Black and White

After 3 long years of development, and over US$6 million dollars in costs, Black and White from Lionhead Studios has finally hit Australian shores. With 25 people working on the game, including gaming great Peter Molyneux (designer of such classics as Populous and Dungeon Keeper), the game was developed amidst a flurry of excitement by gamers as it kept looking better and better with each snippet of information released by the development team.

Right from the moment you pick up the game off the shelf, you're exposed to the central part of what Black and White is all about. There's two different boxes for the game available - one Black, and one White, both with different views of the game: the black box tells how the game can be won through fear, chaos and terror, and the white promises victory through enlightenment, peace and justice.

Another in the Molyneux-specific series of what are frequently called 'God Games', the player assumes the role of a deity over a small tribe of people. The basic goal is to increase the population of the tribe and become the supreme being in all the realms of the game, whilst at the same time ruling as you see fit - with an iron fist or with a soft touch - or a combination of the two. Earning the respect of your followers can be as easy as providing rain for the crops, or as cruel as raining fire down from the heavens.



The game begins with a quick cutscene as you establish your first believers. Initially, you're only exposed to the game at the most zoomed in level, face to face with the believers. The models of the people are fairly low detail, so you might at first not be impressed with the graphics - but when the game zooms out to show you the sheer scale of the the world your in, that will quickly change. The realm is a large island, covered with forests of trees, boulders, lakes. You can interact with everything - pick up a tree and hurl it across the land, or pick up a huge boulder and use it to smite your enemies (or your people). The level of detail in the landscape is excellent, and surpassed only by the fact that you can zoom out to see the whole landscape or zoom in to be face to face with one of your worshippers.



The quality of the graphics in this game is truly one of its strongest points. The engine has been well-crafted to provide such features as dynamic level of detail and mesh reduction of the landscape, which provide great speed when zooming in and out and around the terrain whilst keeping the gameplay flowing at a smooth pace. There are some simply awesome scenes as lightning crashes down from the sky, burning people and trees, whilst at the same time fireballs rain down from above destroying all in their path. Other effects, such as the Spiritual Shield miracle (which protects an area from godly wrath), have obviously been designed to look as good as possible, and it all shows through.

After the initial introduction scenes, the player is then walked through some great tutorials that show how to use the interface. The interface has been designed from the ground up to make the game playable solely with the mouse. This has resulted in a unique interface that is easy to use and very flexible; however there's a few things that might have benefited from keyboard shortcuts. The player's activity in the game is represented by a disembodied hand - the hand of God, as it were - which is used to manipulate everything in the game. Part of the interface includes a system that recognises symbols traced on the screen by the godly hand - these symbols are used to cast miracles, and fit very well in the look and feel of the game.



One of the other major features of the game is the Creature. The Creature is basically a giant animal that a god can control. The creature is kind of physical embodiment of you as a god - it roams the land, either helping the people and earning their respect, or hurting the people earning their fear. Again, keeping with the central theme of Black and White, its up to the player how their creature behaves. In a manner very similar to other digital pets, the player can encourage a creature by stroking and patting it, or discourage them by slapping it around. Creatures learn how to behave based on how you respond to its actions - if it walks around and eats a population, you can encourage that behaviour by giving him a scratch between the ears, or make him not want to do that ever again using the psychology of negative reinforcement (ie, slapping him off his feet).

Another neat little feature is the inclusion of a complex weather system. Snow, rain, lightning - all affect the game. They've also included an Internet weather control, which if enabled can make the game use the current weather in your city be applied to the game! The weather makes for some spectacular visual effects.



With all the different variations on how you and your creature can act, it opens up virtually unlimited styles of gameplay to make it through the various stages in the game. This makes the game extremely flexible and much more fun - there is no right way to play it, you just play it your way.

The sound effects and backing music are also well thought out; the musical score fits in very well to the game and the sound effects are well done. There's actually very little in the way of visual indicators when things are happening like in other games - that is, no messages scrolling up the screen. To fit in with the feel of the game, you have two advisors - your conscience, representatives from both good and bad. Frequently, they'll talk to you to let you know about things happening. This works very well, keeping you immersed and preventing you from getting detached from the game.

Now, onto the downsides.

The first thing to complain about was the fact that you can't skip cutscenes. This makes starting the game again a total chore, as you have to sit through the tutorial session and all the introduction scenes all over again. This is a pretty big complaint, as part of the focus of the game is the fact that you can play it again and again and it will never be the same game - sitting through the same cutscenes and the same training scenes though with no option to skip is painful.

After the initial extremely fun part of getting into the game and learning how it works and marvelling at the graphics, some parts can get quickly tiring due to some excessive micromanagement. Having to move trees and villagers around one at a time is pretty painful. Once your creature is trained up it can assist in this process, but the micromanagement and constant focus on your tribesmen making sure they're going around doing the right thing can get a little tedious. Additionally, trying to convert other villages to your faith can sometimes be a matter of just wearing them down; again the creature is a significant help. Presumably as you progress further into the game, the creature becomes even more useful and allows you to focus on other areas, but be prepared for some fairly menial and reptitive work in some parts.

Overall though, its a very addictive game. There's a lot to think about as you play; you have to manage your resources effectively whilst at the same time concentrating on evolving your creature and expanding your domain. Players will spend a lot of time marvelling at the quality of the graphics and the level of detail. The simple act of throwing rocks can provide entertainment as you learn how to bounce them off things (like villagers, for example) and watch the excellent physics engine. The huge variety in the gameplay will keep people playing it for ages, and if people can stick past the occaisional point of slow gameplay, they'll keep getting more and more impressed by the level of detail. The creature alone will provide many players with hours of enjoyment as they teach it how to act, and then take them into online venues to play (or fight) with other creatures.

Developer: Lionhead Studios

Web site: http://www.bwgame.com