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There are roughly 56 million people in Britain - and if Electronic Arts is to be believed, there are only three of them who don't actually own a copy of Populous. Still, that hasn't stopped the same company from re-releasing this incomparable classic on budget label.

So, if you're one of the three, then now is a perfect time to rectify this situation. And you'll probably need an explanation of the game too, so if the other 55,999,997 of you could bear with us...

Populous gives you the ultimate role as the ultimate being, with hundreds of little people and a whole landscape under your control. Well, not quite, because there is another rival ultimate being who also has lots of little people under his control and also has a stake in the land.

Well we can't have this, can we? Two ultimate beings? An insufferable situation, not to mention a logistical nightmare.

The only way around this problem is to get your own little people to totally overrun the land. Providing they have plenty of level dry land on which to settle they'll build houses, larger buildings, and eventually castles. With this done, they get down to the business of erm... reproducing! You can help your little chaps and chapesses along with the occasional 'act of god'. The acts you can perform range from the simple raising or lowering of land through earthquakes and floods to causing complete Armageddon.

But before you can start firing off earthquakes left, right and centre you have to build up enough power - but this directly depends on the size of your population, which won't grow quickly unless you help it along... see the problem?

Once things are progressing nicely you can create a few Knights and send them off to start beating ten types of hell out of the opposition, then follow this up quickly with hordes of your people in an attempt to overrun the place (a bit like German tourists, really). Then it's time to do it all again with the 499 other worlds.

A must buy from a developer (Bullfrog) that bothers to write real games rather than money-making dross.