Impressions put out a lot of themed city building/management sims in the late 90s and early 00s. The Caesar series is probably the most famous, if only because there were four of them. Zeus puts all the rest to shame. The mechanics are polished and largely uncomplicated. The art is stylized, but pretty. The difficulty curve is fair (except for Tenedos!). And every in-game character, from god to olive grower constantly cracks wise. If you don't like self-aware puns, though, you might play with the sound off. And for a great as Zeus is, I probably enjoy the scenarios in the Poseidon expansion even more because the map design forces you to get creative--like when you realize that the only viable way to build Elite housing in Atlantis is to use a narrow, circular, ring of land. I spend countless hours on Zeus in the early 00s, and countless more over the past few weeks. The differences between this bundle and the original experience are miniscule. For example, my only complaint is that the opening cutscene does not render on my pc. If anything, though, the gameplay is better today than it was in '00-'01. Faster processor speeds and more memory means less lag when building truly enormous cities (ca. 20,000 virtual people). Buy it. Love it. p.s., There is still a somewhat active online community at the Zeus page on Heaven Games. The admins seem to be gone, but there' still activity on the forums and with custom adventures.
