Overall Rating

Game developer Peter Molyneux has frequently been accused of having a surplus of vision, sometimes at the sacrifice of accessibility.

With "Black and White," Molyneux and his team at Lionhead have found the perfect balance of addictive, hugely satisfying gameplay while staying true to Molyneux's vision and spirit of innovation. The end result is a game unlike anything you have played before. It transcends mere gaming to examine issues of good and evil.

The easiest way to classify "Black and White," if you must, is a real-time strategy game. Like most others, it has resources, units, and terrain to conquer. But the similarities are far outweighed by the things that "Black and White" does differently. Like another Molyneux game, "Populous," "Black and White" puts you in the role of a god, which matches nicely with the elevated perspective and control the player has over the environment.

There is so much to do and see in "Black and White" that the game will likely keep you deeply enthralled for weeks. It's got the same compulsive playability that many of Molyneux's games are known for, and it's the most addictive PC game since "The Sims."

Your domain starts out small, relegated to a few buildings, including your temple, and a few dozen villagers who worship you. They need food and wood, things you can readily provide. But you'll have your hands full with more than keeping your people happy. You're a pet owner. And not just any pet, but a creature that serves as your avatar and main representative in the world.

One of 16 animals including a tiger, an ape, and a sheep, he can grow up to anthropomorphic, Godzilla-sized proportions, but at the same time he will also grow in knowledge and experience. The range of behaviors your creature can exhibit over the course of the game is staggering. You do not have any direct control over it, except for telling it where to go, so all of its other behavior must be learned. It learns by watching your actions, as well as by interacting with its environment. How you choose to reward or discipline shapes your creature's code of ethics.

It's extremely gratifying to watch your creature learn how to cast miracles, which are the spells that you can cast, by watching you and then performing them on his own.

The moral code of "Black and White" comes into play, more than in any other way, with how you raise your creature. If you decide to play as a "good" deity, your creature will become increasingly benevolent and will assist your people by helping out around the village (and not eating any of the villagers).

If you play on the side of evil and raise it as the bad seed, however, it will become a hateful brute whose main hobbies are stomping on things munching on villagers as appetizers. Along the way, the creature will come into contact with those of rival gods, and the two of them will square off with flurries of martial arts moves that look both comical and cool (the offbeat sense of humor that suffuses the game is another Molyneux trademark).

You can zoom around the gorgeous 3D landscape with the entirely mouse-driven interface, and zoom in to miniscule levels of detail and out until you're above the clouds. All that power comes at a cost, however, as "Black and White" is one of the most system-intensive games we've seen. Anything less than a 600-MHz processor with 128MB RAM and you should expect to see choppiness unless you turn down some of the effects and detail.

The creature-raising aspect of the game alone is worth the price of admission. You're allowed a tremendous range of possibilities as to how you can develop its personality. You can teach your creature to poop and then fling his excrement at the nearest enemy village, if you please.

Another element of strategy is found in the miracles, which range from raining food and wood upon your grateful villagers to raining fire and lightning upon your enemies. Your villagers' worship of you at your temple charges these miracles. Once charged, you can cast them by drawing the miracle's unique symbol on the screen with your mouse. You can cast these miracles during creature brawls as well, to help turn the tide of a fight if things aren't going so well. And there are dozens of little mini-quests scattered throughout the game, with specific tasks you can perform to gain rewards.

Multiplayer is supported online in the form of battles against other deities and their creatures, but cooperative and clan play is supported as well. There are a few online gimmicks as well: If you play the game while online, it will match up the weather in the game to the real weather wherever you are. "Black and White" is just such a polished, ambitious, and fun game, with a strong and singular vision, that it deserves a long look by every PC gamer out there.

Black and White
Platform: PC
Developer: Lionhead Studios
Publisher: Electronic Arts
ESRB rating: Teen

Ratings
Graphics: 5
Sound: 5
Playability: 4
Gameplay: 5
Overall: 5