Introduction

Impressions have long been known for their quality series of strategy and city building titles. Lately, they’ve gotten a lot of good press for their ancient city building games, namely Caesar III and Pharaoh, both of which mix Sim-City style city-management with what could be called a history lesson in either ancient Rome or Egypt, respectfully. The latest to the trilogy, Zeus: Master of Olympus, takes what they’ve learned over the past two games, throws some new features into the mix, and comes up with what is Impressions’ finest game to date.

Zeus changes the focus of the game from Rome or Egypt to ancient Greece. What this focus brings along with it is a deep coverage of Greek mythology. Unlike the previous ancient games by Impressions, Zeus fully takes the mythology, stories, and characters from Greek Mythology and throws them into the city building mix, adding another layer of depth to an already deep game.

Impressions have also taken what they’ve learned from their previous games, streamlined the interface and the engine, and have made what is an imminently enjoyable game for both beginners and experts. We will now take a look at Zeus, and show why it’s probably the best game of its kind, ancient or not.

Gameplay

There is so much game play present in Zeus that I barely know where to begin. At its core, Zeus is a city building game in the same vein as Sim City. Make housing, get people to come to your city and fill its jobs, keep them fed and happy, and things should go well. If only it were this simply in Zeus, but while keeping people happy is a complex matter, the game makes it quite easy.

Let’s give an example of the basic structure of building a city. First, a city needs houses to house the people. This is fine, but those houses must be near roads for travel and fountains for hygiene. Then, farms must be built to create food (or fisheries in other cases). This food must then be taken a granary, where it will be stored and distributed to agoras, which house vendors that will distribute the food to the population. This doesn’t take into account the maintenance offices, which must be built to prevent buildings from collapsing, let alone the culture and aesthetic requirements of the people.

The above paragraph describes, in actuality, a very small portion of the gameplay mechanics present in Zeus. In order to control all of this, Impressions has come up with one of the best control mechanisms seen in a game of this type, the sidebar control panel. This sidebar has EVERYTHING you could possibly need in terms of information gathering and proper city management. The control panel is broken into eleven tabs, including population, husbandry, industry, distribution, hygiene, administration, culture, mythology, military, aesthetics, and overview. These tabs hold all the information you could need, with both overview maps, textual descriptions, and map overlays, all of which help perfectly manage the city with a minimum of fuss. A nice touch is that the wheel on your mouse can be used to move through these tabs, making accessibility quite easy. The final nice touch to this control panel is that some functions, such as building roads or destroying terrain, are always present no matter which tab you’re using, which helps out a great deal.

Other than the usual city building (if it could be called usual), Zeus also throws into the mix a ton of content from Greek Mythology, and this comes out in the scenarios you’ll face in the multitude of campaigns included with the game (more on this later). Unlike other games, where the mythology gets merely lip service (I won’t mention names, but one game that’s guilty of this rhymes with “Spoon,” or “Dune.”), the characters and stories from Greek Mythology are fully represented in an accurate manner. Building a shrine to one particular God, for example, might anger another, causing them to unleash some mythological monster on you. When being attacked by a monster, the best way to fight them is to bring in a hero, such as Hercules or Perseus. Each hero is only capable of taking down a specific monster, so knowing your Greek Mythology will be helpful (for example, you wouldn’t use Hercules to whack Medusa).

Of course, if you have a problem with your city, your own people will be more than happy to tell you about it. In a feature introduced in Caesar III, you can click on any of the city’s inhabitants, and they’ll tell you what you’re doing right or wrong. This, coupled with the informative control panel, will always keep you updated as to how you’re doing as a ruler. The inhabitants of the city are very smart too. If you have immigrants coming to the city, they’ll just walk right in. If you build a wall around the city, they’ll find the closest gatehouse. If you build more agoras or granaries, your vendors and merchants will usually go to the new buildings if they’re closer. The AI in your own people, as well as those of other rulers, is quite impressive.

Speaking of other rulers, unlike the previous Impressions’ games, where you pretty much felt isolated from the rest of the world, in Zeus, you’re fully a part of Grecian society. Changing the view to the world map allows you to trade with other cities, give them gifts in order to improve their opinion of you, or to invade them. Interaction with other rulers is much more important in this game than in previous games.

Eventually, however, some ruler will dislike you enough to try and invade you, and this is where the game’s one flaw comes into play. Military control is quite abstracted in this game, to the point where battles become downright frustrating. You have the option of allowing either automatic or manual control of your armies. The one problem is that, rather than giving individual soldiers or groups specific commands, you can only give commands based on attitude, such as “offensive” or “defensive.” This means that you’ll have to move your entire group somewhere near the enemy, change their attitude to hostile, and hope they attack the enemy.

In an interesting twist, the armies you’ll command are drawn directly from the population. This means that what once was a Sheppard is now an Infantryman. This is interesting because if the battles are drawn out, or you lose too many men, your industry’s infrastructure can suffer due to the lack of workers. This means that you’ll need to balance preserving your army’s numbers while still having them repel the enemies.

I could go on and on in detail about the various layers of complexity found in Zeus. There’s just too much good stuff here, and it makes for one fantastic game. Whether you’re trying to retrieve the Golden Fleece, building Athens, or just playing in one of the included sandbox modes, you’ll have a fantastic time with Zeus. I had more fun with this game than with any of the Sim City games, and this was due to the fantastic interface, the vibrant game world, and the treatment of Greek Mythology. Overall, this is one game that I know I’ll be playing for many months to come.

Visuals

If there’s one word that best describes the graphics in Zeus, it’s “style.” From the opening cut-scene, to the marble look of the menus, to the vibrant graphics of the game itself, this game just exudes style. Since much of your time will be spent looking down upon your citizens in the main game window, this is where we’ll focus our attention.

The main game window is broken into two sections, the main view of your city and the control panel on the right-hand side of the screen. The beauty of the control panel is that it’s so unobtrusive that it never takes too much attention away from the real star of the show, your city. The cities you’ll build are a beautiful array of Grecian style and architecture, and it’s hard not to believe that you could be looking at a real Grecian city.

The real joy to Zeus, and other games like this, is watching its citizens go about their daily business. The people that will make up your cities are very vibrant, colorful, and easily identifiable. You’ll always be able to tell an actor apart from a merchant, for example, and the animations for each character differs as well. Heroes and gods always look more spectacular then the “common folk,” with large, glowing auras and usually other effects (like little lightning bolts for Zeus, for example).

The buildings that make up the actual structure of the city are also very easy on the eyes. The different types of dwellings that your people will inhabit are easily distinguishable, and other buildings always have a style of their own. You’ll never get a theater confused with an infirmary, for example.

Overall, the graphics in Zeus are vibrant, colorful, and filled with fantastic style. I had fun merely watching the city go about its business, not interfering or altering anything (once I had it sufficiently running, of course). While some might find the graphics a bit “cartoony” for their tastes, I find that they suit the look and mood of the game perfectly.

Aurals

The high point of this game has to be the audio portion of the game. First is the fantastic voice work, from “Book ‘em, Plato,” to, “Dude, the merchant said ‘Move those goods faster into that cart,’ and I said ‘Whatever!’ She’s such a Doric!” There was apparently a lot of time, effort, and care put into the voice work, and it only adds to the wonderful audio component of the game.

The music is another high point of the game. There are about twenty included mp3 tracks with the game, and range from the atmospheric orchestra to a jazzy rap using voices from the game (which is hilarious, by the way). Finally, we come to the ambient sounds, which again fit the game perfectly. Overall, words cannot convey the beauty of the game’s audio.

Solo

This game has a ton of single player game play. First, we come to the adventures, of which there are seven. These are linked campaigns that cover either historic events (The Trojan War), or fictitious (Perseus and Medusa). These campaigns are broken down into between six and eight scenarios of varying length and difficulty. There are also three open play modes, one economic (leading a city to total wealth), military (becoming the greatest military might around), and sandbox (basically, do whatever you want). These adventures and open modes of play can translate into hundreds of hours of game time.

The adventures themselves are broken down into scenarios with specific goals, such as establishing a certain amount of trade, building a successful colony, or summoning a hero. The beauty of these adventures is that, unlike their previous games, Impressions allows you to continually build your city from one scenario to the next, thereby keeping the city you started with and not having to start from scratch in each scenario. This addition alone is worth the price of admission, as this was one of the most frustrating things about Caesar III or Pharaoh.

The adventures themselves range from quite easy to stunningly complex, and the game starts you off with the easy adventure, if you wish. The game also includes a tutorial that covers most of the basics. The manual also describes the various buildings and their relationships in exquisite detail. Overall, there’s a lot of meat here for the solo player. If this game is your cup of tea, it will keep you engrossed for months.

Fun Factor

With its injection of humor, mythology, and easy of use, I had nothing but fun with Zeus. Unlike most games of this type, even losing wasn’t entirely heartbreaking. The streamlined interface made playing the game a breeze, and the humor and mythological storytelling kept me coming back for more. In all, this is probably the most fun I’ve had building a virtual city, and Impressions have done such a good job here that I can’t wait for their next installment.

Tips

• When building houses, make sure you have plenty of fountains nearby, as hygiene is incredibly important in this game. A few infirmaries wouldn’t hurt either.
• Never underestimate the importance of Maintenance Offices. They can spell the difference between a city filled with sturdy buildings, or an empty field filled with rubble. Make sure you build plenty of them well within the range of several buildings, so their coverage overlaps.
• Make sure you build your wheat farms at the right time of the year. Farms always need a year to grow a full harvest, and if you build them too early or too late before or after the harvest season, your wheat reserves might come up short.
• When placing houses, always leave enough room for later construction of aesthetic and cultural areas, so that your houses may evolve later. This will prevent you from being stuck without proper room for such venues.
• Build plenty of cultural venues. When you do well at the Olympics of Pan-Helenic games, you might have a chance to host either of these events in your own city, boosting profits, trade, and standings with other rulers.

• Does it advance the genre?  
  Yes, by streamlining what works and removing what doesn’t, Zeus is the new standard in city building games.
• Does it offer anything new?   Yes, a mix of city building, storytelling, and mythology.
• Does it offer a decent amount of gameplay?  
  Yes, seven multi-scenario adventures and open play modes guarantee a long life.
• Is the product relatively bug-free?  
  Yes, I alt-tabbed my way between Zeus and multiple programs without one hitch.
• Does the documentation thoroughly explain the game?  
  Yes, the 208-page manual includes more than enough coverage of the game.
• Does this game have any features to keep it from getting outdated?  
  Yes, the open play modes, plus you’ll want to go back to the adventures just to see if you can improve your scores.
• Is the game worth the retail price?  Yes.
• Is the game FUN?  Yes, more fun than a barrel of Hydras.