Zeus: Master of Olympus

Zeus: Master of Olympus delivers more great city building action with enough twists on the genre to keep fans playing for hours on end.

Zeus: Master of Olympus is the latest city building game from the creators of Pharaoh and the Caesar series, and it delivers more great city building action with enough twists on the genre to keep fans playing for hours on end. Like its predecessors, Zeus puts you in charge of a budding city - this time in Ancient Greece. You must lay down roads, build houses and farms, collect taxes, and deal with all the other minutiae that comes with ruling a city.

Disasters strike in the form of mythological beasts, like the Hydra, Cyclops, and Minotaur, and in order to deal with these bad guys you need to enlist the aid of a hero. But before a hero will come to your rescue, you must first meet some specific requirements. Hercules, for example, requires among other things that you have ample gymnasium access for your citizens.

Of course, it wouldn't be Ancient Greece without a few gods, and they make an appearance as well. You can build sanctuaries to specific gods, who will in turn bring good fortune to your city. If you build a haven for Aphrodite, for example, she will make your city more appealing and increase your population.

In Zeus, you can choose to play in an open-ended "sandbox mode" or through one of seven adventures, ranging in difficulty from fairly easy to very challenging. Each adventure is broken up into several episodes with unique objectives, and when the objectives for an episode are reached, rather than start a new city from scratch, you continue developing your current city with a new goal. This helps break up the repetitive nature of the game by creating more of a sense of progress.

The world of Zeus is colorful and bristles with activity. Detailed animations bring the city to life - you can see workers pushing carts, herding sheep, delivering water, and generally going about their daily business. The buildings have a cartoonish charm without being overly cute and you can see at a glance what goods your storehouses have on hand or which residential areas are thriving and which ones need work. The world is also filled with the sounds of a bustling city, from the sawing of the timber mill to the grunts of athletes fighting in the stadium.

Building and managing your cities is accomplished mostly with the mouse and you'll be laying down roads and buildings with ease. A panel on the right side of the screen is easily navigable and lets you sort through the many buildings or display maps to see any potential problem areas in your city. You can also access an assortment of menus to control tax rates, wages, distribution, and other micro-management needs.

With the various adventures, sandbox modes, and tons of micro-management, Zeus: Master of Olympus will keep city building fans occupied for hours, and with its simple control and multiple difficulty levels, it's a great introduction for newcomers as well.

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