Populous: The Promised Lands

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MS-DOS 0 subscribers

0 plays 1989 #Strategy

Populous is a video game developed by Bullfrog Productions and published by Electronic Arts for the Amiga in March 1989, then quickly the Atari ST and MS-DOS. Many conversions followed, including for the Genesis, Super NES, and PC Engine consoles. Populous is considered the first god game. With over four million copies sold, Populous is one of the best-selling PC games of all time.

The player assumes the role of a deity, who must lead followers through direction, manipulation, and divine intervention, with the goal of eliminating the followers led by the opposite deity. Played from an isometric perspective, the game consists of more than 500 levels, with each level being a piece of land which contains the player's followers and the enemy's followers. The player is tasked with defeating the enemy followers and increasing their own followers' population using a series of divine powers before moving on to the next level. The game was designed by Peter Molyneux, and Bullfrog developed a gameplay prototype via a board game they invented using Lego.

From Wikipedia's article Populous (video game), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

Controls

This is a PC game: it uses the keyboard the way it did under MS-DOS, and the mouse where the game supports it. Click the game screen first so it gets your key presses.

Many DOS games start with a menu or ask a question first — read the screen and answer with the keyboard. Arrow keys, Enter, Space, Ctrl and Alt are the usual game keys.

Emulator help & troubleshooting

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Controls

This is a PC game: it uses the keyboard the way it did under MS-DOS, and the mouse where the game supports it. Click the game screen first so it gets your key presses.

Many DOS games start with a menu or ask a question first — read the screen and answer with the keyboard. Arrow keys, Enter, Space, Ctrl and Alt are the usual game keys.

Emulator help & troubleshooting

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  1. Graphics — Not scored Unavailable
  2. Sound — Not scored Unavailable
  3. Control — Not scored Unavailable
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No category score or overall rating is available for the unscored slots.

Full reviews

GamePro face key

  1. 1.0Wake me up when it's over0+ out of 100
  2. 1.5Wake me up when it's over+ thumbs-up40+ out of 100
  3. 2.0Could be better50+ out of 100
  4. 2.5Could be better+ thumbs-up60+ out of 100
  5. 3.0Good job68+ out of 100
  6. 3.5Good job+ thumbs-up75+ out of 100
  7. 4.0Great job!80+ out of 100
  8. 4.5Great job!+ thumbs-up85+ out of 100
  9. 5.0Outstanding!90+ out of 100

GamePro named the five whole-number faces; a thumbs-up adds half a point to the same caption. GamePro’s original rating-face design, adapted from Ryan Quintal’s 2018 vector recreation; cleanup for YouConsoles.

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