Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!apple!agate!ucbvax!hplabs!hp-sdd!ncr-sd!tw-rnd!johnl From: johnl@tw-rnd.SanDiego.NCR.COM (John Lindwall) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Populous Review (long) Keywords: populous games EA fun review Message-ID: <431@tw-rnd.SanDiego.NCR.COM> Date: 14 Jul 89 20:49:36 GMT Organization: NCR Distributed Systems Laboratory Lines: 155 Review of POPULOUS Amiga game from Electronic Arts Requires AmigaDos 1.2/1.3 OVERVIEW The premise of Populous is that the player takes the part of one of two Deities in a mythical land. The people inhabiting this land are aligned with one of the two deities. By assisting your chosen people in surviving and thriving, the deity gains in power. When all of the opposing population are wiped out, the deity has won. SCREEN DISPLAY The screen display of Populous is boggling at first, but becomes quite comfortable with experience. The top left corner of the screen displays a large scale map of the land. The center of the screen displays a zoomed in view of small portion of the large scale map. The top right part of the screen contains an "info" area, which graphically displays statistics of a selected "object". A power gauge on the right of the screen displays the amount of mana accrued by the deity, along with the powers the deity may weild. The bottom portion of the screen contains a collection of icons which are the players controls. The game is controlled entirely with the mouse. I applaud the designers for such as useful and effective user-interface. All of the game controls appear on this one screen. DESCRIPTION At the start of the game the computer displays the land on the large scale map. Flashing white dots indicate the location of Good population; flashing red dots indicate Evil people. At the start of the game, each side only has a small number of people (3-6). By clicking on the large-scale map the player can view selected portions of the map. Deities wield indirect control over the population. The people can be directed to settle, attack, join and settle, or quest. Settling causes people to look for flat land areas in which to build houses. The more flat area for crops, the larger the housing is. IE there are tents, huts, houses, towers, forts, and castles. The deity can assist the efforts of the people by modifying the landscape in order to create flat lands. When the housing becomes crowded, a walker will come forth and seek out a new place to homestead. As more people are "born", the deity's mana increases. Attack mode causes people to set forth and attack any enemy forces in the area. Join and Settle mode causes adjacent walkers to merge into a more powerful walker. If no other walkers are near they will settle instead. Quest mode causes walkers to set forth in the direction of the marker. The deity can place the marker anywhere on the map. This option allows the deity to direct the expansion of his people. A deity's powers include A> Modify landscape (up or down). B> Move marker (see Quest mode above) C> Create swamp (great for killing enemy walkers) D> Create knight (changes a walker into a powerful, independent killing machine) E> Volcano (demolishes enemy landscape/houses/people) F> Flood (Raises the ocean's water level, can be devastating!) G> Armegeddon (cause remaining population to battle to the bitter end). Each option consumes mana. Unless you have enough mana you cannot execute the option. OPINIONS This game is unlike any I've ever played before. The level of detail is amazing. The graphics are excellent. There are a variety of terrain types (wooded, desert, rock, ice). There are dozens of predefined lands, which increase in difficulty. The computer player is very good. Two player mode is also supported as well as modem play! Many parameters of play can be modified, allowing a handicap to a more experienced player. When playing Populous I lose myself in the game world. It seems that the land takes on a life of its own. As the game unfolds, a kind of history takes place. For example, in one game I had built my people up to a high degree. I had a firm base of support with many castles and a strong leader. I had built a land-bridge across the ocean so that my forces could perform a mass invasion of the enemy area. Then DISASTER struck! The enemy deity had seen my strength and suddenly flooded the entire world killing 75% of my forces and altering the landscape completely! (I had stupidly built my flat areas on low ground). My plan shifted to a defensive mode, and I was forced to rebuild while the enemy attacked relentlessly. Through patience and harrassment of enemy forces (a volcano or two in the middle of the enemy stronghold is always nice) I emerged victorious!! It is fascinating to view the changing face of the world and its peoples as the game progresses. I recommend this game highly. I always want to play "just one more land". It appeals to my sense of fantasy and egotism (when was the last time you got to be a deity?) If you are a hard-core board gamer, you may dislike the lack exact control over forces. Forces move of their own accord often. Movement of forces can be influenced by use of the marker - but exact troop placement is not done. There are no odds charts to consult. Each force has strength measured on a graph, not a strength number. Forces are generic: there are no infantry vs cavalry vs artillery. COPY PROTECTION Copy protection: Yes. It is supplied on a bootable WorkBench disk, and you must click on an icon to startup. But it appears to look for copy protection on the disk when loading data files. (I assume this from the funny noises my floppy drive made). I tried starting the game after booting from my own WorkBench, but Populous took over. I didn't see anything in the manual about installing on a hard drive. This is sad, because Populous is an excellent candidate for a background game: it is not a rapid paced arcade game demanding lots of CPU, it has a pause option, and takes a long time to play (1-2 hrs). GLITCHES: Occasionally I see a momentary double-buffering glitch, but it is almost unnoticeable and doesn't impact game play. DOCUMENTATION The manual is nice looking and nice to read. A little tutorial section gets you started nicely. (The game has a tutorial mode). No complaints here. SUMMARY Populous is like a wargamer's version of the computer program "Little Computer People". Great game. ---------------------------------------- John Lindwall johnl@tw-rnd.SanDiego.NCR.COM "The above opinions are mine, not my employer's"