Populous review - Sega Megadrive

Ever felt the urge to play God? Now you can, thanks to this amazing Megadrive 16-bit computer conversion from Bullfrog/Electronic Arts.

The object is to eradicate the followers of the evil God - your opponent - by constantly improving conditions for your own followers. Raising and lowering the land gives your people a flat surface to live on, and they build houses in which to "create" more followers. And the more followers you have, the more manna (energy) they produce, and the stronger you become.

As you become more powerful, earthquakes, floods, and swamps can be created to destroy those who serve evil, and you can order your people and even create knights to fight and kill the enemy.
Success can only be achieved when all the enemy's people have been wiped out. Needless to say, he's not going to take this lying down! All the time you're cultivating the land, he's doing the same - so be prepared for the worst.

When you've destroyed all the evil God's people, you move onto the next level. There are 500 in all, and the evil God's abilities increase the further you progress - on later levels you need all your cunning to defeat him! Well, who said a God's life was easy?

What the Mean Machines staff thought

Populous is one of my favourite games on the Amiga, and I'm thrilled to see that this conversion is perfect in every respect. It's certainly not an arcade game, but neither is it a boring, long-winded strategy game. The little people are hilarious - they sometimes stop to think, tapping their feet and wondering! The control system works surprisingly well on the Megadrive, and the game retains all of the quality and addictiveness of other versions. Simply brilliant.

When I first saw this, the seemingly complicated icons and distinct lack of mega laser death weapons put me off. However, after playing it a couple of times I was well and truly hooked. It's a weird game, neither arcade or true strategy, but once you start getting into the action it quickly becomes one of the most addictive games you'll ever play - it kept me up for many late nights! It's incredibly rewarding watching your followers grow and prosper, and very, very satisfying plotting your enemy's downfall, especially when you see his little men fall foul of a swamp, get drowned by a flood or get bashed up and their houses burned by your mean 'n' meaty knight! Populous is an utterly brilliant game and is a real departure from the usual Megadrive arcade style games. Who needs super death weapons when you can stick a stonking great volcano up your enemy's nose, and then ruin all his good work with a land-wrecking earthquake?

Buy Populous from Genki

Retrospective comments

I first experienced Populous on the Atari ST and the game blew me away. In terms of concept it was bold and original, but thankfully it was fun to play too and amazingly challenging.

When the Megadrive version appeared it was very much the same. The lack of a mouse interface makes the game a little more clunky, but it doesn't spoil your enjoyment. Graphically and sonically it's as good as the home computer versions, if not better.

This is proof that great game concepts can be ported to any platform, and is well worth picking up.