Overview

Developer: Impressions
Publisher: Sierra
Zeus official page: http://zeus.impressionsgames.com/
More Zeus resources

The Impressions Legacy

Along with Maxis, the other big "city-building game" company has been Impressions. Maxis has stuck mainly to creating modern scenarios that generally involve isolated cities which never start before the year 1900 and run until the near future. Impressions, however, has given us exotic locales and a more connected world to worry about. It all started back in the days of Caesar, through the much more refined and focused Caesar II, the incremental Caesar III and then a big leap forward and in another direction with Pharaoh.

The Palace

Demeter strolls by the Palace

While the earlier games tried to be fairly realistic and help build a believable society in the era it was based, Zeus is going in a different direction. It still has graphics that reflect its citizens and the particular societal quirks are thrown into gameplay, but instead of focusing on just historical fact with adjustments only for gameplay purposes, Zeus is going for style.

After all, a Greek world might be interesting just with squabbling city-states, foreign invaders and social problems, but wouldn't it be that much more interesting if you throw its rich mythology into the mix? This mythology includes potential Jerry Springer guests like the gods and goddesses Zeus, Hera, Apollo, Artemis, Hades and more. Then you can throw in some classic monsters like Hydras, centaurs and even nastier creatures. So what can you do to fight these rampaging beasts? Why, summon a hero of course! Hercules, Perseus, Odysseus, and Jason all await your command, or they'll go off on their own.

Invasion is afoot!

Sanctuary

The Masses

Zeus has been made more people friendly than its predecessors. The interface is being touched up to make it even easier to use while the AI is receiving and overhaul to keep players from getting frustrated and pulling out Godzilla to stomp the city into the ground ... no wait, that's SimCity.

Gods fighting

Townhouses and monuments

Still, Impressions is doing much to make Zeus an easier game than the Caesars or Pharaoh, which clearly had some nasty moments where they got irrationally difficult at early stages. The developers have also included several features within the game itself that can make any disasters in your city not as catastrophic as they could be.