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You play a god, gaming against other gods in a celestial game of conquest. To win, you must help your chosen people take over the world and wipe out the vermin who worship that other god.
Each god starts out with a single human, dumped into the middle of the wilderness. Sometimes there is inhabitable land in sight, sometimes not. To get win, you must change the landscape, creating flat land for your followers to build on. The more followers you have you have, the more powerful you will be, so take care of them. Build as fast as you can, because the other god is doing the same.
When you have enough followers, you can make the leader of your people into a hero. He will then go around the land you have built, literally taking strength from the people into himself, and working his way toward the enemy. When he gets there, he will engage in holy warfare upon your enemy's people. He will burn; he will kill. And he won't stop until they're all dead... or he is.
But you don't have to let your people have all the fun; the god's have other tools as well. You can drown your enemies one at a time with your land lowering powers. Submerge their towns in swamps. Raise a volcano in the middle of their best farmland. Even better, you can flood the land and drain all the people who didn't build on high-ground.
And when you win, you'll have 500 more worlds to conquer. A god's play is just never done.
Introduction Have you ever dreamed of being a god, modifying every little thing in the world that isn't as you wish, having hordes of followers and worshippers that follow your orders, and practically being the 'Master of All'? If you presume (as all of you probably do) from this question that this game offers it all, you're completely right! There is just one little catch - the other mighty god disagrees with you, and he won't just be sitting in the clouds watching you have all the fun.
The game Populous is the first game from a quadrilogy of the same name. When this game was released, it was extremely popular and widely accepted as one of the first real-time strategies. The fact that it was named Game Of The Year 1989 says enough for itself. As soon as you run the game you will see a menu giving you 3 choices of play: Tutorial, Conquest and Custom Game. In Tutorial mode you can practice your skills as a god without need of filling your mana. Conquest offers you a chance to fight your adversary on various maps, advancing through them one by one and Custom Game allows you to change worlds and landscapes and even put yourself in the role of Evil.
Gameplay The main goal of the game is to defeat the other god and his people by spreading your tribe through building houses. You advance your people's buildings by conquering plain fields. The more houses and followers you have, the more mana (deja vu, anyone? ) you get. Mana is a god's power which you use for releasing disasters upon enemy people and buildings. You have a wide range of them at your disposal: earthquake, flood (raises sea level), volcano, armageddon, swamp (swallows all) and knight (ultimate warrior who, once unleashed, destroys enemy houses and people). To round up your divine powers, you also have the ability of raising and lowering land, which is useful for making plain fields or weakening enemy buildings.
Graphics and sound Populous' graphics were very good for the time of its release, and now, to us spoilt gamers, it looks somewhat seamy. Various landscapes (polar, desert, grassland, rocks and lava) are probably what nowadays gives graphics a pass, considering that animations of your people and buildings aren't very impressive. Sound is nothing spectacular and the music is painfully repetitive so you'll probably turn it off after 10 minutes.
Interface And so we come to what is probably the worst side of the game. The interface is rather unpractical, mainly because of the clumsily positioned control board which reduces the actual playing area of the screen so you have to scroll all the time. This might put most new players off... and they could hardly be blamed for that!
One of the great sides of the game is that its compatibility features aren't typical for the time of its release. For instance, Populous was one of the first games to introduce multiplayer via modem! Yes, you read it right, you can dial your friend's computer and prove to him who's the better God in-head-to-head play! Populous also supports mouse control while featuring a great number of keyboard hotkeys (you can download default keyboard controls). This greatly enhances playability and enables you to react faster to the events on the screen.
The fact that Populous is a true strategy classic which has set the standards for many forthcoming games is not questionable. The real dilemma here is whether it still is as challenging and interesting as it was 15 years ago. Old fans who played it and liked it in past times will surely be attracted to it once again because of its intense nostalgic feeling, while new players who are used to state-of-the-art 3D games will probably detest it and delete it immediately after download. As I belong to the first group (the slightly younger part of it, that is), I would recommend it to every gamer willing to see how it all started. Even if you're not impressed at the first sight, give Populous some time, and it will attract your attention for quite a while. After all, it is challenging to experience what it's like to be a God, isn't it?
How to run this game on modern Windows PC?
This game has been set up to work on modern Windows (10/8/7/Vista/XP 64/32-bit) computers without problems. Please choose Download - Easy Setup (5.64 MB).
People who downloaded Populous have also downloaded:
Populous 2, Populous: The Beginning, Powermonger, Railroad Tycoon Deluxe, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, Pirates! Gold for Windows, Railroad Tycoon, Master of Orion
Populous 2, Populous: The Beginning, Powermonger, Railroad Tycoon Deluxe, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, Pirates! Gold for Windows, Railroad Tycoon, Master of Orion
Populous: The Beginning | |
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Developer(s) | Bullfrog Productions |
Publisher(s) | Electronic Arts |
Producer(s) | Stuart Whyte Richard Leinfellner Peter Blow |
Designer(s) | Alex Cullum Ken Malcolm Dan Riley |
Programmer(s) | Alan Wright |
Writer(s) | Steven Brown James Leach Jon Rennie |
Composer(s) | Mark Knight |
Series | Populous |
Platform(s) | Microsoft Windows, PlayStation |
Release | Microsoft WindowsPlayStation
|
Genre(s) | Real-time strategy |
Mode(s) | Single-player, multiplayer |
Populous: The Beginning is a real-time strategyvideo game and is the third entry in the Populous video game series, developed by Bullfrog Productions. The game was released in 1998 on Microsoft Windows, and in 1999 for the PlayStation. Unlike earlier games in the series, which cast the player in the role of a god influencing loyal followers, The Beginning took a radical departure and placed the player in the role of a shaman, who directly leads her tribe against opponents. Throughout the twenty-five missions of the campaign, the player leads their tribe across a solar system, dominating enemy tribes and tapping new sources of magic, with the ultimate goal of the shaman attaining godhood herself.
![Populous Tribal Conquest Free Populous Tribal Conquest Free](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/IhILyXpq73Q/hqdefault.jpg)
Populous: The Beginning was the first entry in the series to use 3D computer graphics; Bullfrog waited four years after Populous II: Trials of the Olympian Gods so that the graphics technology could catch up to their vision for a new and different game in the series. The developers considered the addition of terrain deformation and manipulation, combined with 'smart' villagers who automatically attended to tasks, to add an entirely new dimension to the series. The game's original title was Populous: The Third Coming before being changed prior to the beta release.
Populous: The Beginning plays very differently from earlier titles and received mixed reviews. Critics noted the excellent graphics, while complaints were directed at the artificial intelligence and the indecision in game design between being a real time strategy title and a god game. GamePro's Peter Olafson wrote that Populous: The Beginning was a good game but was 'without a quintessential quality that defined Populous.'[3]
- 2Plot
Gameplay[edit]
The game's three-dimensional graphics engine allows the player to zoom out to see the entire world
In Populous: The Beginning, the player controls a female shaman and the tribe which follows her.[4] Unlike the previous games in the series, The Beginning allows the player to directly control the action of followers, by ordering them to build structures or attack enemies.[5] In the campaign, the player must fight the opposing Dakini, Chumara and Matak tribes for dominion over the solar system.[6] Enemy tribes also have shamans, and on later levels all inhabit the same world. While the objective is almost always to eliminate all of the members of the other tribes, there are often specific ways this can be achieved.[4] Sometimes the player must use magic spells gained from worship at special monuments such as stone heads or 'Vaults of Knowledge';[7] in other cases, the player only needs to overwhelm the enemies with superior numbers. The game has no formal resource management; new units are created automatically at houses, and training new troops costs nothing except mana. Only wood from trees is required to build new structures.[8]
The game is played from a third-person perspective with the camera at a variable height and capable of rotating 360°, enabling the player to quickly move across the planet's terrain. While the terrain's topology is a torus, the map is locally projected onto a sphere to give the illusion of a planet. On maps where there is no fog of war, players can see what opponents are doing at any time. Extensive support for 3D acceleration enables the player to view the game in 16-bit or 32-bit colour.[9] The landscape and real-time structure building and follower movement are also shown.
A tornado cast by a shaman rips apart enemy buildings
The player commands different types of followers, each of which has advantages and disadvantages in combat. The most basic unit is the Brave, which builds huts, towers, and military buildings. Braves are trained to become other units: tough melee Warriors; weak, long-range, Firewarriors; Preachers, who convert enemy units and prevent enemy preachers from converting friendly troops; and Spies, who perform espionage functions.[3] Shamans are physically weaker than warriors, but can cast powerful spells and can be reincarnated if killed.[8] Some spells will disappear after use. Other spells can slowly be replenished for continued use; the rate of spell regeneration depends upon the player's number of followers. Examples of spells include 'Landbridge', which raises the sea floor to create bridges across the sea; 'Swarm', which sends a horde of insects to sow confusion in enemy ranks; and 'Tornado', which creates a cyclone to destroy buildings. There are twenty-six spells in total,[3] which are slowly learned throughout the campaign.[4]
Populous: The Beginning supports multiplayer, either by modem connection (limited to two players), IPX, or over the Internet through an external matchmaking service. Populous: The Beginning allows for a maximum game size of four players playing against each other.[1]
Plot[edit]
Setting[edit]
Populous: The Beginning takes place before the first two games in the series[10] in a planetary system of twenty-five unnamed planets. These worlds are inhabited by four human tribes, represented by their color: the green 'Matak', the yellow 'Chumara', and the red 'Dakini'. The fourth blue tribe, controlled by the player, is unnamed. Each of the tribes is generally hostile to one another, though alliances exist on some worlds. All the tribes are ruled by a single female shaman. In addition to the organized tribes are 'wildmen',[11] neutral characters who cluster in groups around trees and water. Though they cannot attack or be attacked, players can use the Shaman's Convert spell to bring wildmen under her tribe's control.
Story[edit]
The player's goal as Shaman is to become a deity; only by defeating all the enemies in the system can the player's shaman become omnipotent.[12] The player begins on the planet furthest from the sun, and attacks each planet in sequence. Along the way, the Shaman can learn new skills and magic to defeat her enemies. Victory requires the player to either destroy the opposition, or on occasion perform special actions. The player loses if his or her Shaman is killed and there are no remaining followers, if the Shaman is killed and there is no circle of reincarnation, or the player runs out of time on timed levels.[13] Upon beating back the other tribes, the Shaman ascends to godhood and helps her people conquer the Matak, Chumara and Dakini in one final conflict.[14]
Development[edit]
Populous: The Beginning was the first in the series developed with entirely 3D graphics, allowing the environment to be scaled and rotated in real time.[15] The game was published more than four years after Populous II: Trials of the Olympian Gods with developers stating the delay was due to waiting for the hardware specifications to come along enough that they would allow them to do something very different and new.[16] Producer Stuart Whyte said of the work, 'We're really proud of what we've done in software because it does look really nice.'[17]
The Populous series inspired the term 'god game', with players assuming the role of an omniscient being who lead his people to new territories or into battle.[18] Alan Wright, the game's project leader, stressed both the departure Populous: The Beginning took from previous titles in the series, as well as distinguishing itself from similar games like Command & Conquer. The elements of smart villagers and terrain-reforming, he said, 'adds a whole level of gameplay not found in those titles.'[16] Bullfrog representative Brian Allen asserted that these departures distinguished Populous: The Beginning from other real-time strategy games on the market at the time.[18] In some aspects, the developers were forced to remove features due to technical constraints; for example, the 'Plague' spell from previous Populous titles was dropped because in practice the spell was too frustrating.[17]
Originally, the game was known as Populous: The Third Coming,[16] but the name was changed by the time the game was shown in a fully playable beta form in late 1998.[16] The game was the first in the series to be made without Populous creator Peter Molyneux, who had left Bullfrog to create Lionhead Studios.[5] The music was composed by Mark Knight, who had joined Bullfrog's team in 1997.[19]
Bullfrog released the Populous: The Beginning — Undiscovered Worlds in 1999. The expansion was only made available in the UK and US. The add-on offered twelve new single-player and twelve multiplayer levels,[20] with a continuation of the storyline begun in the previous game, where the player takes on the role of a new shaman who must restore peace to the solar system.[21]
Reception[edit]
Populous: The Beginning (Microsoft Windows) | ||||||||||||||||
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Populous: The Beginning received generally favorable reviews on release with some strong criticisms to follow. IGN's Ward Trent was especially smitten with the immersive 3D graphics.[10][14]Edge stated, 'previous Bullfrog games have always placed gameplay above graphical finesse, but that's no longer the case.'[23]GameSpot's reviewer Ron Dulin appreciated how The Beginning was a daring revamp of the series, instead of a safe, slightly modified sequel (like the earlier Populous II: Trials of the Olympian Gods).[4]Computer and Video Games rated The Beginning as a 'better play' than the original.[5]
Complaints about the game centered on the difficulty of controlling followers, the simplicity of gameplay, and the tension between game styles. The game's AI allowed followers to automatically construct buildings,[16] but this led to problems directing them in the midst of a hectic battle.[4] IGN noted that with the player's followers automatically going about daily life, the replay value was lowered even with the multiplayer options.[10] Others agreed that the automation rendered gameplay too simple, with no upgrades or serious resource management,[14][23] a sentiment PC Gamer expressed when they wrote that the missions 'become mind-numbingly repetitive'.[24]
Populous: The Beginning played very differently from earlier titles. Edge concluded that while the more rigid play format of The Beginning was new to the series, it had the effect of making the end result 'less show-stopping'; Edge believed that the game was caught between the god game and RTS genres, and did not excel at either.[24] PCGamer subsequently decided the game failed to live up to the previous games in the series. More charitably, GamePro's Peter Olafson wrote: 'Populous: The Beginning is not a bad game, in fact a good one; but it's a different game—one without a quintessential quality that defined Populous.'[3]
References[edit]
- ^ ab'Populous: The Beginning at GameSpy'. GameSpy. Archived from the original on January 5, 2011. Retrieved January 5, 2011.
- ^'Populous: The Beginning at GameSpy (PS)'. GameSpy. Archived from the original on January 5, 2011. Retrieved January 5, 2011.
- ^ abcdeOlafson, Peter (January 1, 2000). 'Review: Populous 3'. GamePro. Archived from the original on January 5, 2011. Retrieved September 7, 2007.
- ^ abcdefDulin, Ron (December 11, 1998). 'Populous: The Beginning for PC Review'. GameSpot. Archived from the original on September 30, 2007. Retrieved September 8, 2007.
- ^ abc'PC Review: Populous: the Beginning'. Computer and Video Games. September 13, 2001. Archived from the original on January 5, 2011. Retrieved January 5, 2011.
- ^Johnson, Andy (September 22, 2010). 'Tribal Spirituality in 'Populous The Beginning''. PopMatters. Retrieved April 25, 2017.
- ^Bullfrog Studios, ed. (November 30, 1998). Populous: The Beginning Instruction Manual. Electronic Arts. p. 3.
- ^ abBullfrog Studios, ed. (November 30, 1998). Populous: The Beginning Instruction Manual. Electronic Arts. p. 4.
- ^Bullfrog Studios, ed. (November 30, 1998). Populous: The Beginning Instruction Manual. Electronic Arts. pp. 8–9.
- ^ abcdWard, Trent (January 1, 1999). 'IGN: Populous: The Beginning Review'. IGN. Archived from the original on April 8, 2003. Retrieved August 21, 2016.
- ^Bullfrog Studios, ed. (November 30, 1998). Populous: The Beginning Instruction Manual. Electronic Arts. p. 8.
- ^Bullfrog Studios, ed. (November 30, 1998). Populous: The Beginning Instruction Manual. Electronic Arts. p. 2.
- ^Bullfrog Studios, ed. (November 30, 1998). Populous: The Beginning Instruction Manual. Electronic Arts. p. 7.
- ^ abcStaff (September 22, 2002). 'Populous 3: 'Nothing to Write Home About''. Game Review. Archived from the original on September 28, 2007. Retrieved September 7, 2007.
- ^'NG Alphas: Populous 3'. Next Generation. No. 31. Imagine Media. July 1997. p. 117.
- ^ abcdePoole, Stephen (August 21, 1997). 'The Beginning Preview at GameSpot'. GameSpot. Retrieved September 8, 2007.
- ^ abStaff (October 5, 1998). 'Populous: The Beginning Preview'. IGN. Retrieved September 4, 2007.
- ^ abChick, Tom (1997). 'Populous: The Third Coming; The return of the god game'. Computer Games Magazine. Archived from the original on July 5, 2003.
- ^'Mark Knight profile'. MobyGames. Retrieved September 8, 2007.
- ^'Populous 3 - Undiscovered Worlds'. Computer and Video Games. Archived from the original on November 21, 2007. Retrieved September 8, 2007.
- ^'Populous: The Beginning — Undiscovered Worlds'. MobyGames. Retrieved September 5, 2007.
- ^'Populous: The Beginning Reviews'. GameRankings. Retrieved September 6, 2007.
- ^ ab'Edge' (66). Future Publishing. Christmas 1998. pp. 92–93.
- ^ abMcDonald, T. Liam (March 1999). 'Populous: The Beginning'. PC Gamer: 134–135.
External links[edit]
- Populous: The Beginning at MobyGames
- Populous: Reincarnated - a fan site
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