Black & White: Creature Isles

Remember all those times you told your creature that one day he’d understand what it’s like to put up with a little one? Well, it’s payback time with Creature Isle, because now it’s his turn to raise a beast of his own.

Roughly a year ago, developer Lionhead Studios and publisher Electronic Arts brought out an amazing game called Black & White. After several patches and upgrades by both users and the developers, the long-awaited expansion was finally released. Creature Isle is the expansion to Black & White, released for the PC. The original Black & White is required to play Creature Isle.

The thing that drew me the most to the original Black & White was how the creatures actually learn from you. They act as if they were alive - needing to eat, sleep, drink, play, and even go to the bathroom. That’s where you come in. After picking which animal you’d like to raise, your pet will experiment by eating civilians, kicking trees around, and relieving itself in the Town Square. It’s up to you to punish or reward it according to how you want it raised, and it slowly learns what you teach it. Your creature even watches and mimics you; becoming either good or evil, depending on the habits you display.

This responsibility is now handed down to your creature in Creature Isle, because now it has a pet of its own to look after. Just as your beast once looked up to you, a little chick, named Tyke, follows your creature around watching its every move.

Along with the challenge of teaching your creature to teach its creature, there are new trials scattered all over the island. You’ll now have your creature doing things like bowling, playing soccer, racing, building a home, and meeting a significant other. They’re very fun and entertaining things to do with your digital friend.

New spells are introduced, along with new creatures for your pet to interact with…or even become! Each animal becomes available when you complete their trial, and you can challenge them to a fight whenever you feel the urge, or just swap your current creature’s appearance with theirs.

Fans of Black & White will rejoice now that finally there’s an expansion for it. It’s basically just a fun place where you hang out with your creature and play games. If you were into the fighting of the first one and are disappointed to hear that there are no bad guys, fear not. There’s a dojo where you can test your skills against all the different creatures. Creature Isle is definitely a worthy add-on.  

Install: Easy
It’s very simple and self-explanatory to install this game. You just open My Computer, then select the drive that your Creature Isle disc is in, and then double-click Setup.exe. Follow the instructions and you’ll have it installed in no time.

Gameplay: 9
If you like the micro-management games, then Black & White is a treat. Creature Isle just adds more to it, offering a wider variety of play than before. Plus, it’s just so darn cute to watch your grown creature interact with the baby Tyke!

Graphics: 8.5 
This kind of depends on what graphics card you have in your computer. The better the graphics card – the better it will look. What really amazed me about this game graphically were the facial expressions on the animals. They’re very detailed, and you can almost read their thoughts through them. You’d swear these creatures had a mind of their own. I also recommend taking time to notice the little things. Zoom in on the people and wildlife, and check out the houses after tossing rocks on them.

Sound: 9.5
The sound in the game is great. Everything from the soothing music to the village banter fits the game perfectly, and helps to set the calm mood of the game. This is truly a game to take your time with and enjoy. The only reason the sound wasn’t scored higher is because I couldn’t get the Winamp plug-in from the original Black & White to work with the expansion, which was great for listening to your own music while playing.

Difficulty: 6
Some of the trials required to continue with the game can get frustrating, but it just takes practice, and you get as many tries as you want with the required ones. A lot of times there are more than one solution to the problem.

Concept: 10 
The whole concept is great. If you love animals, or are just a bossy person, you’ll love this game. If you don’t fit these criteria, you’ll still love it. You really start to care about your little pets, and even start to look at them as living, breathing animals with true feelings. Of course they really don’t live, breath, and feel, but they are very believable.

Multiplayer: 7
I don’t think the multiplayer on Black & White: Creature Isle is nearly as entertaining as the single player game, but it’s still fun. There are different types of multiplayer games, but the point in most of them is to try and get as many villages to believe in you instead of the other players. You have spells to aid in this of course, which makes it even more interesting.

Overall: 8.7
I loved the original Black & White, and this expansion just adds to it. It gives you an absolutely enemy-free island to play around and raise your new baby chicken, covered in new, fun trials, creatures, and spells. I have to admit that I am a little disappointed in the lack of content, though. I thought there would be a few more new creatures and spells, but it makes up for that by adding bowling that both you and you creature can do! If you’re a Black & White fan, I definitely recommend Creature Isle.