This was a genre defining 'God Game' and was the first of its type that I ever played. I was amazed that rather than controlling a character directly, I altered the entire landscape of a whole world that I was trying desperately to conquer.

The overall objective of Populous is to be the last man (God) standing. This means ridding the planet of all bad guys (red) so that only good guys remain (blue). Who needs a background story when you have all the powers of a God? Mwahahahaha...

There's something deeply satisfying about unleashing a carefully timed swamp which swallows up a bad guy. It's also equally terrifying to see your powerful knight charging headlong towards a trap as you desperately try to change the landscape so he can go kill enemies and burn their buildings.

You can't just have one tactic though, as the rules of the landscape change with each level. Sometimes the water is harmful and your guys drown slowly, giving you time to rescue them. Other times water is instantly fatal, meaning you can chase those baddies across the screen and give them a good dunking!

You will spend most of your time raising and lowering the ground in this way to make it hospitable for your population to rapidly expand until you overwhelm the opposition. The better buildings your people live in then the more easily they generate the mana required to carry out your Godly powers.

There are many ways to win (and lose) including gathering your forces together into one great champion knight who goes on a rampage. Or using a flood to drop everybody into the sea. Or even calling an Armageddon where all dwellings are abandoned in favour of a fight to the death in the centre of the map.

Graphics: 8
While it is a colourful game with distinct worlds to fight in (especially the futuristic worlds) it is also sometimes difficult to make out exactly where you need to place your finger of God to raise and lower the land. Overall though it did well for the Sega Master System.

Sound: 6
There's no real sound while you are playing the game itself, just satisfying noises as you unleash your powers on the enemy, with those same sounds striking terror into your heart as your (evil) counterpart attempts to also wipe you out. You will find yourself mimicking the 'Welcome to Populous' voice at the intro screen.

Addictiveness: 10
This is one of the most addictive games ever as there five thousand levels that you progress through, slowly conquering each world.

Story: 4
There is no background story, no characters to develop. But if you can imagine that the story is of you as a God conquering world after world then that is surely the greatest story ever told?

Depth: 8
There are many worlds to get through and it takes time to slowly progress from the very first world, each subsequent one presenting different challenges and greater levels of difficulty.

Difficulty: 7
It depends on what tactics you use, but some worlds have horrible starting locations where you really have to work fast and smart to outthink and out-pace your computer opponent.

Overall: 8
This game introduced me to the God game genre and remains one of my favourite games of all time.

This is a good review so good job! My only suggestion is that you have more detail and explain each section more descriptively. Other than that I hope to see more reviews from you.

Monkeyboy123 : I really like your title. The review hit the the targets, but is a bit sparse?