Sierra Masters The Art Of Flogging A Dead Pegasus
Written: Jan 01 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Solid strategy, thinking man's game-play. Pleasant sound.
Cons: A shoddy sequel to the Caesar series, dressed up with few new ideas and a new coat of paint and passed off as a new game. Unstable to the extreme on my system.
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| mickp's Full Review: Zeus: Master of Olympus for Windows |
Around the time I was first joining Epinions nearly a year ago now, I was playing and enjoying Pharaoh from Sierra, having previously enjoyed the very similar Caesar 3. My Epinion defended Pharaoh from the "Oh, its exactly the same as Caesar but with an Egyptian theme" brigade, but this time around Zeus will gain no such support from me.
A year ago, the release of Pharaoh basically handed the player back exactly what they had already seen in Caesar 3, but with a few game-play tweaks and additions and of course the Egyptian theme I already mentioned. The game seemed novel and great at the time, but now that I have seen Zeus, I believe that Sierra, having exhausted the possibilities of the successful Caesar series, decided to squeeze their few remaining ideas into some new games, which as "Caesar" games would be hardly different enough to justify a new sequel. The Egyptian and now Greek Mythological themes are simply a coat of attractive paint to hide the fact that Pharaoh and Zeus would have been far more appropriately titled as Caesar 3.1 and Caesar 3.15.
Zeus predictably enough puts you in charge of building up various cities and meeting objectives along the way. The Roman and Egyptian themes have been replaced with the new Greek theme and the "nifty new idea" to be found within Zeus is the addition of mythological creatures from Greek Legend (such as the hydra) to throw their own particular spanners into your works.
The action is in the age-old Caesar format of 3d isometric view, with a variety of rather unintuitive, but eventually decipherable icons which place all the commands you need to manipulate your city at your fingertips. As with the previous games in this series, the object is to build a city and fulfill the requirements of the populace in order to allow the city to grow. Different craftsman require different materials in order to create their wares, which in turn are possibly required by a tertiary craftsman for yet another production. It's all rather fun, but really if you own either of the previous two games in the series you need not bother, because short of the new theme and the addition of mythical creatures who wander the map in pseudo Godzilla fashion, there is very little here that is new.
Graphically, Zeus looks rather dated, having taken a slight backwards step from Pharaoh, but basically being up to par with what we have already seen in the previous releases which are over a year out of date now. The mythical creatures are pathetically drawn and lack any look of menace whatsoever as they waddle around. The hydra looks more like a mutant sea horse than anything else. Sounds are pleasant, with a number of atmospheric and in-theme tunes and the same dynamic sound effects featured in (yes, I am going to say "The previous two games again) the previous two games.
As if I was not disappointed with Zeus enough, it was a sheer miracle if the thing would even run for longer than ten minutes at a time without locking my system up, so I was left with no choice but to save often and hope for the best. After I got the predictable form-letter reply for Sierra technical support - "You will need to upgrade to the latest Video and Sound card drivers" around a week after I got the game, I decided that enough was enough and went back to playing Pharaoh. (I already have all the latest drivers).
Zeus may be worth your while if you are a fan of strategy/god games and have not played either Caesar 3 or Pharaoh in the past. The game-play is solid enough and perhaps the instability is merely a quirk of my system. If you have played either of the other two games, just slot Clash of the Titans into your video recorder and go and play one of the others again for the same effect.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
mickp
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Member: Mike Price
Location: Aussie in Las Vegas, Nevada
Reviews written: 431
Trusted by: 270 members
About Me:
An Australian living in Vegas - Eating too much buffet and writing too many Epinions.
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