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Eegriega's Black & White (PC)
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| [February 10, 2007 02:36:02 AM]
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One thing that stood out to me on this session of playing Black & White was the fighting--when the player's Creature encounters the much larger Creature roaming the hills, former Creature to the god Nemesis, the player has to learn how to battle with the Creature. I found the controls for this aspect of the game a little frustrating, because I would do as instructed and the game wouldn't respond as I wanted it to. The battle lasted longer than it should have due to these problems, and I got rather irritated. Other than this little frustration, though, I found the game largely enjoyable once again. There's a lot of work to be done with the village and the player must be careful to balance their attention between the villagers' demands and the need to properly watch over and train the Creature. This challenge makes the gameplay very involved and interesting, and gets me more into it than I otherwise would be. I couldn't believe how proud I was of my Creature when it learned how to cast Food miracles on its own and would fill the granary of its own accord, without the slightest push from me. I know I mentioned it before, but the AI really is quite neat. It makes for a unique gameplay experience for each player and keeps things fresh for a multiple-time player.
Oh, another qualm as a player; I had some trouble getting my Creature to learn certain things, like how to use certain miracles. I'm not sure if that was because the Creature simply wasn't meant to be able to learn them at that point or what, but from a design perspective leaving these things uncertain is sort of wearing on the player. It's not that the player needs EVERYTHING spelled out for them (and certainly plenty enough IS spelled out with the signs scattered about the island), but there are certain things that one likes to know, and my impression from the signs was that my creature should have been able to learn those miracles and simply wasn't--despite the fact that I'd done as instructed and by all rights it should have learned. In any case, it was slightly confusing but not detracting enough from the gameplay to turn me off from playing.
I'll admit right now that relative to everything I didn't get very far in the game at all--I didn't even get to the second island through Nemesis' vortex. I acquired this game secondhand without the booklet, so I really didn't know what to expect in terms of game length; it was only when I looked it up on Wikipedia that I realized that it was far longer than I would've guessed. The player gets really involved in raising the Creature and taking care of the village, and I had figured that that was the be-all end-all to the game. The idea that it's much longer than what I'd seen is quite a treat to think about, and I'm looking forward to playing through the entire thing when I have the time, no matter how long it may take.
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| [February 10, 2007 02:14:04 AM]
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I've played Black & White a few times before--or, rather, I suppose I should say I've STARTED playing Black & White a few times before. I never got very far into the game during my previous attempts to play it; this does not, however, reflect poorly upon the game, but rather upon my attention span. Black & White is a very diverting game, and if I weren't so lazy I would definitely play it more often than I tend to. In any case, I have a tendency to rediscover the disc in my room every few months, remember how much fun I had with the first hour or so of play the last time, and then start over so I don't have to catch up on what I'd been doing when I left off.
Anyway, as somebody who's played the beginning of the game a few times over, I can safely say that the first half hour does get old after awhile. Admittedly, this game is probably one that you'd probably only play once or twice and then be done, but from a player's perspective it would be nice if the "tutorial" style angel and devil (representing your good and evil sides as a god) could be turned off and on as required. I'll probably need them again later when I'm out of the area that I've played over a few times, and it's true that for a first-time player the banter between Good and Evil helps one understand the controls, but being able to skip through the dialogue if one knows what one is supposed to do is a good thing sometimes.
The game was made in 2001, and although looking at it now the graphics are a little clunky (especially the designs of the villagers the player is lording over--they have club hands!), it's still a pretty nice-looking game on the whole. (The tiger Creature is a little terrifying-looking, but that might just be my personal opinion.) The whole island is quite interesting to explore, visually, and every object is immediately identifiable for what it's supposed to be--so it's not the best (although I admittedly can't off the top of my head think of any other 2001 PC games that I can compare the graphics to), but I still like how it looks.
I went through the whole rigamarole of getting to my Creature (nothing too hard, so it was mostly going through the motions), and this time I chose the Cow for my Creature; I've had trouble in the past with the Tiger eating people from the village and reflecting badly upon me as a god, so I figured that the Cow would be less trouble. I really like that the player gets to choose; it makes the scene more interesting as one has to weigh the relative positive and negative aspects of the potential Creatures. Generally, I've found that players who choose to be evil gods choose the Tiger and players who choose to be good gods choose the Cow (the Ape tends to be ignored because it's aesthetically less pleasing and makes annoying noises), but I think the possibilities of a benevolent Tiger or a violent Cow are really intriguing. I'm also quite impressed with the AI of the Creatures, which I read was developed by Richard Evans. The Creatures tend to be willful and selfish in the beginning, and it's a lot of work to hone them into the player's obedient tool that will do what he or she desires without being told directly. This challenge does get frustrating from time to time, when one's Creature eats a villager instead of saving them from the water, but in the end it comes out to be quite rewarding.
I played through the Creature-training parts and discovered that the leash is very useful for tracking one's Creature when it wanders off across the hillside; some of the controls are a little hard with a trackpad (especially the little Silver Scroll challenge of throwing a rock to knock over another rock, which frustrated me no end), but by and large many of the controls work well enough with the keyboard keys as well, so it's not a huge problem.
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Eegriega's Black & White (PC)
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Current Status: Playing
GameLog started on: Saturday 10 February, 2007
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