Rating: 
Summary: A classic of the same caliber as Civilization
Review: Alpha Centauri is a classic, and with good cause. Every innovation that this game introduced to the Civilization series (to which this game doesn't exactly belong, but it might as well since it's by the same people and it's so similar) significantly improved the playability and entertainment value of the genre. For instance, unlike the first two Civ games, Alpha Centauri incorporates seven completely different factions into the gaming world, resulting in a much wider spectrum of possibilities. If you choose to dominate the globe's economy, you might choose the Morganites. If you are more of an aggressive, militaristic player, you might decide to go with the Spartans or the Believers. Or, if you would rather take a more diplomatic approach, you might play as the Peacekeeping Forces.The introduction of distinctly individual factions to the game is just one of many improvements this game introduces to turn-based strategy gaming. Others include a more comprehensive and realistic combat system, the establishment of territories, a highly advanced technology tree, a much more flexible system of customizing governmental policies (you get to choose your political system, your economic system, your faction's values and even your ideal future society) and the implementing of unit creation. You can even create your own unique faction, although this requires that you edit the game's text files. But it's actually not complicated at all--anyone can do it. There are so many things that are right about this game, but still there are a few reasons you might not want to buy it (even though it is ridiculously cheap). First, as is the case with almost all turn-based strategy games, Alpha Centauri gets a little cumbersome after hundreds of turns because there is just too much micromanagement. To be fair, though, you can always have your cities managed by local governors. Also, a game like this won't appeal to everyone. If Civilization wasn't your thing, neither will Alpha Centauri be. If you're more of a hack and slash or shoot 'em up kind of gamer, then this one's not right for you. If you liked the Civilization games, or if you're interested in trying an epic strategy game for the first time, Alpha Centauri will not let you down. Of course, if you don't want to spend hours at a time sitting in front of a computer screen, or if you have scruples with becoming addicted to something, you just might want to steer clear of this game. It's that good.
Rating: 
Summary: Okay
Review: Alphacent is an okay game that answers the question of what happened to the colony ship sent to alpha centuari in the civ series. The back story is well done, 7 different fations from the ship with differing political views decide to seperate upon arrival at the planet, and start their own civilisations.
The game is similar to the civ games, but if offers numerous improvements upon civ2. The controls are far more streamlined, and the computer interacts with you far more than in previous civ games. If you want, you can automate every unit and just manage city production, or vice versa, which saves times for those players with little.
The entire story and details of the game are a little weird to get your head around, this game starts off from a very high technology level, so naturally higher levels are hard to understand.
One thing I had a problem with in the game was that one of the political factions was a religious fundamnetalist group called 'The Believers', who's religion was christianity. So if you went to war with them, you were effectively fighting christianity, by destroying cities with names like 'The Hand of God' and 'New Eden'. As a christian, I had a problem with this, and it was one of the reasons I only gave this game 3 stars. It was my understanding that game designers tended to steer away from involving christianity heavily in their work, particularly in opposing it, simply out of respect for the religion. ...
Overall though, the game isn't too bad, but its simply too complex and full on for a newcomer to the civ universe to understand. Only for the die hard civ fanatics, if you're a casual strategy player, leave this one be.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best games ever
Review: Although SMAC isn't for those with short attention spans, it is a spectacular game. There are 7 different factions, so well balanced that any of them can win by exploiting their respective advantages. Furthermore, you need not win through conquest. There are 5 different ways to win. This game is a truly brilliant turn based strategy game. Every fan of strategy games should own this.
Rating:
Summary: Good, but hard on the newbies
Review: First of all, this game has a incredibly high learing curve. First couple (6) times i played, i was like "how do i do this?" But with enough practice the game makes sense.
The graphics are good, but the turn basesness will be hard for the people with lack of patience. (ya know moving 40 skybase formers to do exaclty what i want takes ALOT of time)
The randomness of the game, along with the Computer AI makes for DAYS(i mean days, you can spend days on a single game) of fun.
THe best part of the game is the Cut scenes. They are espically good and entertaining along with advancing the story of the game.
For you cruel people out there, this is the game for you. You can ally with a faction, only to rob it of money and technology. You can ally with them, only to stratigically place your forces for a full scale assalt on you're ally's bases.
And for you peaceloving people, this is also the game for you. You can be nice to everyone and reap the benefits of peace.
The game also comes with senarios and premade maps. This is defintely a good buy.
Rating: 
Summary: Sequels....Never Quite As Good...
Review: Having been an avid player of both CIVILIZATION I & II, I was very excited about the prospect of this game. Hasn't everyone who finally achieved victory in the space race in Sid Meier's immortal Civ series wondered what happened when the space ship finally reached Alpha Centauri? This game picks up where the last one left off and shows a world where your colonist forces have factionalized upon reaching alien shores. The faction motives are all quite compelling and realistic and the inclusion of aliens is a nice addition. The game play is very reminiscent of its predecessors, albeit with high tech impetus that only grows more sophisticated. It, like its predecessors is a highly customizable scenario which makes it very replayable. So. Why only a 4 star rating instead of the 5 that I rated CIVILIZATION? Well, it lacks a lot of the charm of the Civ series with its lack of Earth-bound nations and leaders. One of the things that was compelling about Civ was its possibilities of the Roman Empire co-existing with the modern United States, and similar situations. Another problem is the very speculative technology race. In Civ, the tech advances were easy to understand and relate to, given that they were all actual discoveries through the course of time. Maybe this bias is a betrayal of my roots as a history buff, but it was a distraction for me. This is a very well done game with a lot of possible strategization. Whether or not you would enjoy it as much as its legendary forebear is really a question of what draws your interest to a game. If you are a sci-fi junkie, this might be right up your alley as long as you keep in mind that it is a strategy game.
Rating:
Summary: The rumors are true
Review: I had heard from a number of people beforehand that SMAC was better than Civilization. I now believe that. What is better is difficult to sum up, but the easiest thing to put a finger on is the variety of improvements that can be made to cities, terrain, and even troops. In Civ you had the occasional chance to update your troops to one standard breed of soldier. Now, along with the ability to create troops and vehicles from the ground up, a person can pick and choose what sort of force they want to create, down to even fairly small details. Another thing I feel is an improvement is the research system. What is researched is not a simple selection of a technology, the existance of which the player and his civ should not even know about to begin with. Instead, players select what sort of advance they want, such as military or construction technologies, and let things go from there. This helps to some degree keep things interesting, as there are no absolute garantees that you get what you wanted. The planetary UN-type convention is another interesting feature. This should probably have been included in Civ 3, as well, as it gives a very good way to see how an individual is fairing in international relations, and also opens a door to new diplomatic ties not possible with simple one-on-one talks. Many enjoy the story line given in the game, but this is something the game did not absolutely need. That is, through the discovery of technologies and information about the world, the story could have unfolded on its own. Instead, a person is yanked from play in order to read a story line supposedly centered on the player's character. If they were going to go this far, it would have been nice to have more personalized stories and endings for each player, rather than having in the end everyone with the same fate in store. All in all, I can find no real problems with the game. It went beyond my expectations, and made it just that more difficult for me to be impressed by even Sid Meyer's other work.
Rating:
Summary: I don't think this is as good as some others say
Review: I played all the other Civ like games and this is the type of game I like, but I just didn't get Alpha Centauri. I played this one enought to get good, but the whole feel was just too much like Civ II and I seemed to get into Civ II like end games too easily.
Having now played CivIII for six months I given it a 5 start rating I don't understand my own review, but that was the feel I had.
I guess if you can get it for $10 now then it should be worth a try.
Maybe I'll try this again another day.
Rating:
Summary: Civ 2 -1/2
Review: I will begin by saying what should be perfectly obvious to anyone who's played this game or any other game by Sid Meier. The man is brilliant. And so we have Alpha Centauri, which essentially tells the story of what happened to the colony on the aforementioned planet that you send your spaceship to at the conclusion of Civilization II. Many previous posters here have mentioned that it's a long game, and so I will reiterate and say it's a very, very long game. Unless you're sitting in a lazyboy or have magnificently huge glutial muscles for cushioning, this game will require a whole heap of your time. This is *not* a bad thing though, and more games should take a cue from that...the experience should last. The controls and basic setup are upgraded Civ2, which more than one poster has said. In fact if I didn't know better I'd say I *was* playing Civ2...except for one gripe. The Tech Tree is astoundingly steep. My brother (who's a biologist, physicist and general science junkie rolled into one) has played along side of me, and he can barely understand the concepts that some science advances bring you. Before I'm lambasted for this, let me defend myself by saying that in Civ2, when you researched and discovered the Wheel, or Writing, you knew what it was and basically what advances it could give you. But how the heck am I supposed to know what some of these are without a PhD? Still, that's just one gripe, and the gameplay itself is very balanced between the 7 factions you can play as, and the AI does do a decent job of portraying the other factions as thier behavior MO's suggest. The game is very addictive, but I found myself able to pull away from it at night, which I was and still am not able to do with it's predecessor (Civ2). Bottom line, I still play it on occasion, and while it's a great game (it's a Sid Meier at it's heart which makes it fantastic all by itself!), it still won't replace Civ2 for me. My money's on Civ 3. :)
Rating:
Summary: A Good Buy
Review: I would give this game 5 stars except there is an annoying bug where when you try to move some of your units by dragging the mouse to the destination, and in the middle of this the status display changes, then the unit won't move and you have to start over. Since the status display is always changing this happens quite a bit. I can't really add much to the reviews that have already been posted but if you like sci-fi and civilization type games or want to try something different you could hardly go wrong with this game. The game isn't for those who want to finish something in one sitting. But when you finally finish a game it is very satisfying, even moreso if you have decided to transcend. At times the AI can be particularly challenging, while at other times it can be ridiculously easy to conquer. This is particularly true when you can get a base close to their territory and launch air attacks. The diplomacy the game offers is pretty well rounded, but not totally satisfying. I haven't had the chance of playing with other people but that is also an option.
Rating: 
Summary: Proof that Sid Meier is a mortal
Review: I've played and liked (and usually loved) every Sid Meier game.
This one is not on the same page as CIV, etc. poor graphics
poor balance
absolutely horrid game play
This is one annoying stinker.
This is one of the rare games that makes me wish that I could return software.
| 
