Others say...

"Be a god! Whee!"
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.

"And I thought I was the only one who couldn't finish!"
Wow. I had no idea that other people had such a problem with this game. I bought it when it first came out in 2000, and I thought it was fantastic. I played and I played, passing every tutorial, challenge and god that dared oppose me. And finally I was confronted by Nemesis, my ultimate foe...he challenged me for final control and domination, and I accepted. And my goodness, I wish I had never gone through that portal...

As another reviewer put it (and so well I think) "Black & White" is simply a "micromanagement hell." You constantly have to work: tending to your numerous and ever greedy people, trying to educate and spend time with your creature, trying to defeat other gods, passing challenges, fighting other creatures, trying to win faith and influence heathen villages, exploring, re-capturing villages, warding off other gods...I think you get the idea. It's simply impossible to do all of this. I played this game twice and eventually gave up because of its impossibility! Now I HATE giving up on a game and consider myself a good gamer and great strategist. BUT YOU CAN'T FINISH WITHOUT CHEATS OR SOME KIND OF SECRET, I DON'T KNOW! I feel embarassed not to be able to finish this game, it insults me. And I tried my hardest. If you finished without cheats I think you really are a god! I'll spit shine your shoes and chew your food for the rest of eternity!

Now back to my story...the final challenge: facing Nemesis. Firstly the jerk puts some curse on your creature, making it small and feeble and the opposite of you. Nice. Then he gives you a village (woohoo Batman!) for you to control. You now have to try and cure your poor creature by capturing villages and passing challenges. And I did that! And my creature went back to normal! Yay! But then it went back to being a tiny, stinky loser! BOO! And I have no idea why because I removed the curse! So I got over this and tried to take Nemmy's villages. Which I did, except for two which required so much belief it was scary! And then Nemesis starts winning back faith and making you look like an ass with his creature! So I kicked the crap out of his creature with fire and lightning and my creature! And it came back again and again and again! And Nemesis, although far out of range of his influence, could perform miracles in my territories! That B*****D! It was at this point I realised that there is no God (excuse the pun) in this game, and packed it in forever after my second attempt at the game 3 years later. The exact same thing happened and I felt like a gaming failure. So yes, I, the mighty gamer was defeated by lack of logic or faith or whatever!

The game itself was alot of fun, barring the last stage! I thoroughly enjoyed the actual playing and fighting those idiot gods. It really kept me entertained and busy. But the last stage was just horrid, disgusting! And what's with that "Future Room?" It always says "The future is still uncertain." What a crock of sh**! The future's always f****** uncertain nimrods! (Not you). It's just a game that will eventually frustrate you and p!$$ you off. I would recommend it to those who like playing old games on those Ridiculously Hard settings (like Duke Nukem and Doom). I just couldn't do it as a 12 year old or as a 15 year old. Maybe I could now, but I don't have the patience or energy to try again.

In short, "Black And White" gets 56% overall and 75% for fun. If you enjoyed it completely, I'm guessing you finished the game or cheated your way through. Perhaps my days as a strategy game player are numbered (though I've passed numerous strategy games on the hard setting since then, such as "Earth: 2150" and "Red Alert 2"). In any case, those who finish "Black & White" honestly deserve to be glorified in the eyes of strategy gamers, for they cannot be mortal or of this Earth. I wouldn't buy this game again purely because it's 1) Too old and 2) Depressing. So make your choice, but YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

"God as errand boy."
Is being god were so dull, god would find a new job.

"an aquired taste"
WARNING: NOT FOR EVERYBODY!! this game is geared towards a specific sect of gamers: people who 1. have alot of time (it took me 6 hours to get through the 1st 2 worlds), 2. like to micromanage complex systems of economies (each village has its own problems). Personaly I loved it and would recomend it to my friends. The creature AI was cool, you can let them wander and(if you teach them the right things) they will help your villages, lessening the load on you

"black and white"
black and white is a cool game. You will loveit (unless you do like animals).