New Black & White Titles
Peter Molyneux showed off the new Black and White add-on called Creature Isles at the nVidia stand today. Not content with creatures who will gladly crap in the middle of a field without a second thought, apparently what fans overwhelmingly also wanted their creature to do was, um, have sex. Ye Gods. What's more intriguing is that Lionhead thought it was a great idea and based the add-on around it! It's not quite as parent-disturbing as it initially sounds though. Your creature from the original game has to go through a series of trials and at the end of them it is rewarded by being allowed to breed with another creature to make a baby creature. Peter said they're still trying to work out how exactly to show this breeding act. Obviously it could be considered in bad taste but as Peter Molyneux pointed out, let's face it, we've all seen a few wildlife documentaries where those creatures are always bloody at it.
Once you finally get this baby creature it is taught by your adult creature (rather than yourself). At the start of the add-on, to prepare your creature for parenthood, and also as a kind of test, he's given what's called a Tyke, a small creature that also learns from your creature. The Tyke shown today was an almost sickeningly cute little yellow chicken, shown on the left in Fuzz-O-Vision (TM), in other words it's a photo taken of a video projector presentation. Once you get a baby creature you can take both the child creature and Tyke online.
Creature AI has apparently been much improved too, Peter said that your creature will be much smarter than he could ever be in the original game if you finish Creature Isles with it. There are going to be about half as many challenges as there were in the original game, which isn't bad for an add-on. Some I noticed in the list that briefly popped up on screen included "Missile Command" and "Jedi Fight". Weird, I know, don't ask me how they work. Two mini games/challenges were shown during the demonstration. One was a ten pin bowling game, the other a very strange if amusing sniping game (complete with crosshair) where you fire explosive rocks as villagers as they frantically run around in circles.
Creature fighting has been improved for Creature Isles. One addition to this aspect of the game is attack sequence recording. Peter also mentioned that PlayStation2 and Xbox versions of Black and White are being worked on, though the focus in both of them is to be on creature development with no villager management due to the control issues.
Peter Molyneux also revealed a little about Black and White 2 at the event. While inter-creature breeding won't be available in Creature Isles, it is being planned for inclusion in Black and White 2. In the sequel, things have moved on, technology is a little more advanced, the villagers aren't quite so dumb and your people are continuing that tradition of all nations who've "advanced" - going to war. You can pick which side to support and it sounds like you may be able to watch as hundreds of villagers hack each other to bits. Lovely. Black and White Studios, the Lionhead spin off studio currently solely focused on supporting and continuing the Black and White series, is aiming to complete Creature Isles in November and release it any time between then and February. Quite sensibly, considering their past record, Lionhead hasn't announced a date for Black and White 2 yet.
