About / Story / Specs
Find out who you really are.
In Black & White you can be the god you want to be. Will you rule with a fair
hand, making life better for your people? Or will you be evil and scare them into
prayer and submission? No one can tell you which way to be. You, as a god, can play
the game any way you choose
You must impress other tribes to get more followers, and as your zealous power base
grows you are faced with innumerable challenges. The people will pray to you to
help them, make them rich, harm their neighbours of simply make their lives easier.
Whether you choose to listen to them or help them is up to you.
In Black & White you can be the god you want to be. Will you rule with a fair
hand, making life better for your people? Or will you be evil and scare them into
prayer and submission? No one can tell you which way to be. You, as a god, can play
the game any way you choose.
And as a god, you get to own a Creature. Chosen by you from magical, special animals,
your Creature will copy you, you will teach him and he will learn by himself. He
will grow, ultimately to 30 metres, and can do anything you can do in the game.
Your Creature can help the people or can kill and eat them. He can cast Miracles
to bring rain to their crops or he can drown them in the sea. Your Creature is your
physical manifestation in the world of Eden, He is whatever you want him to be.
Your people will build you a Temple and although you can go anywhere in the land,
this Temple is your base. It's a mighty piece of work and contains all you'll ever
need to be a god, run your world and look after or check on your Creature.
But things are never simple. You are not the only god on Eden. There are others,
and they will not have the same views as you. They, too, are intent on gaining the
hearts and minds, and finally the souls of the tribes, and, like you, they have
Creatures capable of great works or of mass destruction. There will be war between
the gods. Whether you win is down to you, your Creature and what sort of a person
you really are.
Black & White utilises brand-new graphics control systems, and you see the world
from any angle, direction or height. It's fully scalable, has light-sourcing and
reflections, and you can even import real weather from the internet into the world.
Nothing like this has ever been seen before.
And the game also boasts a new level of artificial intelligence. Your Creature is
almost a living, breathing thing. He learns, remembers and makes connections. His
huge range of abilities and decisions is born of a ground-breakingly powerful and
complex AI system.
The villagers in Eden also use revolutionary AI. Each has his or her own personality,
and this can be altered by what they see, what they do and what sort of person they
are.
Another innovation is Gesture technology. There are no icon panels or on-screen
controls in Black & White. If you want to carry out even the most intricate
or powerful Miracles, you can do so by simply drawing the correct sign on the ground.
It's quick, intuitive and adds to your power as a god.
If you have an Immersion TouchSense-compatible mouse like the Logitech iFeel
Mouse, the virtual Black & White world will provide realistic tactile feedback
through the mouse. Pulling up trees, powering up Miracles, stroking or slapping
your Creature, zeroing in on faraway villagers, and many other interactions all
have their associated touch sensations which will add to the overall immersive game
experience.
Finally, the game sets new standards in on-line gaming. Not only can you play with
others, either co-operatively or against them, but you can take you Creature out
of the single-player game and onto the web. You can also send and receive e-mail
and phone text messages from within Black & White, using the all-new unified
message system. And the game will even interrogate your e-mail package, import your
contact names and assign them to individual tribespeople. So someone can come up
to you and give you a message personally!
Story
In a perfect world, people wouldn't need gods. But perfect worlds can't exist and
sooner or later someone, in trouble, desperate, will pray to the heavens. This is
what happens in the beginning of Black & White.
Your new tribe bow before you in awe, and from this moment your prayer power starts
to grow. As you carry out godly acts, the belief in you rises and more and more
people are convinced that worshipping you in the way forward. But you can be good
or evil. You may choose to rule the world as you wish.
As you grow in power, you acquire a Creature, a wondrous being capable of doing
anything you can do. Capable of learning and being trained and capable of making
his own decisions. The people of Eden, whether they believe in you or not, can't
failed to be impressed by this beast, and more are swayed to your cause through
their admiration of the Creature and the god that owns him.
But on other lands there are other gods. They have their own Creatures and their
own followers. You must vie with them for power. You must use your Miracles, your
Creature and your cunning to steal followers from these gods, and to do battle between
the Creatures for supremacy.
The ultimate goal is the Creed. Elements of these live within each Creature, and
he who controls the parts of the Creed can control the whole land of Eden.
You may do well. You may sway the minds of the tribes, but can you gather the parts
of the Creed? Can you defeat the god of gods, the enemy of enemies? Can you defeat
your Nemesis and rule over the whole world? That is a question only you, and only
time will answer.
Specifications
PC version:
published by EA games
Minimum Specification:
Windows 95/98/ME/2000,
350mhz processor, 64mb RAM,
600mb Hard Drive Space,
CD or DVD 4x speed drive,
8mb Graphics Card PCI/AGP,
Direct3D 3D accelerator, Direct X 7.0a, Keyboard & Mouse.
Multiplayer (2-8 Players): 1 CD per player
network play: TCP/IP compliant
internet play: 56.6 Kbps Modem
Macintosh version:
published by Feral Interactive
Minimum Specification:
Mac OS 8.6
333 MHz G3 processor
128 MB of RAM
750 MB of hard disk space
8 MB OpenGL graphics card
OpenGL 1.2
Multiplayer not currently supported