Good, but could be MUCH better....
REALLY cool game! I've never really seen anything like this before! You control one of many creatures and you must teach is various things such as spells, which foods are better to eat and even where to poop! There is so much you can do with your creature such as play with it, fight other creatures, take over villages ETC, so the game will keep you hooked for hours. The reason I gave it a 7 though, is because of one thing. Black and White promised many things that didn't appear in the final game. Where is the soccer field? It says that you can build it right in the game, but you can't! Lionhead (developer) also promised that your creature would be able to build a fire to warm itself (That's why it lists how hot or cold your creature is) but that never appeared. It also promised creatures dancing to MP3s, but that didn't happen either. This game is also LOADED with bugs! There is a BETA patch now, but it still doesn't fix everything, after all, it's BETA. It is like EA (Publisher) handed us BETA versions of the game and we were all testers. Why say you can do something and not add it? Also, if you take a look at some of the files in the game, it shows many things, such as village banter, which are not in the game. What happened? Don't give promises that you can't keep and certainly don't give us unused files on the CD!
Lionhead is going to keep adding patches to the game to add the little extras they missed, so people who already bought the game have to wait. Because a lot of the cool little things are missing, the game could get pretty boring, very fast. Multiplayer is also terrible, with only 4 maps to play on. There is also no option to form alliances so it is always a free for all. If you still don't have the game, I suggest you wait for a few months. This game is VERY good and VERY fun, I'll give it that, but it will be much sweeter once Lionhead and EA get off their asses and add the stuff that should have been there in the first place. Once they start releasing patches, they will release the missing parts of the game and some new maps and creatures. This is when the game will start to do its magic, so I strongly suggest waiting till then. (Don't worry! Play some other very fun games like Counter-Strike, Tropico, or Worms World Party.)
Control: 9/10
Controlling everything with the mouse is a cool idea, but it is sometimes annoying. Luckily, you can bind some camera controls to the keyboard. It may seem tedious at first, but with some practice, exploring the map and controlling the camera gets VERY easy, with no annoying menu bars to fill the screen! Good job Lionhead.
Audio: 8/10
Woah......
If you don't have a good sound card, especially one with EAX, get one now! The game doesn't use EAX, but an EAX card really helps! The sound of thunder crashing while rain pours down on your villages. The sound of your creature's roar as he lands a punch into his enemy's face, the smash afterwards and a blast from a fireball. The sound in this game kick ass! The music is also very good, but kind of gets repetitive. Boy we could really use the MP3 option right now!
Graphics: 10/10
Hands down, probably the prettiest game ever. This game looks absolutely amazing, especially if you have an Nvidia card. The terrain looks beautiful, with the mountains, realistic waterfalls and lakes, and the skies with its clouds. Everything looks so realistic in this game. The weather effects are also outstanding. When it begins to snow, the terrain slowly accumulates it, and when it is sunny, the snow slowly melts away! The creature models are superb, with realistic builds and movements. The eyes, mouth and hair move around realistically and are individually modeled, unlike some games. The only real problem I saw was that the villager models were kind of bad, but that was probably the feel Lionhead was going for. Really nice looking game!
Replayability: 5/10
Ugh.... This isn't good at all. Like I said earlier, LOTS of bugs and LOTS of broken promises. There is really no motivation to play after a while because the multiplayer is awful, with only 4 maps. After you beat the game (After the LV5 bug is fixed) there is no reason to beat it again, unless you want to start with another creature. But once Lionhead adds maps, new gameplay options and new creatures, this game will get very good, so just wait!
Overall: 8/10
Overall, this game is great! A really nice looking game with very unique gameplay. But horrible multiplayer, broken promises and weak replay value may bore some of you. This is one of those games that can only get better with time. My advice for the people who don't have this game yet, is to just wait. Just wait for Lionhead to release more stuff, hopefully during the summer on their website www.bwgame.com. But lets not see a repeat of the ''patch incident'' Lionhead! (Many of the B+W fans know what I mean when I say that)