B&W has just arrived here in AussieLand. Some of my early impressions :

Graphics - fabulous. Best I have seen in a game yet next to the Sacrifice demo. Animations are superb.

B&W runs quite smoothly on my P3 550 and TNT2U graphics card. There is some initial stuttering when graphics first load but after that the game is fine. This could be because I am running with 256 MB's ram.

Sound - excellent. Music - excellent.

Gameplay - the camera controls are awkward but I am slowly getting used to it. I have found setting bookmarks is a must. Sometimes I get hung up on mountains. I am definitely going to reconfigure my keys using the ASWD view setup.

The actions of my ape and my people are amazing. There is some fabulous AI at work here.

I am still on the first "land" (training area ?) but my ape has decided he loves playing with the beach ball.

It is early days yet and I must read the manual but I have found no need yet to progress in the game after 4 hours of play. I have simply been engrossed in experimenting and "playing".

I absolutely love it.

I have also noticed some people in the newsgroup are complaining that they completed the game in 18 hours etc. I think one of the main objectives of B&W is experimentation and teaching your creature and not to rush through the game in the shortest possible time.

I spent like 10 hours on the 1rst land alone and just restarted to play with the Ape or Horse rather than the Leopard (which is dumber than a stone). My only complaint is that I never seem to have big enough blocks of time to enjoy it to it's proper level. This is a game that needs 4 hour time blocks or you are left with things left undone. Either that or I am just too weak to pull myself away from it. :)

Thats my biggest problem with B&W. If I only have an hour to play, B&W is just not enjoyable to play in such a short amount of time...

Hmm...That might make me rethink buying this one. I rarely have more than an hour or so at a time, save for the occasional Friday night when my wife is at work, that I can invest in a game. If B&W isn't fun an hour at a time, maybe it's not for me.

Same here. At best, I'll get about 2 hours while my wife is at the gym and that's assuming my daughter is down for the night. I don't mind a game taking a while (heck, I'm playing FT in turn based mode and having a blast but I'm only on mission 5 and I've had the game from the first weekend) but if a game requires big blocks of time, I can't do it. That's why I've stayed away from MMPORGS.

Yeah, that is the one thing keeping me from getting back into UO. Maybe someday soon, if things go like I expect, I'll find myself with the time, and the broadband connection. (I know, I've been saying that for like two months now, but it's gonna happen, I think. Hopefully soon.)

Until then, I fear that UO just wouldn't be what it's supposed to be. But I do miss it.

Apparently I completely missed out on all the hype that B&W was generating. I've been reading the threads on QT3 about it since it came out, and it looks like something that I'd like to try. I've never played a "play god game" before and was wondering if anyone could recommend one that I could download a demo of just to get a feel for the genre since there doesn't seem to be a Black and White demo.

Thanks in advance.

Did you ever play Populous? That's the one that started it all.

Dungeon Keeper's sort of one too. Basically, in a god game, you don't have direct control over your units. You try to influence their actions by manipulating their world.

I'm downloading a demo of Populous: The Beginning right now. (@ 150 Kb/sec, I love DSL!) Thanks for the suggestion. I'm kinda bored with the games that I have and am looking for something a little different.

>

Mark,

Warning! Populous: the Beginning isn't a *real* Populous title! The first two games, created by Peter Molyneux, played much differently. PopIII (aka The Beginning) was ultimately just another RTS. In terms of recent games, the closest thing you'll find to Populous is Majesty. Otherwise, you might want to try to download PopII from an abandonware site.

-Tom

Populous the Beginning at least gives you a bit lf of the flavor of having godlike powers with the terrain transforming spells. It's still built around accruing worshippers too.

Thanks guys. Tom, I came to the conclusion you warned me about after playing through the tutorial and the first mission. I'll try finding Majesty or maybe Populous 2 like you suggested.

Still, from what I hear about B&W, I'll have to try it if/when they release a demo version.

I picked up 2 copies of B&W this weekend and have been playing it with my girlfriend. It seems to be a pretty good game, it not truly as revolutionary as advertised. I am getting a little annoyed about how selective the learning system is, but I'll give it time before I rank it down. My little pink monkey can learn a miracle after I cast it 5 times, but I still can't teach the little bugger to feed himself. It's annoying me to death. :)

After another 8 hours or so of play I must admit I am spending more time managing my people than my ape. This could be because I invested fairly early in training my ape and he seems to be quite self sufficient. He feeds himself, cleans up after himself, casts spells by himself, and wanders around the landscape performing useful tasks.

I am finding Level 3 to be quite fun even without my avatar.

Huh. Maybe I will have to pick up Black and White after all.

Very funny. I haven't even played the game, but have read enough about it to enjoy that.

Thanks for posting it, Al!

What does God expect of us?

God wants you to get your own damn lumber, farm your own damn food, and stop bugging Him for more damn offspring. He also wants you to chant when He tells you to so He can rain down fiery burning death on the next town over.

...hehe this article is hilarious.

etc

I haven't played in a week. I was just starting the level with the creature in the bondage setup. If I have a complaint against games like this, it's that I can't play them in short bursts. If I want to actually accomplish anything with sir Chimp-A-Lot, I have to watch him for a while. I just don't have the time.

I also encountered an interesting bug. While playing on the second level, I discovered some wonderful destructive magics, like fireball and lightning bolt. While, you know, testing them out, I sort of earned an "evil," or "icky" (as Bauman would say) hand. Anyways, the game crashed and when I restarted, I had lost about 2 hours' time! So much for autosave! All the villages I had captured, the quests I'd done, all were back where they started. But I still had the *&&% icky hand. How fair is that? What was it saving during all those minute-plus saves? My "hand" status? What is this, a manicure game?

Hmph.

"All the villages I had captured, the quests I'd done, all were back where they started. But I still had the *&&% icky hand. How fair is that? What was it saving during all those minute-plus saves? My "hand" status? What is this, a manicure game?"

The game saves the game world and your evilness or goodness in separate files, I think. One got saved and one didn't.

Man, that's gotta suck. You'd think the saves could have a date/time stamp, and they would compare between the two files. The would only take the evil/good save that corresponds to the date/time stamp of the world files, so you're not punished -- or rewarded -- for actions that didn't get saved. On the other hand, I guess this makes for a higher level of "accountability" for your actions. Maybe that's what they were going for.

There still are semi cheats to boost your moral rating in the game...one that i found is to keep a save game from the first map...open up all the dispensers especially the heal and water ones (easy to boost your alignement to good with heal and watering trees etc.) its a bit time consuming...but i use it if i acidentally torched a whiny village down.

BTW, B & W is at #1 beat The Sims on the chart last week. based on Gamespot sources ... wow.

etc

BTW, Steve Bauman gave BW 3 stars...kinda surprises me. Kohan gets a 5 star rating and BW a 3 star...hmmm (diferent reviewers though). I think based on that, B & W deserved at least a 4 star...anyway, the review makes its points. Though I think he kinda axed it... anyway i have my own gripes with the game... yet i still keep playing it... two weeks straight already.

One "odd" review i read for BW (though with original points) is on Salon.com focuses more on the original concept (with high regard for it) rather than the gameplay...a good read.

etc

Salon? That's the Wagner James Au review I quoted from on the front page a day or two ago. He's a bit over the top. I wouldn't be surprised if he pronounces his first name as "vagner."

I'm not thrilled about the guy abusing my last name.

- Alan

hehe, i actually almost thought it was you! "wow its the Au guy from Qt3 that wrote this review!" so i thought... anyway, it is a flowery review...but i think it still makes some good points on the game.

i think the reviewer is just trying to be clever and academic, but still makes good points somewhat.

btw, i do think the game is flawed alot, but theres something that keeps me playing it...i constantly keep watching what my pet, or my other pets will do in the game...its such a friggin time sink. and it is sorta relaxing as Chick said in the quick take.

etc

It looks to me like Mr. Au still may need to take some meds. He overstates his cases, methinks.