Black & White

This game is pretty old now, but it still holds it's charm for many reasons. For me, this was the first game where your decisions dictated what you became, either good or evil (or neutral), as well as the first game where I had to experiment with training an AI.

In Black and White, you are a god born from the prayers of frantic parents who's child is drowning. You save the child and follow the family to the village that now worships you. From here on out, everything you do determines your alignment, from sides quests, to storyline quests, to just every day maintenance of your town(s).

You get a creature that you must train to work at your will. The creature has a basic AI, and it's actions are altered based on its rewards and punishments (i.e. the amount of petting or slapping it endures from its god). It has basic needs which should be met (food, rest, etc) but it isn't hard to care for aside from training. Different creatures have different starting traits that will make them easier or harder to bend to your will. For example, the tiger is naturally aggressive and will more easily learn how to fight and eat villagers, where as the smart ape will be learn how to cast miracles (spells) much more quickly.

The AI is far from perfect. You may be okay with your pet throwing a ball around until it knocks down a house, but punishing it after it breaks the house with the ball doesn't teach it not to hit a house, but rather it teaches it not to throw the ball. Rewards and punishments are associated with the action, not the result. Also villagers can be annoyingly demanding. If they have plenty of food, they'll demand kids; if they get kids, they demand food; if you kill or destroy something they demand mercy; so on and so forth.

The game is fun overall, and I recommend it to anyone who has a lot of time on their hands or is tired of typical Sim games. It's old, so I don't know how great it will run on most new systems. It seems to do okay on my Windows 7 though.