SimCity with an ancient Greece twist

This game has been out for several years now; so long, in fact, that you'll probably find it, along with its expansion pack Poseidon, occupying neighboring shelf space in the super budget-buster section of a game store (or Office Max, which is where I last spotted this gem). Do not, however, let the slightly cheesy illustration packaging or $10 price tag throw you off. Zeus is, in fact, a very enjoyable game.

It's reminiscent to your classic SimCity game, in that the objective of the game is to build up a city that people want to live and prosper in. The gameplay is made more robust by a series of adventures which you play through, each adventure consisting of several episode goals. These goals may range from relatively simple things (e.g. get a thousand people to live in your city, produce a certain quantity of olive oil), to more complicated quests (e.g. defeat Medusa by coaxing Perseus to your city). Some episodes allow you to expand the influence of your "home" city by establishing a colony somewhere else in the known world (naturally limited to the Mediterranean area).

Throughout the gameplay, the denizens of Olympus aid (or interfere) with the development of your city. By building temples to certain gods, you are afforded preferential treatment from those deities, offering you aid in time of war (Ares) or blessing your wineries so that they produce more wine for the city's consumption or for trade (Dionysus). You&'ll soon discover, though, that gods make fickle friends. An angry Poseidon will unleash his kraken upon your fisheries, or a scorned Aphrodite will waltz down the streets of your city, enticing your workers to leave their droll tasks behind and form a congo line behind her (toga, toga, toga!) as she convinces them to leave your city.

I've played and replayed this game many times over the years, and I still find it to be quite entertaining. The program does crash now and then, but really, what software doesn't crash now and then? The nice thing is that there is an autosave feature built into the game, so even in the event of a crash, you're usually only out about five minutes of gameplay. Annoying, perhaps, but not a catastrophe. There's also an adventure editor that comes along with the game, which allows you to build your own adventure (create episodes, episode goals, allies, rivals, you name it) and share it with your friends. I've not used the editor much, though, since I'd be the only one playing them. The times I've messed with it though, it was a little tedious to work with. But then again, when you have complete control over building an adventure, the process would be tedious anyway.

UPDATE: Regarding graphics. It's hard to rate graphics on a game like this; typically your run-of-the-mill sim game relies more on gameplay than eyecandy to drive it along. That being said, the graphics amuse me. Each building has it's own slight animation that gives it character (the frat-house aire of the College makes me chuckle). The game won't wow you with graphics, but again, keep in mind that this game has been out for several years, and the industry has definitely changed. I would rate the graphics as average, overall.

UPDATE: Regarding sound. The ambient sounds of the city also amuse me. Each street-wanderer of the city has one or two quips if you click on them as they walk about. The various buildings of your city will add ambient sounds to the city when they're on-screen (my wife particularly likes the "I have come down from Mount Olympus" cry whenever a Theatre is on-screen). All in all, the sounds are fun, and while it would be completely possible to play the game without sound turned on at all, there would definitely be something lost in the gameplay without it.

UPDATE: Regarding system compatability. The game runs just fine on Windows XP. I'm pretty sure I've run this game under Windows 98 and ME as well. The hardware requirements are pretty low overall, really.

So if you happen across a copy of this game and have a few dollars to spare, pick it up and give it a whirl. You won't be disappointed.