Populous was designed by Peter Molyneux, developed by Bullfrog (the same developers of fine games such as Powermonger, Syndicate, and Dungeon Keeper) and published by Electronic Arts and released 5 June 1989 for the Amiga, Atari ST and IBM Compatible PC. Populous won the Origins Award for Best Military or Strategy Game of 1990 as well as the Computer Game of the Year in American Video Game Magazine. I have always held this game in high regard and must confess that I was not even aware of the awards it had garnered.
Game Play: You get to be God, with all the powers that come with it...well, not exactly, you start off with some limited powers and as you progress through levels you gain stronger and more diverse powers...besides, what fun would it be to have ALL the powers from the get-go. As God, you are responsible to guide and direct your chosen people, manipulate land, and perform other forms of divine intervention in order to ensure the progress of your followers. Change the surrounding terrain, cause various local disasters, appoint a hero to wipe out other inhabitants, you name it; pick any of a number of ways for your population to multiply and be fruitful conquering nature as well as other people in a never ending quest to have your faithful
dominate the landscape.
Start off with high difficulty or low difficulty, this game spans over a variety of civilizations from Pre-Historic, to Ancient, and finally Medieval. Like many games of the era, the apparent no-win situation can be discouraging; regardless of where you begin difficulty-wise, the end result of the game may lead to utter irritation and frustration as levels become difficult to the point of not being much fun and leading to deciding not to play any longer. Regardless, this IS the influential and groundbreaking God Game, that all games like it since, have strived to improve upon or emulate. Take a try for yourself, it can be rather addicting, as being God can be lots of fun.
Graphics: The graphics are primitive in comparison to today's games, though aren't bad considering the era and that the game fits and/or runs directly off a 5 1/4 or 3 1/2 inch floppy.
The Interface: The interface it pretty decent too, point and click or hotkeys let you advance your clan of people (your population, hence Populous) against other populations with their heathen god watching over and protecting them as well.
