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Ever played this game?

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 4 / 26
Date: May 10, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Well, don't! I can't tell you just how horrible it is. First of all, you are not an all powerful entity. The graphics are slick, but sometimes choppy. Things that die also have the tendency of blocking the screen. The spells you can cast ... . You must "worship" totem poles to gain these spells. They take forever to get and are extremely limited in range or power. There are few things interesting. There are only five units is this game, and most of them are illogical. Take my word. Dont buy.

Populous, a horrible spin on a good idea

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 8
Date: October 25, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I bought this game thinking it would be much like the old one. With a range of spells the molded the landscape, and relativly little control over your people. How wrong I was.

The game took advantage of the booming RTS trend. All the spells you can cast are now only usable through a unit in the game that is called a shaman. And your following are no more then pesants. If they need a house, you have to tell them to build one. Otherwise they stand around waiting. If you need a warrior, tell them to build a barracks, then order a couple pesants to train. All in all, the game amounts to an RTS with ONE military unit and then some guy who can cast spells. Imagine Warcraft with only footman, and you have Populous.

Not for me

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 20
Date: October 16, 2000
Author: Amazon User

This was one of the worst games that I've ever played. The graphics were alright, but the game itself was bad. I mostly play games where you conquer,rule and build cites. Populous did let you build things - the options were very limited. The pleges weren't anything to get excited about either. Say for instance you were to do the plege with all the lochus-it looked so fake, it was as if a small tiny cloud was flying by. The tribe people practicly don't do anything. When you did let your people attack another tribe, there hardly was any action. When I bought this game, I expected it to be really good. Once I actually played it I wanted to return it.

Really cool

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 8 / 9
Date: March 19, 2001
Author: Amazon User

This game is a really good buy. Not only do you get to build villiages but you get to destroy your enemies by eroding the land under them and watching them run around like idiots when you cast a spell that involves a swarm of bees. Plus there are a full 20 levels of this. Just to give you a sense of how much these people thought of you can control a warrior that shoots fireballs out of his hands, a freaky lady wearing a mask called the shaman that can cast spells from lightning bolts to conjuring up a flying dragon that eats up people then spits them back out again. If you like the age of empires series then you will probably like this game just as much.

Appealing, simple puzzle game.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 9 / 17
Date: July 05, 2000
Author: Amazon User

This appealing little game has wonderful graphics, complete with Bullfrog's trademark zooming/rotating camera (a la Dungeon Keeper) and an almost SimCity/Age of Empires feel. Neither heavy on the military (though the object of the game is to wipe out your enemies) nor on the building, the main gameplay consists of building enough huts to amass a big enough army to wipe the enemy out. This is particularly easy on the first few levels.

The only general twists are in the requirements that you discover technology by worshipping totem poles and pyramids (which again isn't necessary at the lower levels, despite what the scenario info may suggest).

Individual scenarios are more like puzzles. An early one gives you fifteen minutes to worship an "angel of death" statue, which lies deep in the heart of enemy territory. Once you figure out what needs to be done, executing the plan is relatively simple (though somewhat time-consuming; the game relies a lot on time-consuming tasks).

There isn't really a lot of "game" here, outside of the puzzles, probably less so than in the original Populous, but its look and interface give it an undeniable appeal, a kind of "well, that's cool" factor.

Oh, it is also somewhat unstable (even with the latest patches) in my experience (four different machines with different graphic cards) which is unfortunate, and the main reason I gave this 3 stars instead of 4.

Conquer the Planatery System with a Shaman

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 14 / 22
Date: March 23, 2001
Author: Amazon User

This is a build & conquer game, but one in which conquest often requires solving a unique challenge. There are fewer routes to greatness than in a game like Sim City or Civilization. The nature of the challenges & the limited number of resources keep the number of options reasonable.

Populous resides in the genre somewhere between arcade games and strategy games. Unlike Civilization and Alpha Centauri, events happen in real-time; there are no turns. Step away from the computer to take a phone call and you can find your team quickly eliminated.

The graphics are OK, and the game is efficient enough to run on even a 200 MHz Cyrix, if you turn the music off and run on a small screen. It's an interesting game, some of the challenges can be quite puzzling, but I don't find it as addicting as Alpha Centauri.

(If you've enjoyed this review, please leave positive feedback. Click the "about me" link to read my other Amazon reviews. Thanks!)

A very nice surprise!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 10 / 12
Date: February 14, 2001
Author: Amazon User

This game was a nice surprise. The cut scene movies they had were very cool and the game play was pretty fast paced. From training you guys to throw fire to flying around in a hotair ballon, this game offered alot of different was of reeking havoc. Especially your Shaman. Once powered up, the Shaman can unleash many spells such as earthquake, tornado, and volcano eruptions and believe me, these are very cool. You can garrison towers to use to your advantage as extra defense while you are attacking. Lots of cool features. You have plenty of battles to fight to get to the final confrontation and this is a very challenging game as it seems like every time you turn around, you are getting attacked again. And when you get to the final battle, well, you'll just have to see for yourself. Very cool. Probably closer to 4 1/2 stars.

Great game w/ some problems. . .

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: November 25, 1999
Author: Amazon User

Ok, I love this game. It's one of those "what time is it" games that keeps you up until 3:30 in the morning. I really like the feel of the planets you work on. It's actually a small globe with horizons that curve. The twist, scroll, and zoom control kinda reminds me of Dungeon Keeper (that's a good thing). It feels like the landscape is a piece of paper you can twist or rotate to any angle you want. I only have one problem. I get my characters confused with the opposing guys quite often. This is due to the fact that your people are colored blue and cyan, and the enemies are cyan and light yellow, making it quite difficult to control dozens of little cyanish blobs during battle. But other than that, It's great!

As far as old school pleasures go... this one is at the top of the class.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: January 09, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I must admit... Playing this game as a kid was an amazing amount of fun. No that I'm an adult... it really hasn't changed that much. Game play is smooth and creative. You'll spend hours building up your village and tech tree. Graphics are decent considering how old this game is... and the unprecedented camera controls make viewing the world a snap.
I only have two bits of beef with this game. One is everything is control with the left and right mouse buttons, there are no real hot keys to speak of this makes managing large groups of warriors a major pain. Second, there is no real strategy in battle besides using spells. The clumsy AIs and fight engine means whoever has the most units will probably win the battle. Be prepared to build lots of huts.
Other than that, this is a really fun game. I recommend it to anyone who is tired of the complete lack of diversity in modern strategy and war games. I'd really like to see Populous: The Beginning brought into the 21st century with new graphics and refined AI and hot keys. But since I haven't seen anything out of Bullfrog... its doubtful.

A time tested, addictive and VERY fun game for even dated macines.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: July 21, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Based loosley on populous II, Populous the beginning has got to be the best game I have played in a long time. It may be dated (1998) but you will be incredibly surprised. The game is in full 3-D, with the exception of the shaman(your character) and your folowers, which are sprites. My only gripe is the lack of a random map to play on, as in the game it is only the campaign that you play. And even bottom line computers can play this game in full detail level. It still is a very fun and challenging game for almost everybody.

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