Customer Reviews

Black & White: Prima's Official Strategy Guide

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

If Dean Evans (the author of this book) is a programmer for Lionhead Ltd., he should sue--he isn't credited in the manual...anyway...

The Good: You are taken step by step through the quests for the most part, with useful details (like the EXACT locations of all nine sheep in land one).

The Bad: Other prime information is left out (like which actions determine the alignment of you and your creature/titan). Considering that raising a creature is at least half the game, one would expect the strategy guide to spend the majority of the time on the mechanics of training, alignment, etc. Instead, only 10% of the book covers creatures, and only superficially. Half of several pages is used for tables of "stats" for creatures, when in fact these "stats" only mildly affect the game. An example: p. 95 "Should you choose [the sheep as your titan], you'll have a lot of work to do if you want to shape it into a more terrifying attacker....Think of it as a challenge." But then on p. 94 "...as _Black & White's_ creatures don't differ wildly in their mathematical genetics, whatever beast you start with can eventually be transformed into a rampaging titan." So which is? Is one creature more difficult to use, or are they the same? This might seem like a minor point, but this is a sort of information I expect from a strategy guide. I expect more than the "missing manual" for a game.

The ugly: Is it worth it? Yes, if for nothing else than to aid you, when you are ready, to fully explore some of the quests. Is it a great strategy guide? Not in least. Again, I would call it a strategy guide in name only; it is essentially some information that should have been in the game manual. If you want REAL hints and tips (the sort of thing one expects to find in a strategy guide), check the message boards.

This strategy guide is useful more for the every-now-and-then gamer than the hardcore one like myself. It has clean cut and usefully headed chapters on some aspects of the game and one chapter for each level, with brief help for every challenge you will encounter.

One thing I noticed early on was that most of the information could be found else-where, in the game manual or on the in-game help signs liberally distributed around the landscape. Not much was from Prima actually thinking up their own techniques or tricks. In all fairness, Lionhead had already done so much to help you and so maybe it was a struggle for Prima to find any original material.

For example, in Land 3 there is a challenge where you must follow a sneaky Guri-type around the Mountain he lives on to his secret meditation spot. If he sees you he will stop and you will have to start again. At one point he turns round very quickly and I often got caught. Prima's suggestion: Turn around as he does. Yes, I could have worked that out myself! The problem is doing it quick enough. I found out later how to solve this puzzle, but this was not in the guide.

In conclusion; A skimpy, half a piece of celery for lunch, guide with hardly any original help. Not worth the money unless your really desperate, but good however if you are new to games of this type and need waterwings to coax you along.

Recommended only for more inexperianced players.

Save your money. This "guide" offers little more information than what is already provided in the instruction book and in the game itself (with all the help signs, etc.). Probably the only parts that could be considered useful are the walkthroughs of the 5 lands, but even the walkthroughs don't offer much in the way of strategies to consider. Plus, by now the walkthroughs are available on the internet somewhere. As mentioned above, the guide offers little/nothing in the way of good vs. evil consequences for doing certain actions. It is very disappointing to find such a lousy guide with the Prima name on it. I recommend playing the game without this guide (since it doesn't really guide you at all), and if you get stuck then find some help on the internet.

This isn't a very good strategy guide. There is not enough material on training your creature, which is unfortunate, since your creature is one of the more important, not to mention COMPLEX, aspects of the game. Also, the section on miracles is very vague. The only thing that kept me from rating only one star is that the actual walkthroughs for the various mini quests are useful. This is more of a walkthrough guide than a strategy guide, and with a game like B & W, the fun is in playing it, not completing it

Black & White: Prima's Official Strategy Guide by Dean Evans, is a great book, you can see every detail of the game here, you will know what to do, where to do and when. You will get info about everything, from villagers to wonders, disciples, creatures. Just don't use it before playing any level or it won't be as fun as it should be, but read about the level just when U are going to go to the next level and you will see what you are missing. The book is very good, use it as a help when you are stuck, but don't to play the whole game or the fun will be lost.

the only parts of this guide i found useful were the starting statistics for the creatures, and a few of the harder silver scroll solutions.

the stats on wood value of species of trees was interesting too, but doesn't make a practical difference in actual play, since it is a waste of time to rely on trees for wood in B&W.

This book was actually writen by one of the programmers of Black & White. I offers some hints (read: clues) as one might expect, but because of the nature of the game, they can't be very specific. Instead, it has processes and general ideas of behavior. Fun Fun. I'd try to learn the game myself before buying this though...

There are a TON of challenges in the game of Black and White that will help you out a lot. I often got stuck on these, but this strategy guide helped me figure out how to solve the challenges and tells me what to expect later in the game!

I liked it largely do to the help it gave on some of the harder miniquests in the game, though I was a little dissapointed with the fact that there was so little left in the game to do, though that was the programmers' fault and not this author's. Id have to say, this was one of the better strategy guides Ive purchased in a while

I would strongly recommend this book to any person who is a serious player for this games. This book has helpped me out of tuff jams and complex stradegies