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Populous: The Beginning Populous: The Beginning- Undiscovered Worlds
Populous: Reincarnated- New Worlds

Just to let everyone know, this is the first time I have ever reviewed a game so if it sounds a bit ridiculous, you know why. All games are reviewed based on several factors, game play. multiplayer support (if applicable), quality of graphics, replay value, and over all performance. The games being reviewed here were released in 1998 and 1999, so the graphics won't be up to par, so keep that in mind.

Populous: The Beginning

This is the game that started it all in the Populous series. You see the first two Populous games take place after the ending of this game. In the original two Populous games you were a god given godlike powers that could mold the world to your cause really easily to make your civilization a colossal power. The fact that your god was omnipresent made the games very easy to unleash a horde of horrible plagues and calamities in your one opponent's base.

In Populous: The Beginning you have not yet ascended into the heavens. In fact your not even a god, you are not omnipresent and your spells now have a limited rang! For a setup like this you might think the outcome would end in disaster after you got used to the unlimited range in casting spells. Well guess what, it came out very well, in fact it is quite a bit of an improvement to the game! The fact that you are no longer a God also sets up the storyline to the game. Instating of just facing one tribe, you will also fact up to three other people. (four tribes) Although the is an RTS (Real Time Strategy) game, every level serves a sort of quest for your tribe leader, known as your shaman. In this game your shaman strives to ascend into the heavens to become a god, hence the start of the prequels to this game. Spell casting is a bit different as well. In this game you strive to build up a massive population to get a power known as, "mana." this mana is used then to generate or, "charge" up your spells. The more followers you have the more mana you get, the more mana you get the faster your spells charge. Very simple concept. Mana can also be used for one other thing, training specialized fighters. The style of fighters in this game is unique, you have a standard warrior, a firewarrior (an equivalent to an archer), a preacher (useful for converting enemy followers), and a spy (useful for setting peoples buildings on fire). Above all of the fighters are the most important followers in the game, your braves (the age of empires equivalent to a village), braves are the key to any tribe in this game, they will construct all of your buildings and above all of the other followers the generate the most mana. Unlike most RTS games of this time where you would click a building and have a warrior created for you from scratch, you must send a brave into a building to retrieve the warrior training himself. Just remember that once you train a brave to something they cannot go back to being braves. You'll find that the game play for an RTS is very quick and decisive, in fact much of the combat can be won by shooting a firestorm over 100 unsuspecting braves, or even just to wipe out a few buildings that stand in your way!

The graphics in Populous are quite superb considering the game was released in 1998. The game gives you a three-dimensional global world to capture on each level, you can even circumnavigate the world to attack an enemy from their back side. The graphics are really nice with the nicely detailed buildings and the wonderfully drawn sky and landscape. My only complaint is this, why why why in the world would they put all this effort into making a wonderfully drawn world and then make the people who live in it crappy two-dimensional figures?!?! Basically there are four sides to each person, and that's really about it, thankfully its really hard to notice unless you like to zoom in to see what your people are really doing.

The games multiplayer is very entertaining, but yet not to complete, for example, there are no computer players in multiplayer so you may spend the day playing newbs, not that the computer fought very well to begin with. You'll find that when you play the game at first the computer (AI) is very tough, in fact they do sometimes cheat, but usually to make an interesting storyline. Once you get more experienced you will realize that the AI uses the same or very similar patterns of attack styles, so it is very fortunate that the different varieties of levels change how these styles may function from time to time. Multiplayer it self though is fun, especially since you can change many of the options of the game like the available buildings and spells that can be used. The only downside is when a player quits, it really sucks when you are playing a 2 on 2 game and your partner quits because the game will take no sympathy on you. Over all I found the multiplayer to be fun and in fact this is what gives the game its great replay value you will find that if you get really interested in the game that you may not be able to put it down for a years time.

Populous is one of the few games of its kind, giving any player a new experience to am RTS style game. The overall game performance is smooth, especially if you double the recommended system spec. to run it. In short Populous: The Beginning will give you lots of fun and exciting game play and a good load of team work and cooperation in multiplayer, aside from a few minor glitches and graphic issues, the game is a must have, I'd recommend it to any one who likes a good RTS game. Of course some people do not get interested by these kinds of games so it would be wise to try the trial version before you go out and spend your hard earned coinage on this one. I personally have enjoyed playing this game for some time, and have found it very hard to quit at times. I urge anyone who likes games where you get to take control over the shape of the world and to build massive empires to go out and buy this one.

OVERALL

Game Play	5
Multiplayer	4
Graphic Quality	4
Replay Value	3
Over All Performance	5
Totals	84% Almost a best seller. (21/25)

Click here for purchasing information on this game. (North American Residents Only!)

Click here for purchasing information on this game. (UK Residents Only!)

Click here to download the Populous: The Beginning Demo Version for FREE!
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Click here to download the latest patch for Populous: The Beginning
(Free Gamespy ID Registration Required!) (Required for online play!)

Populous: The Beginning- Undiscovered Worlds

Populous: The Beginning- Undiscovered Worlds (UW) is the expansion pack to Populous. It was only ever sold in the UK so it is extremely hard for anyone who doesn't live there to find a copy.

With no overall improvements to the original Populous it can leave a Populous fan a little disappointed. You see the game only adds 12 single player levels and 12 multiplayer levels, and that's all she wrote. At least they put some work into those levels, to allow the game to redeem itself a bit. In fact the levels are very original, giving you many new tasks to complete. They are very fun, but much like the original Populous, the AI is not very tough, so you will find yourself very bored, very quickly. Basically, you'll beat the levels and be done with them for good. Fortunately the multiplayer levels are there to pull the single player levels out of the ditch they dug themselves. Another downside to the single player UW levels are that they mess up your original Populous levels, so you will need to download the patch that I made to fix them.

Such a small expansion pack, such a small review. Well let's think positive shall we? The game will give you some new levels, new single player levels at the cost of your old ones, until you patch your game. The graphics are good, but that's because they didn't change from the original! What really disappoints me is that the game had no real extras put into it, just 24 new total levels and that's it. It seems to me like Bullfrog (the company responsible for releasing this game) rushed to release it and did not truly finish or test the game to make sure it works properly. The fact that it was only ever released in the UK makes it more difficult to play a multiplayer game as well. It's such a shame to see a game with a good potential go to crap like this. Fortunately the game is very cheap to buy, for those of you who are lucky enough to be able to obtain a copy of it. I recommend this game to a true diehard Populous fan, but the casual fan, may just want to stick with the plain old Populous: The Beginning. Thankfully UW is backwards compatible in multiplayer.

Game Play	5
Multiplayer	3
Graphic Quality	N/A
Replay Value	1
Over All Performance	5
Totals	70% It's OK, it could have been much better. (14/20)

Click here for more information about this game. (UK Residents Only!)

Click here to get the UW Patch made by Khickman.

Populous: The Beginning- New Worlds

Populous: The Beginning- New Worlds are a set of third party levels designed for multiplayer Populous. With over 120 different multiplayer maps, plus more being added every so often, this has been a great contribution to the game. The levels are made by Populous players and then are distributed to the public in, "map packs" that will be automatically installed into the game as long as you are using the Populous Reincarnated Lobby.

New Worlds adds much replay value to Populous online, and may keep people playing the game for two years or more. If it weren't for these new levels I would have quit Populous years ago.

Some newer map packs also change the graphics to the game, providing more, "eye candy" into the game. This makes the game much more interesting!

Overall New Worlds are for everyone who owns a copy of Populous: The Beginning. The best part is that they don't require UW to be played. These maps are free to the public to use.

Game Play	5
Multiplayer	5
Graphic Quality	5
Replay Value	5
Over All Performance	5
Totals	100% Perfect, Right on Target! (25/25)

Click here to go to the Populous Reincarnated Website.