Black & White

Discount Price: $10.77

Features:

• we lost our manual and need to re-load on our new computer and do not have the code it asks for. I believe we purchased it through amazon, geraldine rickard for peter rickard my grandson.

Accessories:
PC Gamer (1-year)	Games for Windows: The Official Magazine

Customer Reviews:

Be a god! Whee! [Posted on 2005-10-12]
Ever wish you could just... raze an entire village? Fling those annoying villagers around a bit? Or would you rather heal them and give them food? Well, now you can do whichever you'd like.

A child wanders off and goes swimming in shark-infested waters. His parents pray to whatever dieties will listen, hoping that he will be saved. You are born from their need. You pluck the little idiot out of the sea and set him down with his parents, safe and sound. The parents are grateful and they want to take you back to their village to be worshipped by everyone.

Since you're a new god, you have to learn how to pick things up, raise a creature, perform miracles, and more. Here to help educate you is your conscience: the side of good and the side of bad. These two are pretty entertaining. If you don't move for a while, they start say some funny stuff. You also meet other gods that try to help or hinder you.

That creature I mentioned is a pet. It has different needs. It needs food, water, and rest, and it'll be happier and stronger if you play with it and have it work out. At first, it can only pick up small rocks and bushes. But if it trains, it will be able to pick up bigger stuff. It'll also do better in combat. Your creature can go into battle with other creatures. Sometimes, it's for a mission, and sometimes, to keep an enemy creature at bay. You can choose to hit, block, use a special attack, or heal.

It can also learn to aide you. If it watches you or the villagers fish, it can learn to fish, too. It can feed itself or give the food to the villagers. Besides fishing, it can cast miracles, water crops, assign people to different jobs, provide wood, and more.

You'll need it's help to fulfill the wants and needs of your people. They might ask for food, wood, buildings, children, or protection. It's hard to keep them satisfied.

They can help themselves some of the time, though. You can assign people to jobs, like making babies, cutting down trees, or building. There are limited supplies of wood and food in each area, so you have to let it replenish or make some yourself. You can get food from fields, miracles, animals, or by fishing. You can water trees/forests to make them grow.

You have various miracles at your disposal, ranging from healing to making piles of wood appear to hurling fireballs. To cast miracles, you can use a one-shot miracle, which can be found underneath things or given to you, or you can accumulate belief through your villagers' prayers.

To move on in the game, you have certain missions to accomplish. Sometimes it's helping someone in need, sometimes it's defending yourself from a competing god, and sometimes it's getting a new village to believe in you. To gain a new village, you have to impress them, either through kindness or violence.

You have a choice in almost anything of being good or evil. Your creature's appearance and behavior will be affected by your alignment. You can control him using a leash. You pull him in the direction you want him to go and tether him to anything you want him to interact with. If he does something wrong, you can slap hime. If he does it right, you can pet him. He'll learn through positive or negative reinforcement.

I had one problem, and that was the fact that you can't skip the tutorial, so if you start a new game after beating it, it can get irritating. Other than that, this is a great game. You should buy it.

Very enjoyable strategy game, but not the best [Posted on 2005-11-16]
I love strategy games, especially those where you play an "all powerful" diety like Populous. Black and White was very enjoyable to play, but there are better games out there. It requires a lot of patience, so as other reviewers have mentioned, if you like quick results then look elsewhere. The creature AI is great if you have the patience to train him. If you enjoy games that require strategy but a finite set of tasks to perform like Mahjong or Solitaire, then you might find micromanaging the villages to be enjoyable. Otherwise, village management can get old.

I won't review the details of the game - other reviewers have done an excellent job below. I will, however, say that the game is possible (in fact, not too difficult) to complete if you have the right strategy and a ton of patience. If you don't care for spoilers, then read no further. After "winning" world four, you can start building Nordic wonders. Build about eight or ten of them in your largest village (the village should have about 2,500+ belief - don't build the wonders until you have a village that large) until you are able to produce about 50,000 or more wood with a single cast. Send about 1,000,000 or more wood through the vortex into world five. Also send through a lot of scaffolds for good measure. Set a 6-scaffold near the vortex (but not so near that it is dragged in). Your villagers will come to build it and when they do, they'll get sucked into the vortex. Recruit a ton of breeders and they'll produce a steady stream of villagers that walk into the vortex. When you finally go to world five, you should have plenty of resources to win. Build about twenty or more farms to ensure the villagers produce more food than they eat and zap the patooties out of the enemy creature every time he steps foot into your teritory. Ignore your creature and work the entire level as if you don't have one. If he gets in a fight with the enemy, let him loose. Hope this helps.

Pretty Good Game [Posted on 2006-11-21]
This is a game where you area a god ( well, a hand acually), and you have a pet creature. As a god you can control different villages any way you like. You can even play catch with your villagers if you want. Your creature can be a cow, monkey, or a tiger. You can teach your creatue to be bad or good. You and your creature can perform good and bad miracles such as storm, rain. This game is great .You should probably buy it if you want to have a new gaming experience

An average simulation game [Posted on 2007-06-09]
Well, I admit it. I didn't do my research and bought this game because I heard great things about it. I wish I had done a little more research before I bought it. Controling the creature is probably the funnest aspect of the game, while the constant micromanaging of the villagers is the biggest letdown. This would have been a sure fire winner if I didn't have to worry about getting the villagers food and wood every 3 minutes. Overall, if you enjoy simulations and don't mind some tedious micromanagement, this might be a game for you. If not, take a pass on this one.

Not as fun as they say [Posted on 2007-06-13]
I bought this game because of the insane reviews it got from gaming sites like ign.com, but after playing, i dont think its really THAT fun.



the game is a very creative concept, has great controls, great interface, great music. But as other reviews have pointed out, theres too much micro management for my taste. For example, if one of my villages is running low on people, i would have to drag people from other villages over one by one, stuff like that.



Dont let this discourage you. it is still a good game (i give it 4 stars), but i just dont think its as good as ign.com says it is. Personally i like simcity better.

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