Graphics and Engine

The Best Yet

The graphics in Black & White are the best in any Sim game ever made. Mind you, Civilization, Master of Orion, and SimCity weren't shooting to be the next benchmark game. The graphics in these classic Sim games were only vessels for the gameplay; in Black & White the graphics are an integral part of the experience.

He's been bad

A village at night

Black & White uses a tessellation engine, similar to the engine in Sacrifice. Tessellation engines scale the number of polys in a model with respect to distance. For example, zoom out to view an entire island and you won't see people. Zoom in to a village, and you'll see small dots scurrying around. Zoom into a village center, and you'll see the outlines of people. Zoom all the way to the ground, and you'll see a full model of a person, including their hair, clothes, and the movement of their limbs. All models in Black & White are treated this way, from mountains that turn into blobs from afar, to the infamous worm in the apple that wriggles as you zoom in. The tessellation engine is well implemented in Black & White.

A cow fighting an ogre

Bad moon rising

Textures in Black & White are excellent. They aren't pixel-pushing detailed like Quake III, but they serve their purpose well. Creature textures are detailed enough to see the plates on the turtle's back, as well as cuts and bruises when they fight. The faces and expressions of the creatures are also enhanced by the textures, although the animation has a lot to do with it as well. The different cultures are represented in the attire of the villagers, all of which are easy to distinguish. Black & White's engine also scales the textures on the models - they're blurry from far away, but zoom in and you can see the detail.

Turbo Charged

I hesitate to use the word "realistic", because every game claims to have "realistic physics". You've probably heard by now that you can pick up rocks, trees, and people and throw them around. This is all fine and dandy, but it's a lot harder than it sounds. The speed and distance you throw an object depends on how fast your move your hand and the angle you view the throw. It's rather hard to learn how to throw things properly, and I think it's too difficult to use. There are many times where you accidentally kill a person or destroy a structure due to the odd throwing mechanics. You can invest the time to learn how to throw things properly, but this is a god game not a rock throwing game, right?

The temple next to a Norse village

Village centers tell you how much people believe in you

It's also difficult placing objects on the ground. If you try to set down a rock, often it will roll or bounce. If you place it on a flat surface this won't happen, but most of the terrain in Black & White is hilly. This is especially annoying when you're planting trees to create a new forest - the trees fall over and may even kill a villager instead of sticking in the ground.

One very annoying design is that the music in the game streams from the CD. This sounds typical, but it has a jarring effect when you're playing the game. If you zoom out and zoom back in quickly, the game stutters and pauses as the music loads. It's very annoying, since every time you swing by your temple it does this. There's a nice No CD "patch" out there that alleviates this problem, although you don't experience any music if you do this.