TheyCallHimJim

Got it this morning, played it for about the last ten hours and I'm already sick to death of it. Gwaaah!

Reasons why I think B&W sucks:
1) The control system is one of the most fetid pieces of excrement I've ever had the displeasure of experiencing. I would like to bludgeon to death whoever had the brainwave for the "drag the ground along" movement method. Moving the point of view around is just as bad, about the only thing that's remotely doable without being driven to the brink of insanity is zooming in and out.

2) Introductory movie and mind-numbingly patronising tutorial sequence that absolutely cannot be skipped. Yaaaaaaargh! Would it really have killed them to make it so you can skip the intro and go straight into the game? Or for that matter, have the tutorial as an optional thing? Grrr...

3) The "creatures" are so phenomenally irritating it defies belief. Just how much do you have to slap them around before they realise that you do not use the villagers as projectile weapons? And as for "training them to do everything you do", ha! After showing my creature how to take trees to the lumber store about three dozen times, it still refused to do anything other than crap on, eat, or throw the trees around. Jeez... And just how many times do they need to eat something before it occurs to them that it makes them violently sick?

4) The whole "gesturing" thing... nice idea, in principle, but it sucks. Tracing a symbol out almost pixel-perfectly isn;t exactly easy at the best of times, let alone when you're getting your ass kicked in a fight sequence.

5) Oh yeah, the fight sequences. Suffice to say, there's a very good reason why beat-'em-up games almost exclusively use joysticks for control...

6) The "temple" options section; looks very pretty indeed, but just try and actually use it to set anything up... And options seem to be randomly divided between the temple and the ESC menu, with little or no apparent logic to which commands go where.

7) And, biggest flaw of all, it's so phenomenally tedious and repetetive that it defies comprehension. And I like sim/god games...

And so on, and so on. I could go on, but frankly I can't be bothered. It's a very nice game, very original and all that, and it's got lots of great ideas to it. It's just that the majority of those ideas are implemented in such an excreable manner that you just don't care. It's no good having a great game if the controls are so f*cked up that it's almost intolerable and the game is paced so slowly that you spend literally hours before you even come close to getting anywhere with it.

MWoody

1) You can use the keyboard if you don't like the dragging method. The mouse movement takes a little getting used to, but combined with keyboard shortcuts, it works just fine.

2) Agreed. There are third-party (offtopic: what is second-party?) utils to skip this blasted thing, but it should have been built in.

3) All creatures are unique. Most will figure out what to do and what not to do very quickly, if properly trained. They have an incredibly complex AI - a rudimentary neural net, actually - and are one of the first video game entities not to "cheat" to appear intelligent. So they can actually, if very carefully watched and rewarded/punished, learn to do things even the programmers didn't intend. Just takes time and patience, expecially if you're playing a particularly unintelligent species like the tiger.

4) I almost never miss a gesture. Get a better mouse.

5) Eh, kinda neutral on this one. My creature rarely fights.

6) Not sure what you mean on this one. The only useful area in the temple is the main room and creature cave (which can be jumped to using hotkeys, BTW) and everything else is in the ESC menu.

7) Depends how you play. B&W is truly one of those games that you "get out what you put in." If there was no creature, it would be sort of like a retard-Populous, but once you realize that the actual "game" is just an excuse to play around with your lil' electronic buddy, it becomes a bit less irritating.

I'll agree, the game has its flaws. Villager micromanagement sucks ass; the only part of it I enjoy is planting and watering trees, and making artifacts. But there are odd little moments, unique to B&W, that make my game time worth it: for example, my creature finally learned to squish children with his foot, and laughs his ass off every time he does so. I feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

I'd say it's worth the money, and I look forward to the patches and add-ons.

DrJag

if you try a smarter creature, you might have better results. for the ape, if you teach him how to do something a few times, he'll remember.

i agree with the comment that you get out what you put in. it's not the kind of game where you should be trying to win all the time. it's more fun to mess with your creature, and watch all the crazy things it does. i personally thing it's a lot less fun to train a good creature. teach him to go crap on enemy villages.

DVDKrayzie

i agree wholeheartedly with your topic statement. could have bought a DVD with that $19.99

DVDKrayzie

Rare is a second-party developer for Nintendo

Josh H

I thought it looked pretty lame, and was wondering what all the fuss was about. Of course I'm biased because I hate god/sim games and don't play all that many pc games. I just wondered why I had seen "best game ever" attached to this game on some sites.

Draven

I have been enjoying the game a lot...I think it's getting "Best Game Ever" for a couple of reasons. SPOILERS follow, be warned...

First, you have to like god/sim games. It's required, otherwise you won't like it.

I have yet to not figure out a way to do something. For example, there was a point where a bunch of villagers got set on fire and came running at my village. I only put a few of them out with the water spell, so I just grabbed them and chucked them into the ocean. No idea if that was what I was supposed to do, but it worked. Another time, I needed some wood, so I picked up a rock and dropped it on a few structures. Instant wood. Again, no idea if it was right, I just tried it and it worked.

Also, I laughed out loud when I went looking for my creature and he had gotten a bunch of villagers together and was showing them how to dance. I have seen stuff in this game that I have NEVER seen in a game before.

TheyCallHimJim

Also, my creature is now doing a couple of odd things... For example, he's learned how to turn villagers into Disciple Breeders, but I've never even shown him that!!! Freaky indeed...

mljones99

same here, thankfully though EB has a 10 day return policy so i return that box of crap back to them.

TheyCallHimJim

It's kinda starting to grow on me now, though... I think the turning point was when I left my tiger on his own for a while, and when I came back, he was teaching the villagers how to breakdance

Shaggy999

1st party: Comes from within the company itself or a company that is completly owned by the company that released the original product.
2nd party: Comes from a company external from the product, but usually has some sort of affiliation or alignment with that company.
3rd party: Has no official affiliation with that company whatsoever.

As mentioned above, the company Rare is 2nd party to Nintendo because Nintendo has a hefty investment in Rare. Something like 40% of Rare's stocks I believe. Because of this, Rare only produces for Nintendo (2nd party's usually only develop for the company they are affiliated with).

If a 2nd party product came out for Black&White, then that would mean that some company was actually hired by Lionhead studios to do the project. If it's 3rd party then that means there is no official connection between the two companies, like some amateur mods or something.