Populous

Game review

Games where you can play the God and make almost everything are always the best and it is not otherwise in well-known game: Populous, where you play, wait for it..., God. There are two nations fighting each other and you're looking at them from above. Of course, you're helping one nation defeat the other by using the number of natural disasters. By a mouse click you might curl piece of land, flood the entire continent, build a stone mountain, or send a great earthquake at the enemy nation. Other nation has other God, that makes same things to you - he is trying to destroy your nation through disastesr and so begins the war of Gods.

The player assumes the role of a deity, who must lead followers through direction, manipulation, and divine intervention, with the goal of eliminating the followers led by the opposite deity. Played from an isometric perspective, the game consists of more than 500 levels, with each level being a piece of land which contains the player's followers and the enemy's followers. The player is tasked with defeating the enemy followers and increasing their own followers' population using a series of divine powers before moving on to the next level.

Each god starts out with a single human, dumped into the middle of the wilderness. Sometimes there is inhabitable land in sight, sometimes not. To get a chance to win, you must change the landscape, creating flat land for your followers to build on. The more followers you have, the more powerful you will be, so take care of them. Build as fast as you can, because the other god is doing the same.

When you have enough followers, you can make the leader of your people into a hero. He will then go around the land you have built, literally taking strength from the people into himself, and working his way toward the enemy. When he gets there, he will engage in holy warfare upon your enemy's people. He will burn; he will kill. And he won't stop until they're all dead... or he is.

And when you win, you'll have 500 more worlds to conquer. A god's play is just never done.