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Black & White

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7.2 User Score:

Universal acclaim

Based on 34 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

Based on 37 votes
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Game Info

Publisher: Electronic Arts

Developer: Lionhead Studios

Genre(s): Real-Time Strategy

Players: 1

ESRB Rating: T (Teen)

Release Date: March 27, 2001

Summary

Peter Molyneux's highly anticipated "god game," a blend of the genres including strategy, sim, RPG, and puzzle, features the player as a new god in the lands of Eden who must reign with the help of uniquely evolving animals in either a benign or evil fashion.

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GAMES: Black & White 2

Cheat Codes & Hints: Adrenaline Vault Cheat Code Central Da Gameboyz Game Revolution Gamespot GameSpot Guide Gamezilla! Happy Puppy IGN

Also On The Web: Official Game Site Planet Black and White

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Game Revolution

It's the sort of game that comes around once every few years and totally changes the gaming landscape.

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100

GamePro

Black & White miraculously pulls you in and doesn't let go until you've sacrificed many hours.

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100

Total Video Games

If you’d like to keep your friends and job stay clear away from this game, if however you want to get sucked into a game that rarely let’s you leave, then you need to get this game, simple.

100

Yahoo! Games

A stunning achievement.

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100

Daily Radar

One of the most compelling, beautiful and impressive pieces of code we have played in a long, long time. It is also insanely addictive.

100

Games Radar UK (Pre-2006)

Believe the hype. The new Best Game Ever just rode into town, and it's going to be sticking around for a long time.

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100

GMR Magazine

Highly conceptual "god-game" that has you ruling over mortals with a little help from a giant cow-monster. [Feb 2003, p.94]

Gamer's Pulse

Over the past 12 months, I have played some of the best games ever made and playing Black & White is just pure icing on the cake.

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IGN

A truly miraculous "game." I call it a "game" because it's more of an experience.

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PC Gameworld

With excellent online play, top-notch graphics, and a musical score that you'll find yourself just listening to, Black and White is a quality game all around.

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TotalGames.net

To play this is to love it - there is so much to do, so much to learn and so much enjoyment to be had from this that I cannot see anyone failing to like it.

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Happy Puppy

Quite simply the most ingenious, addictive and meticulously-crafted and executed computer game of the year thus far.

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PC Gamer

One of the most innovative, creative, original, and awe-inspiring PC games ever. [June 2001, p.52]

Da Gameboyz

Plain and simple, Black and White is the most engrossing game I've seen in a while.

Gamezilla!

It has an innovative style, quality design and some elements that have never before been seen in gaming, like the alignment system. It's easily one of the most entertaining games I've played in a long time.

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GameSpot

The scope of Black & White is so far in excess of a typical game design that it seems surprising that the finished product turned out so polished and so playable.

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GameSpy

One of the most unique -- and enjoyable -- strategy games we've seen this year.

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GameZone

An incredible game that features great AI, music, graphics and story.

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All Game Guide

Mixing elements of empire building, resource management, life simulation, survival and brawling with complex strategies and tactics in a gorgeous fantasy setting seems too good to be true.

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ActionTrip

The musical score is monumental in a sense and it reminds me of that theme song in "Gladiator" - the one which plays during that scene when Maximus is walking through a crop field near his home.

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Spank!

It's not the all-encompassing experience of godly power that was suggested. You have to play it in a fairly rigid and organised fashion.

Armchair Empire

Black & White is one of the games you will remember 10 years from now as a turning curve for PC gaming. Thank you Peter Molyneux and Lionhead Studios, this game has certainly been something fresh and new.

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Cincinnati Enquirer

A heavenly refreshing virtual toy in which to lose oneself for hours on end.

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Electric Playground

I strangely feel a very strong maternal instinct towards my monkey (don't tell my children). I find myself telling him out loud what a good boy he is while rubbing his belly or explaining why I have to spank him.

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Gamers' Temple

Ground-breaking and very fascinating, but the game is hurt by an overemphasis on micromanagement. Improved village management and some poor level design kept this game from rating higher.

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Voodoo Extreme

After about 15-25 hours (Depending on the gamer) the game just seems to lose it’s fun factor. Sadly, many games released nowadays don’t even have 15 hours gameplay in them, let alone 15 hours of damn fun gameplay; Black and White does indeed have this.

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Playboy

While the game is far from perfect -- some may bristle at the constant micromanagement and the often ambiguous objectives you are required to meet -- it is very approachable and addictive, an almost ideal virtual playground in which you can play god.

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Maxim Online

Though the plodding pace and cutesy atmosphere border on blasphemy, the game’s open-ended design lets you indulge your most megalomaniacal fantasies with ease.

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GamerWeb PC

Think of this as a cake-baking contest, and Lionhead showed up with a cake mix still in the box. The final quality depends on how you mix it, bake it, and frost it.

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Adrenaline Vault

Parts are a bit problematic, such as the combat, challenges, and village management, but most of what you experience is endlessly fascinating.

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FiringSquad

It has a great concept, great innovations, but they should have spent more time refining the gameplay to be more rewarding. City building, fighting, and creature training are all too shallow.

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GamePower

I stand in awe of the vastness of its scope and the inventiveness of its design. However, it takes forever to learn, and one can't help getting frustrated along the way.

Computer Games Magazine

It's a brilliant toy but also a jumbled mishmash of original ideas and mundane gameplay that fails to deliver a cohesive single- or multiplayer experience.

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Gaming Age

Once I made it past that initial stage of astonishment, I made an unfortunate discovery: the single-player game, as designed, just isn't much fun in the long term.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this game is 7.2 (out of 10) based on 37 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Yonguk K gave it a3:
Okay, this game is like second-secondhand yacht; It looks great, sails fine. Then it begins to sink in the very middle of the sea. Oops. All the systems praised by critics proven to be buggy and incomplete; I found myself tired of training stupid creatures and feeding villagers who cannot live on if i do not full their storage every 10 minute. And what about hard and frustrating quests? This game is one overrated abomination.

Ben H gave it a10:
Possibly the most innovative game I have ever played. It had flaws, but those were very well balanced and circumvented by the game's lack of a HUD and blissfully well-done controls. Best game that Lionhead has ever done.

a i gave it a2:
If being god is this dull and boring, he'd have to shoot himself. this is the only game I ever bought that I was not able to advance past a few missions, for the sheer pain of playing futher. thinking of the possible obligation to play the game in light of buying it was like doing advanced accounting homework: wishing for a break; dawdling the time; picking up other things to do.

Keenan H gave it a9:
Black & White is a good game,but it needed a little more work.It has a few flaws.A few are:not enough informational feedback,too short,too easy,a few bugs,and all the villagers do is need food,need wood,need kids,and need homes constantly.Patch 1.1 helps a lot with the bugs,but not much else.There are only five easy levels,a few simple skirmishes,and multiplayer.I gave it a 9 because it is a great game,the flaws can be overlooked easily if you like the good parts of the game,such as:great story,easy controls,living in Eden,being a god,and having vast amounts of freedom to do what You want.Good,Evil,it doesn't matter,You are a GOD!

Tom W. gave it an8:
Imaginative and fun. Lionhead takes god games another step forward.

Toe K. gave it a1:
Very subpar game. not very fun. controls suck.

Karl N. gave it a6:
I didn't get far enough into the game to critique the game mechanics. It's the philosophy behind this game that bothers me. I find this game annoying because it assumes that people are whiny, helpless creatures that only know how to do three things: grovel for help, run in terror, or bow in terror/reverence. Surely people could have a more sophisticated response to God. Surely there could be something more than just fear driving human actions. This disappoints me because the game was ambitious and I would like to see more attempts at these kinds of games.

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