#56: Populous II: Trials of the Olympian Gods (Bullfrog, Amiga, 1991)

In Populous You could only reshape the world as You saw fit within sight of Your followers, the world of heathens blocked off until You built Your powers. It was the most interesting idea of its divine framework beyond the novelty of godhood itself. Populous II‘s first suite of levels, on the other hand, have You able to lower the land all around those non-believers at will. It contributes to a distinct lack of challenge, a long stretch of playing mechanically before You can really get to strategy, and it undermines the most interesting narrative elements too.

There are compensating advances on both fronts. You get a progression through the unveiling of a wider range of powers, though they’re along similar lines. And there is a new story, of sorts. This time You play a mere Greek demigod, so there go the capital letters. You have to fight your way past a bunch of other demigods to raise yourself in Zeus’s estimation, and you can do a bit of character creation and choose your own portrait, which I think may be an AAA first. It’s even possible to make a vaguely female looking face, so not just men can create god in their own image.

That additional presence of self, and seeing your opponent, helps to give some more meaning to battles between the red-clothed people and the blue-clothed people, even if getting crushed against the rungs of gods’ social ladder as they climb is a particularly senseless kind of sense.