If I haven't been online lately it's because I've been deliberately not going online. Sure I check my Facebook and my Skype every evening when I get home but I haven't been spending hours on FB especially.
That's because whatever hours I have left before turning in for the night I devote to ensuring my Greek city runs smoothly on Zeus: Master of Olympus.
Released over a decade ago, at the turn of the millennium to be exact, the game is one of the games in the City Building Series developed by now-defunct Impression Games. Other games in this group include Caesar (4 games released, set in the Roman times), two game titles set in ancient Egypt that include Pharaoh (with Queen of the Nile: Cleopatra expansion) and Immortal Cities: Children of the Nile, and Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom (set in China).
While the games roughly share similar concepts of build a city, make your citizens happy, and attain your goals, my fascination with Zeus stems from a childhood fascination with the Greek mythology and ancient culture. So, it's only natural that if I had to choose between China, Egypt, Rome, and Greece for a city-building game, my first choice would be Zeus.
I've been having fun with this little game (just a little over 500MB in size at full install, no need for the CD, and I'm now playing it on an Eee PC) for over a decade now, occasionally installing this on just about every type of computer I've had my hands on. That's the testament of how fun this game is. Though I might enjoy the shooting and the missions on Grand Theft Auto, or enjoy old-school-2D-scrolling with Duke Nukem, or fulfill the objectives of my squad in Medal of Honor, or laugh wickedly as I torture heroes in Dungeon Keeper, I always find myself gravitating towards the simplicity and complexity of Zeus.
Simple because at 2D sprite technology, it doesn't compare to the likes of Sims 2 or Warcraft 2. The graphics are even cruder than Starcraft 1 or Diablo. But what wins for Zeus is the gameplay. And that's where the complexity of the game lies. If you want to challenge yourself, change the difficulty level and you'll find yourself struggling to manage your city.
I however like to keep it at the light and easy range. The goals in each chapter of the episode keeps you grounded and while there may be some leeway in the management, you still need to check that your city's coffers are in the black and that your citizens are well-fed, get their fleece and oil, and that your nobler denizens are supplied their wines, armors, and horses. It's not too micro-management but it's enough management to keep you engaged, keep you thinking how to do it better, keep you guessing how things will turn out. A tweaking of a trade port can spell disaster for your coffers but you also need to continuously check the supply and demand of products.
And while you do all that, you'll find that you have already spent several hours on the game.
You also have the freedom to choose episodes you want to play. Each episode is composed of several chapters and in order to proceed to the next chapter to complete the episode, you need to fulfill the goals for each chapter. Despite this style, you yourself can tweak the game if you have another agenda in mind. Like when I was playing the episode on Jason, in one chapter I kept on shortchanging the goal of being able to produce a certain quota of fleece and was instead developing my other industries. The reason I did this was because I wanted to reach 999,999 coins. However, I finally grew tired of waiting because I think I spent a couple of weeks playing 3-4 hours a night on that one chapter and still only managed to reach the half-a-million mark.
But that's what I'm saying. You can be creative with your goals in the game without these goals necessarily being the game's goals needing fulfilling. You can challenge yourself in numerous ways with the game. In my case, aside from the money challenge, other challenges I undertake include being able to build a self-sufficient city, maximizing the number of temples you can build (goal says 2, I build 3 or 4 if the episode allows it), creating an aesthetically-empowered city, developing a trade-oriented city, and others. You can even challenge yourself to build the best military force so that you no longer would need to bribe would-be conquerors.
And all these make Zeus a really, truly, fun, fun game.
City-management games of recent years have been somewhat utterly too complex and demand much of your time and your computer's resources. It's great to just sit back and relax and play a game that keeps you thinking but doesn't give you the headache.
Final Rating: 5/5
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Incidentally, with this late review I now surpass the number of posts I did last year. Three cheers!!!
