User Reviews (21 - 31 of 61)

Show these reviews first:

Highest Rated
Lowest Rated Newest
Oldest Most Helpful
Least Helpful

The best of the ancient city-building games, high fun and excellent replayability

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: March 01, 2007
Author: Amazon User

From Caesar to Caesar II to Caesar III to Pharaoh and now to Zeus: Master of Olympus, so many changes have taken place, and yet the concept is always the same.

From the Romans to the Egyptians, we now hit the Greeks, with a strong mythological twist, and it's the absolute best game in the franchise!

It bears more resemblence to Pharaoh than it does to Caesar III, but it's significantly different in that buildings now take up more space (four spaces for a single house rather than one space for one house) but this only serves to make cities much more manageable without making them drastically smaller.

The maps are more vivid and easier to comprehend. The AI is strong and gathering resources is more fun than ever. Rather than building a farm for everything from food to fabric, and a place near precious resources for people to go out and get, you can do things like make cheese by building a goat herder and literally placing individual goats (a limit of 10 per hearding shack), or build a sheep herder and place individual sheep so that they can graze on the grass (in special areas only) and grow thick furs for wool and such. You can also build Olive Presses or Grape Presses and place row after row of olive trees or grape vines which grow over time to be picked.

Temples now are also far bigger (so big that they aren't placed automatically----you need to gather up marble and wood and precious objects before construction can begin, and specially trained artisans to craft the building) and now serve a purpose other than the God's punishment. Now they positively reinforce you. If you build their temple and get people to work there, they will serve you once in a while depending on their specialty (ie, Ares will give you six of his elite Sparti warriors to fight with your soldiers, and he will fight with you, Zeus provides an oracle and helps against invaders and monsters, Athena makes olive presses work faster and trees grow faster, Dionysus makes wine presses work faster, etc)

Heroes are also an available option, only springing up when they're needed for tasks (such as killing a Minotaur, or retrieving an object for a God) and you build a Hero's Hall. The Hall requires a certain amount of supplies in your warehouses to call upon a hero (like 1000 Drachmae, 32 tons of food, 64 bushels of grapes, etc). The hero you send on his task, and he/she will also fight alongside your soldiers.

The campaign game is exciting and lets you keep your primary city and build upon it rather than having to build a new city with each mission, and you have tasks to do rather than just "Get to this population and produce this much food". While you keep your primary city, you are also able to build new ones in the form of colonies.

Where the game really shines is its new political system. As Greece was never a unified nation, individual city-states constantly fought each other, and this is represented in the game in a great way. Hoplites don't need special training at a barracks where they stand around doing nothing and reducing surrounding areas' appeal, they are in fact noblemen from high-class housing who buy suits of armor and form up in companies when needed for war.

From the diplomacy page you can attempt to make alliances, attack and invade enemy cities, which become your client-kingdoms (forced allies) and from them you can ask for supplies of a certain commodity you do not have or simply want, or even request their military aid if you are under attack and have no army, or even request a military strike on an enemy so you aren't alone when invading. Attacking allies is not a good idea, and sometimes cities will randomly decide to go neutral with you, paving the way for expanded trade and allliance.

All in all, this is absolutely the best ancient city-building game out there in the same stem as the likes of Pharaoh, Caesar III, etc. I haven't yet played Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom, but from the first mission, I can see it uses the same engine as this one with little changes save cosmetic changes.

Great game. Must buy

good, But doesnt Master Pharaoh.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 5 / 7
Date: March 31, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Granted i like this game a lot. But some interface controls and other aspects of city building dont master Pharaoh. Like when you wish to trade with a city in zeus you must build a seperate trading post for every city on the world map, which reaches a large number by the end of the game.In pHaroah all you must do is build one dock or just leave you tradable product in the storage yard Also food distrubution doest beat out pharaoh. In Zeus you must create a different store for every product, and it is hard to suply every neighberhood with all it needs. In Pharaoh There is one Food distribution center that sells everything. Another Falt of Zeus Is the difficulty. By the first hour of playing i had a flourishing city. This is fun, but it gets old after a while.Monument Building is easier in zeus, but there arnt as many monumentz s to build, so once you have built all the temples to the olympian gods, you get bored.The last reason Pharaoh masters Zeus is that there is not as much to do as ther is to in pharoah. The adventures can be easily mastered, and after that you have little to do, It lacks a campaign as good as pharoahs. I suggest you purchase pharaoh over zeus, even though both are good games. Pharoah is the greatest i think, city building game in the market as of now.

Good but not excellent

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 6 / 10
Date: June 01, 2002
Author: Amazon User

When I first got Zeus Master of Olympus I actually enjoyed it. I have always loved the concept of city building games and Zeus was no exception. The game has nice graphics and is very fun in terms of building and maintaining your own city the way you like it. The only thing about this game that dissapointed me was the lack of gameplay options and choices for buildings, landscape, etc. It would have been a plus to add a map editor with diverse terain and much more structures to build along with more game options and more missions. The game got boring within a week after I completed the missions and noticed that I was sleeping more oftenly on my desktop. All around I consider the game to be a favorite classic of mine that I have kep't on my computer despite it's problems. It is nice game to play every once in a while. If your going to play long hours after purchasing this game I recommend that you don't slouch on your seat or put your face to close to the monitor while constant playing. I did that before and got the worst head ache you could ever imagine!

Amazing.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: June 06, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Comparing to this game, SimCity looks extremely boring.

The only technical problem with this game is that you should not try to install it into directory, other than default.

Tutorials are perfect and fun! Don't ignore them! The biggest problem with SimCity is that it is hard to understand what is going on. Zeus is very clear, very accurate, very handy...

This game has been created by the guy who've been testing Caesar and Pharaon. He've spend thousands of hours playing city-building games and ... well ... Zeus is just plain brilliant.

Disclaimer. I'm not a troll. I really like this game!!! End of disclaimer.

Ever Wanted to Live in Ancient Greece?

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: December 03, 2000
Author: Amazon User

If you are at all interested in the ancient Greek world, or if you like the Sim City games, you should definaely not miss this. In Zeus: Master of Olympus you colonize various cities and must avoid the troubles of the ancient world. You build monuments to the gods and establish shrines to the hero's. For a kid unexposed to Greek history, Zeus is a great way to learn about mythology such as Jason and the Argonauts and the many gods. Also Zeus provides historical insight into events such as the Peloponnesian wars. Go to the Sierra website to get the demo.

A gift from the gods!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: December 16, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I bought this on a whim, during summer break but didn't play it until after the semester started, for some reason. Bad move! I found myself sitting up through the night and nearly missing a class because I was so absorbed in this game! I finally had to put it away and promise I would only use it on the weekends. Still no good, because I apparently bypassed Sunday, a friend told me. So the next decision was only during school breaks. With that, I've been able to keep my GPA at a decent level (I'm off double secret probation, for you Animal House fans) and if I accidentally miss a day or two, it's all right. (^_^) A friend of mine, who owns Caesar III and Pharaoh, pooh-poohs Zeus as "too easy" and not worth his time, but I love it. The Greek aspect is what drew me to it originally, but the creators have done their homework and know their myths, so I repect them for that. A fun game to play, I recommend it to all. Just don't start it unless your homework is done.

Zeus

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: April 15, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Zeus is an accient Greece computer game.Zeus is a fun game because their are gods,monsters and you can build
sanctuaries,trading posts, piers, infirmarys and a palace.Their are also wars and culture. You can demand food or items from rival citys.Your houses start as huts and improve into townhouses to improve the houses you have to give them food, culture, water, olive oil and fleece.
Josh's Webpage

Zeus - Master of Olympos

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: June 11, 2007
Author: Amazon User

it's very challenging, teaching a person how to plan cities, account for resources, feed people and provide for recreation while defending against outside forces

Mark's review

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 7
Date: October 21, 2000
Author: Amazon User

I recently purchased Zeus and it is the best game I have ever played. It's an incredible achievment and honors the Sierra/impressions games series. I myself have stayed up three nights in a row trying to beat this game.

The graphics and sound quality, are by far the most advanced I have seen in modern stradegy games. I especially like how that Zeus is not just for die-hard stradegy gamers, but for average everyday people. Once again props go to the Sierra/impression games company! I'm literally dancing on the balls of my feet to see the next one!

Expanding The City Building Genre

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: February 25, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I am, like many other people who have written a review for this game, a fan of city-building/god games, particularly Caesar, Pharaoh, and now Zeus. Zeus is not only a whole new ball game with new gods (that wander around your city this time - sometimes wrecking havoc), new buildings, and a new feature with heros and quests and monsters. And the walker system has been greatly improved and using roadblocks and keeping them where they should be is not really an issue. But the real gem of Zeus is that you can download adventures on the internet and play them. This makes the game virtually open ended, as more and more adventures come. A particularly good site is zeus heaven (look up the addie if you want to download the adventures).
Highly recommended!

Review Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Next 

Actions