Of all the Sierra City building games, Pharaoh has all the elements of a true city building game. Make you think, but watching the city grow is enjoyable.

• from

I have the old, original discs for Pharaoh and Cleopatra. I have always loved this game, and when I got a new PC with Vista I was concerned that it wouldn't play. I had lost track of my Cleopatra disc, but finally found it a few days ago and decided to see if it would install and play on my new computer.

To my pleasant surprise, it did install and plays just fine. No crashes, no bugs, no glitches at all. The game plays just like it did on my old computer, and it's just as fun as I remember.

• from

You can play missions over and over, and each time you can be more creative and try new configurations. You can also challenge yourself and set the level of difficulty, edit missions and create totally new maps. This game never ends.

• from

I origionally bought this game in 2000 and played for endless hours. I lost sleep over it at times. I played off and on over the next six years. It's challenging and entertaing at the same time. My ex took it with him when he left and I found myself dying to play, so I bought this one and it has been great. I can't wait to get to the second disk and see what they added.

• from

Amazon was great at sending my purchase in a very timely manner. I got exactly what I paid for. Great experience.

• from

A combination of Caesar III, Sid Miers Civilizations and Maxis' Sim City games from the late nineties, Pharaoh takes a lot of what made those games best sellers and combines it into a pretty entertaining, if at this point dated, game. Back in the 90s, "God" style games in which you care for and manage a teeming world of buildings and their denizens were having their hay-day.

While Maxis continued to churn out the Sim City franchise, and Civilizations and it's many spin offs have become legend, most games are not either FPS (First Person Shooters) or RTS (Real Time Strategy). The 90s produced some exceptional top-down city management games, and Pharaoh is a good example. Unfortunately, just like the Egyptian empire that you play in the game, poised at its height of glory, this style of game has fallen largely to the wayside. That's unfortunate.

A city management game at heart, Pharaoh gives you much more control over what you build and where you build it than Sim City games. You choose which buildings you want, and where they will be built, allowing you to create a city to your exact design.

War making does come into play, but it is secondary to city building. Many of the missions will require you to create an army and lead them to victory, but this feels largely anticlimactic compared to the fast paced city management that requires 80 percent of your time.

This game is quite complex, entertaining, and truly a classic of the genre. If you're considering buying it, there are other options like Caeser III, but I think this is a superior game. If you like strategy games from the 90s, this ones definitely for you.

• from

I loved this game. I had the the one previous to Pharaoh Gold. I am so glad I found a newer version.

• from

Loved this game back in the day when it was new, love it even more with the Cleopatra expansion. Perfect versions of this software.

• from

I had this game when I was younger and was quite excited to be able to play it once again. Age is no factor when it comes to enjoying this game and it certainly is no hinderance to understand how to operate the different industries and services you can set up in the game, either. This would be a great game for kids and it really doesn't look all that aged graphically. They'll never know it's a game from the 90's.

• from

I loved it when it came out, and I still love it today. I had to buy again since I wore out my original copy. Fantastic game play unfortunately, it does not work on vista. So, dual booth with xp and use the OS compatible .exe in properties.

• from

We had purchased this game several years ago,but the disc became too scratched to use. We ended up rebuying it because it truly is a family favorite.

In the original Pharaoh game, one uses logic to plan, build, and manage increasingly more complex Egyptian cities. The cities must include a means to feed and shelter the inhabitants, industry, entertainment, goverment services, educational services, and religious facilities. You keep a delicate balance between spending too much money (going into debt) and not enough money (not providing the services/facilities/jobs necessary to keep your inhabitants happy). While it seems relatively simple, it's not always an easy balance to strike.

As you progress further into the game, you must not only keep your inhabitants happy, but you must also develope foreign relations, trade routes, and prepare for war.

Cleopatra is the expansion pack for the Pharaoh series.

Overall, our family enjoys this game, and it is one of the few that they have come back to over and over for years. As a parent, I appreciate that this game requires a great deal of thought and patience to beat. The graphics, while not as quality as games produced today, are not so dated as to make the game unappealing. The graphics are the main reason we gave the game a 4 - otherwise, we like it enough to give it a 5.

• from

Glad I was able to find copies of this game that were compatible with my version of Windows! Would've been nice to know ahead of time that I would need to change some compatibility settings to get it to work though, instead of trying to reinstall it numerous times b/c I kept getting error messages and having to hunt for the answer on Google.

• from

I bought this game because I had seen it awhile ago and never bought it and then it disappeared. I'm glad Sold-Out Software picked it up and that it is compatible with XP. Anyone that has played Ceaser will know what this game is all about. For me it's the same game only with the Egyptian twist to it which I like. I love the graphics and the feel of the game. It's a lot of fun and a good way to spend some free time.

I did have some problems installing the game but it was no big deal. I had to close some running programs I had open and it went off without a hitch. It was a good experience with this company. I would buy from them again.

Overall a great entertaining game.

• from

The game is easy to play. Similar to Pharaoh in how it is played yet seems very oriental.

• from

This is the kind of game that you'll initially sit down at, after playing for ten minutes remark "This is stupid. I'll go till the end of this stage then its in the dumpster." then find yourself playing and realize its 2am next Thursday. The missions are entertaining, the citybuilding aspect is intuitive and surprisingly complicated to master, and the system its all based on, whhile frustrating at times, is easy to work with.

Gameplay: 9/10. The setup is the same as any city building/Sim City design, with more foucs obviously on the nuts and bolts of running a city. You have to create a good balance between residence and industry, keep them close together without sacrificing appeal, and still keep enough space and people to run all of your services and buildings. And keep a good, strong armed force. A couple points fall through the cracks that are annoying, and when you stumble upon them you'd wish the game had mentioned them, but those are few and far between.

Story/Audio: 10/10. The voices of the citizens are amusing and actually very helpful in determining what your cities problems are, if any exist. The narration is accurate to time frame and history, as far as I'm aware, and follows the rise and fall of the kingdom. While it would've been nice to have more mission audio, what little there is still manages to be very entertaining.

Graphics: 7/10: Being as far along as technology is, most people will frown at these. Bear in mind how old the game is, and its not too terrible a flaw for an otherwise fantastic game. The best part is considering your system is probably a 1.5 - 3.5 GHz, 2 Gb RAM setup, this game is so compact and streamlined it'll run smoother than your screensaver.

Overall: 9.5/10. I picked this back up after I stopped playing almost 6 years ago. A game with that kind of staying power is impressive. The history and involvement the game has is incredible, and while it'll get repetitive by the end, until you start to get sick of it, you'll be hopelessly addicted.

• from