Video Games Of Our Lives: Populous

LIFE:\blog:

Just recently Populous DS was released for the, duh, Nintendo DS, and being the nostalgic feller that we are, we tried out the game to see how the portable version fared.

BLOG:\cd POPULOUS
BLOG:\POPULOUS>pop.exe

First time we ever played Populous we were only really interested in one aspect of the game. No, not winning the stage. Rather, we wanted to use all our godly powers available and watch our enemies' followers perish.

See, Populous is a game that belongs in the 'god game' genre. Be a god, nourish your followers to gain mana to smite others, sending your followers to raze enemy lands and finally bring about Armageddon. Gameplay is rather simple - you mainly go about landscaping, creating flat terrain for your followers to settle and populate. The more they populate the more mana you'll generate from their faith.

Back then we were satisfied to just play about long enough to gain enough mana, look for the most populated piece of enemy land and cast whatever natural disaster we had at our disposal, whether it be an earthquake or swamps or even a volcano. Never really had the patience long enough to win a game.

The game pretty much ran on 2 diskettes. And we remember discovering that POpulous Disk 2 actually had different themes, so rather than watching blue/red-robed men walking about some monotonous landscape, you could have lego characters walking about some lego landscape!

BLOG:\POPULOUS>cd..
BLOG:\cd POP2
BLOG:\POP2>pop2.exe



Then came the sequel - Populous II. Vast improvment from the first, this time the story being that you're one of Zeus' offspring, and you're fighting for a place as one of the gods on Mount Olympus. This time there were more spells, leaders could become Heroes, and of course, the graphics improved immensely.

There was a Greek theme to the game, men and women ambled along, fights were shown as a large cloud that resulted in either the Good follower uppercutting the Bad follower to the heavens, or with the Bad feller bopping the Good into the depths of the earth. No more Lego followers, tho'.

What we enjoyed about Populous 2 was the numerous spells there were. Now there were thunderstorms to fry people.

And rain of fire.

And volcanoes. And tidal waves. And plague. And summoning Helen Of Troy to drown enemies. And earthquakes. And Achilles to burn everyone. And once we have the upper hand, bring about Armageddon.

Hooo joy.

BLOG:\POP2>life:
LIFE:\life.exe