Poseidon

"An excellent expansion"

Poseidon, the official expansion for Impressions Games' Zeus: Master of Olympus, adds a lot or you could say it adds a little, depending on your point of view. The new adventures are a lot indeed, and still like the first game, the suggested hours for play are nowhere near how long it takes to complete an adventure. 46 new episodes are at least 70 hours of game time, and it will keep you occupied for some time, if you like city builder games that is. But of course you do, since you bought the original game.

However, in terms of breaking new ground, or inventing new strategies, this expansion does neither. It's still the same game, only with new names for old things. For example, the podiums and gymnasiums are gone, but are replaced by bibliothecas, universities and laboratories. Which function in much the same way as their old counterparts. For some people this may mean a good thing, but I was hoping for something extra that would warrant my purchase.

The story is again in the same style as the original, a combination of true myth(it's an oxymoron, but it kinda means a myth that's official, or recorded in real ancient manuscripts) and fallacy. Well I must admit the fallacy is good, and it adds volume and smooths the story to a reasonable pace, so you don't play and build a city for nothing. Here you leave the world of ancient Greece and build the fabled city of Atlantis from scratch. One thing I like is that the ground in which you build Atlantis is exactly like what Plato said, a series of concentric rings. They stretched out the Atlantis myth, and throught the series of adventures that you'll do you'll establish colonies as far as Central America, and trade with the Mayans. You'll encounter the civilizations of ancient greece that you built in the original game, and even wage war against them. The story is engrossing until the end, and will keep you occupied.

However you will soon find out that Atlantis looks A LOT like ancient Greece, except the houses' roofs have new paint jobs--they are colored green as opposed to the red of the original game. Aside from that, apparently everyone's content with greek style housing.

The few changes didn't really ''change'' anything, they just added a new graphic for an old thing. The example I gave earlier was with the podiums and gymnasiums. Well there are new food sources too, in Atlantis you can grow oranges and raise cattle for meat. The flaw in Zeus is still there--you can feed your hungry citizens with wheat for a hundred years and they'll never notice anything. The new industries are the mining of black marble and a red ore called orichalc, which are used for the new buildings. Those new buildings are pyramids and frigate wharves. Because Atlantis is an island nation and it's people are seafaring, there is more emphasis on building a navy than before. Pyramids are buildings that need a lot of marble and some orichalc, and they greatly improve the quality of the surroundings. Also sometimes building pyramids is an objective to complete an episode. Towers now spit fire when you have orichalc, but I never used them anyway in the original game.

There are new heroes and gods. Hera who was a major Greek god they missed in the first game is in here, also for some reason they added Atlas as a new god when everyone knows that in Greek mythology he isn't. They both have sanctuaries that require the new materials, and Poseidon has a new sanctuary, in fact a huge sanctuary, I don't remember if it was larger than Zeus' but it was definitely large and takes a long time to complete. There are two new heroes, Bellerophon and Atalanta, and four new monsters to wreck your beloved town, the Sphinx, Echidna, Chimera and Harpy.

Graphics and sound shouldn't be reviewed in these types of games, but I will anyway. Graphics are the same as the first game. Sound is also the same, with the people speaking when you right click on them. The irritating yet funny voice of the narrator is still there, so you needn't worry you'll miss him.

For the scores
Graphics - 8
Sound - 8
Story - 9
Gameplay - 9
Lifespan - 9

Overall, I'd recommend you to buy it if you have the original. If you don't have it then buy the original and this! It's great.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 08/15/03