the cow is smarter than the tiger but moves slowly and dosen't fight very well. (what would you expect, it's a cow.) I happen to have chosen the tiger. one thing that i don't like is that all the creatures are male, you should be able to choose their gender. Also, you should be able to name it more easily. (i think to do so you have to go to the game options room or somthing) The AI is pretty good, though i'd like to try a creature more intellegent than my stupid Tiger.

3) controls: The controls are pretty innovative and easy to use, but sometimes it's hard to get the right angle you want.

4) general game play: after the Intro, game play really picks up. if you can deal with the long, slow intro, the game is great.

Rating:
Summary: Cute but ...
Review: I waited for [the price to drop] for over a year. I like RPG games and this looked unique, pretty, and interesting.

Playing it wasn't the joy I'd been imagining. Even though it's been out for over a year and I have a very stable system (it never crashes for ANYTHING but Black & White) it crashed my system about an hour into the game every time I played. Which is just insane since the system is popular and over a year old --- there should be a frigging patch for it but there isn't.

Also, the game controlls are overly complicated. Before deciding that it wasn't worth it I spent a good 15 hours playing the game and I was still unsure about which controls to use for certain actions. That is a serious design flaw as far as I'm concerned.

It is a pretty game and if you have the patience to put up with the freezes (make sure to save) and the time to devote to it this is the game for you. The graphics are pretty and it is really cute -- just overly complicated and buggy.

Rating:
Summary: Black and White
Review: This review is to anyone who hasn't purchased this game but is thinking of doing so. If you are reading these reviews then you are probably not sure. Allow me to help you. If you have or may possibly have suffered from migrains or other chronic headaches, DO NOT BUY THIS GAME. It is not bad at first, but after a while, it hurts. For those of you who don't, buy and enjoy.