Black and White Preview

It's risky business when amateur prognosticators (read: journalists) lavish adulation on a game that's not yet playable, much less finished. Unfortunately, in Black and White's case, such huge expectations have been created among rabid gamers thanks to a lot of gushing and praising from a wide variety of gaming sources. However, when you consider that Black and White is the pet project of Peter Molyneux - whose resume of classics like Syndicate, Populous, and the Dungeon Keeper series virtually created the "god game" genre - can you really blame them? Molyneux's latest offering, Black and White, plans to proudly carry on his tradition of ridiculous ambition coupled with total control by offering even more detail, power, and subtle humor than any of his previous "godly" efforts. Sega confirmed and demonstrated the Dreamcast version of the game in exclusive circles at this year's E3, despite the fact that the original PC version - currently in development at Molyneux's development company, Lionhead - hasn't even been released yet (it's due in November).

The object of Black and White is to secure your power as a god by winning the devotion and submission of your chosen people. These people have a sense of free will, but the degree in which it manifests itself is tempered by their ardor toward you, the deity. Since you're unable to control people's interactions with each other and the community directly, you'll need to use a godly figurehead to do your talking. This is where the Titans come in. Titans represent your power given shape. At the game's outset, you will select your Titan from a roster of animals (bears, tortoises, lions, tigers, and wolves, among others) and watch as this "divine animal" initially plods alongside your people's farm animals as a totally average-sized, mundane creature. As your power grows and your people progress, however, a maturation will begin to transform your once unremarkable pet in both size and stature. The direction of your Titan's metamorphosis is completely at your discretion, and it ends up being a key gameplay feature. Coddle and cater to your Titan's needs and watch it grow up to be a benevolent creature that's slow to inflict violence. On the other hand, pinch, prod, and otherwise torment your Titan, and you'll soon be faced with the prospect of managing a psycho killer who's hell-bent on making others' lives a living hell.

Because of its very open-ended nature, Black and White isn't much for story. Much like in Molyneux's previous works, Black and White takes place on a fictional world (known as Eden), and places you in charge of a fictional people. Eden's topography and overall appearance, though different in shape, is aesthetically identical to Earth's. The people are based on ancient cultures like the Greeks, Japanese, and Egyptians, among others. It is here where would-be gods will get their first taste of the scope and level of control the title wants to offer gamers. In a demonstration at E3, Molyneux personally attempted to convey the reach of Black and White by focusing the in-game camera on an apple resting on a barrel in a small village. Slowly, he zoomed the camera away from the apple, the barrel, and eventually the village, finally pulling the camera high enough so that one could only see the faint outline of the civilization through the translucent clouds, and finally, not at all. The level of detail that Lionhead wants to display sounds awfully ambitious, and it'll be interesting to see if Molyneux's grandiose vision will be successfully represented by Lionhead's programmers in the final product.

Black and White will probably take advantage of the graphical benefits provided by the console format. All the effects from the PC version will find themselves translated in some form to the Dreamcast. This goes for transparencies, light sourcing, and the like. Despite the taxing load realizing large expanses of terrain, villages, people, trees, and other miscellaneous objects exacts upon the processor, Lionhead is confident the frame rate will be consistent while multiple 30,000 polygon characters simultaneously strut onscreen.

Each Black and White game session will ideally end up being a unique one; each progression and conclusion should be wholly different from the game that preceded it. Molyneux envisions that ideally Black and White will respond to every one of your decisions. If you elect to cruelly reign over your people with a callous disregard for their lives, you'll find your decision has repercussions in every facet of the game: The world will turn dark and hard, the people will look downtrodden, and the aforementioned Titan will rule with an iron fist. Conversely, the opposite can prove to be true: With a peaceful rule, you'll find the world green, your people happy, and life idyllic.

This ambiguous pseudo-goal of creating a world of your choosing is a fixture of the god game genre, and it is a staple of the kind of game that hasn't historically translated to the console format with as much success as it finds its niche on the PC. It'll be interesting to see whether Black and White can be the first title to break out of this unfortunate trend. Look for Black and White to ship to Dreamcast consoles sometime early next year.