Michael Agius CIS 587 Fall 2001 September 25 2001 Game Review Developed By Lionhead Studios Published by Electronic Arts Game Title Black White Developer Lionhead Studios Publisher Electronic Arts Genre Strategy Simulation Est Price 29 99 44 99 Minimum specifications for Black White are Windows 95 98 2000 ME Windows NT is not supported Intel Pentium II 350MHz Intel Pentium 64MB RAM 600MB free hard disk space plus space for saved games 4x CD ROM DVD ROM drive 8MB PCI or AGP 3D accelerator card with full Direct3D driver support DirectX 7 0a compliant sound card DirectX 7 0a supplied on CD Keyboard Mouse The recommended specifications for Black White are Intel Pentium III processor or faster 128MB RAM 750MB hard disk space 16MB 3D Hardware Accelerator Card with full Direct3D driver support The Online Requirements for Black White are Internet features require a TCP IP Internet connection using a 56 6Kbps or faster modem or Internet access via a LAN Brief Overview The game takes place in the Land of Eden where everything is just perfect until a monumental event occurs which changes everything you arrive As stated in the opening movie of the game Gods are created whenever people call to the heavens for help As a child is caught swimming in a lagoon filled with sharks his parents call to the heavens and that s when you are created You shoot from the cosmos and sweep up the toddler delivering him to the grateful parents You have no choice in this matter but that is pretty much the last time events are beyond your control From there you can choose to be a benevolent god or an evil one thus altering your world accordingly After an excellent tutorial that teaches you how to move how to gather objects and how to rotate the camera you are on your way to godhood There to help hinder you are the two elements of your conscience a bearded elderly man representing your good side WHITE a devilish character representing your dark side BLACK Each one offers you advice on how to handle any situation you face and will lead you down either the black or the white path Player s Role You play the role of a god represented by a large hand that you move about the game with You get to choose your own symbol which will be displayed at a totem in the center of the town where your followers go to worship you and seek guidance Each action you make affects both the village you control and the look of your hand depicting you as good evil or more likely in between Your first task is to get your people to recognize you by building up belief points This is pretty much set for you with the first village though there is another village nearby that you need to prove your existence to The more of a presence you show the more they will believe in you Once you have their belief you can then set tasks for all the villagers and get the villages thriving All of this builds your power and makes you a greater force when dealing with rival gods Installation Game installation is quite simple The auto run feature will suffice for most user installations Installation requires about 600MB of available hard drive space to install The most recent version of direct x 7 0 at the time of release is included on the CD There weren t any inherent issues with the installation although Lionhead s website states there is some compatibility issues with certain CD ROM drives because the game uses the Safedisk copy protection scheme but I encountered no such problems Game play You start by impressing the villagers in an attempt to persuade them to worship you Once they have become your loyal followers they can be used to perform vital functions By summoning them to your Temple you can have them perform worship rituals in your honor As they dance around the Temple worship site praising your name they are generating prayer power which is the essential ingredient for the miracles you create Miracles can be used however you desire They can be used anywhere from pure good to pure evil and everything in between The choice of which miracles you want to use is entirely up to you If you tend towards evil using destructive fear invoking miracles your homelands and Temple will physically alter in accordance with this But if you are kind towards your subjects feed and protect them your Temple will gradually come to resemble a fairytale palace with the surrounding lands bright and colorful Early on in the game you will receive a pet a cow or an ape or a lion to start off with while more creatures become available later in the game As the pet of a god the creature goes through a special transformation Like a child it begins to grow It grows and it grows really big By the time it reaches adulthood it is a gargantuan creature towering above the villagers able to flatten a building with a single footstep Exactly how it conducts itself as it roams the countryside will depend on how you have raised it As you may choose to be a good or evil god you may also raise your giant pet similarly You must do this in training sessions while the game progresses As you might or might not with a growing child you punish it when it does anything wrong and reward it when it acts correctly For example let s say the creature is hungry and stuffs its mouth full of villagers If these are a rival god s villagers you will probably reward it If they are your own people you will punish it Gradually the creature will learn what it may and may not do User Interface The user interface in Black White to me is really impressive The entire game can be played solely with the mouse and no keyboard interaction For the best experience a two button mouse with scroll wheel is the perfect combination As stated before you interact with your world through a giant hand This hand can be made left or right handed as to accommodate both righties and lefties To move around the world you place your hand where you want to go click with the mouse button and pull the mouse towards you to drag the world closer or move the mouse away to push the world away from you Also since the world you are in is 3dimensional you need a mechanism to adjust your rotation and pitch When you move the mouse around the game screen you are presented with the possible movement icons and the appropriate mouse button to execute them Rotate Move Pitch Movement Icons Also the scroll wheel on the mouse works as your zoom in and zoom out controls Another neat aspect of the user interface is the gesture system If you ve ever used a handheld
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