Gift Horse of the Gods

Amazon.com and Electronic Arts are offering a beautiful horse to Amazon.com customers who own Black & White . It is simple and neutral to begin with, but good players can teach it to help others and take pride in watching the noble steed grow into a towering champion of good. Evil players can give the horse a taste for human flesh and watch as it erupts into a hellish nightmare.

Like so many things in Black & White , the choice is yours.

How to Get Your Bonus Creature

Click here, which will initiate the download from Electronic Arts. Peak traffic may overwhelm their servers; if you get an error, please try again later.

Choose the Save to Disk option, and save the file to your desktop.

Once the download is complete, double click on the file. This will automatically install the creature into the game.

Now that the creature is installed on your hard drive, you need to find it within the game. See below for the in-game steps needed to access your new creature.

Black & White In-Game Instructions for Bonus Creature

Now that the creature is on your hard drive, he will become available to you the next time you run Black & White . But downloading is easy--finding him in the game is a different matter. Take note, though--to take control of your new beast you must already have chosen a creature from the game.

Once you have chosen your starting creature you may exchange him immediately if you wish, but to do so you must locate the whereabouts of the Creature Breeder. This is not as easy as it sounds, for he only appears on Land 1 and Land 4, and even armed with that knowledge you will still have to find his hut. We will tell you this, though, breeding creatures is a lonely business, so he tends to stay away from village life by making his home in one of the more isolated parts of the land.

The Breeder's hut can be recognized by a silver scroll above it--once you click this, the Breeder will come out and offer you your new creature. If you have unlocked more than one creature, you will be offered more than one creature, but if you click on the scroll without having unlocked a creature, the Breeder will tell you he has nothing to offer--it's that simple!

If you decide you like the look of the new creature, it's time to introduce him to your old one--do this by leading your old creature to the Breeder's hut with the leash, making sure that you position him next to your new choice.

Once this is done it's just a matter of clicking the silver scroll above the head of the new creature and the exchange of their immortal souls will commence. Don't worry--it's a painless process that lasts but a moment, but is essential if all the attributes and characteristics of your old creature are to remain intact.

If after a while you find that your new creature's look is irritating you, it's very easy to change him back. Just find your way back to the Creature Breeder's hut and click on the silver scroll again. You should then be presented with your old creature, and any new ones you might have unlocked. Click the scroll above the head of your old creature and watch as their immortal souls change back.

Software copyright © 2001 Lionhead Studios Ltd. All rights reserved. Black & White, Lionhead, and the Lionhead logo are trademarks of Lionhead Studios Ltd. EA GAMES and the EA GAMES logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Electronic Arts Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries. EA GAMES is an Electronic Arts brand.

Mike Fehlauer is an editor for Computer & Video Games at Amazon.com.