Rating: 
Summary: Every thing Civ II was, and more!
Review: This is one of the best games Sid Meier has ever made. This game is very much like Civ II, but even better. It's so addictive that you should be prepared to spend hours and hours on playing this game. If you like Civ I and Civ II, and the other Sid Meier game, this is a must buy!
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant
Review: Quite simply the finest strategy game ever. Taking the concepts behind Civilization II to a new level, Brian Reynolds and Sid Meier have combined to create a brilliant science fiction turn-based strategy game. I've been playing computer games since the days of M.U.L.E., and I have never seen such a perfect blend. If you have *any* interest in turn-based strategy and don't abhor science fiction, SMAC is going to be great--at least it has been for me.
Rating: 
Summary: "Okay" sci-fi sim from Sid meier
Review: Alpha Centauri fails at providing this game player with any kind of new excitement from Sid Meier. One can appreciate breaking away from the Civ 1/2 games, however the paradigm factions the game is based upon are just plain atypical and boring. In effect, military versus humanists, microsoft versus professors, etc... kinda like the UN playing "Lost in Space." Previous Sid Meier games were more tangible, the sci-fi in this was kinda corny. I've spent many a sleepless night playing the previous Meier games, but this one just seemed "okay," not spectacular.
Rating:
Summary: An incredible game
Review: While perhaps not the greatest game ever made, it certainly challenges classic Civ II as the best TBS game. A worthy successor to an engaging
Rating: 
Summary: It gets better the more you play it
Review: My first few games of Alpha Centauri did not overly impress me. The gameplay was slow on my computer, the tech tree wasn't as interesting as Civilization and the ecological storyline wasn't compelling to me. The game was good enough to keep at, though, and now that I have a faster machine the game is much better paced. Once you pick up the tech tree the game makes far more sense. Letting the governor run your cities is anathema to many players but I experimented and have found the AI to be fairly solid and you can let the AI governor run your cities and you can just keep an eye on them while concentrating on achieving your goals be they militaristic, technological or economical. I do like the various ways victory can be achieved. It adds variety and winning economically provides a challenging diversion after playing a "conquer-the-world" type of game.
Rating:
Summary: Don't believe the hype.
Review: Certainly, this game is by one of the best teams in the 4-X business, and it does have some wonderful innovations. HOWEVER, it is crippled by the decision to include Planet as a non-removable, non-controllable player. Even playing the greenest game possible, I find myself reaching a point near the endgame, where rather than savoring my impending victory and polishing my civ to near-perfection I am forced to a hurried ending. Why? 'Cause Planet doesn't like me, and 30-unit stacks of Mindworms start turning my cities to goo. Yay. How fun. This is the very definition of an addictive, stunning game that's crippled by poor implementation of (what could be) a clever idea - the idea of a semi-sentient ecology, capable of protecting itself. Too bad that ecology is "magic" and has unlimited units to crush whatever offending city it wishes, never mind that, compared to you, every other faction is an eco-hitler. Save your money, buy Civ2.
Rating:
Summary: Is excellent
Review: The game is very good. Very good pictures, sound. Is the most game in the world. I'm very good playing this game.
Rating:
Summary: Best game by best game designer ever!!!
Review: Alpha Centauri, is quite simply, the best computer game ever made. It's intricate, and challenging. It can be played in an infinite variety of circumstances against the computer or your friends. Buy it!!!
Rating: 
Summary: Is it really much better than Civilzation II?
Review: If you strip away the superior graphics, this game seems so similar to Sid Meier's classic Civilization II that I don't belive anyone looking to experience a great game necessarily needs to "upgrade."Alpha Centauri does offer better multiplayer capabilities and an more ingenious expansion pack (which includes new human and alien factions) than current editions of Civ II, but there are things I miss from Civ II's gameplay. I feel strongly that the technologies you develop in AC are so absract that most players will have no real idea what they are devloping--instead you accept the tecnologies and continue with the game--and while the option to "build" weapons based on learned technologies is nice, gameplay seems dense enough without it. The menu system is especially intrusive, permanently taking up a third of the screen. In AC's defense, it is still one of the most enjoyable games you can buy--though not as immediately playable as its predecessor--and is perfect for fans of SimCity style micro-management. But if you're looking for a fine gaming experience and don't need state of the art visuals, is this game really the better deal?
Rating:
Summary: The game that wouldn't die! (and that's a good thing)
Review: Released in the late 1990's, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, now resting only inches away from the abandonware bin, cannot even hope to compete with newer strategy games in terms of graphics, though the ingenious and well-thought out storyline, which is told through futuristic "historical accounts" and quotes coupled with the ever-present pop-up notifications of newly researched or, in some cases, stolen technologies, still has something to offer for the "modern" gamer.
An intensely cerebral, and strangely addictive title, Alpha Centauri casts you as the leader of your choice of one of eight separate factions, all with their own unique abilities and all desperately trying to lay claim to the newfound planet of Alpha Centauri. Play starts simply, a single base, (your headquarters, which, as with all your future bases in Alpha Centauri, supports a custom name,) a single scouting unit, supplied to protect your HQ from falling victim to Alpha Centauri's vicious native life forms, the Mindworms, and a single technological upgrade that differs between factions. From there, game play elevates to steadily higher levels of strategy, from signing and breaking treaties or truces, to forming Pacts of Brotherhood (or Sisterhood) with other faction members, you soon find yourself wrapped up in the storyline. Technological breakthroughs lead to better units and a steadily more refined means of pulling minerals, nutrients, and energy resources out of Alpha Centauri's surface or even from space itself. Learn to guide your researchers, change your social structure, or even complete secret projects before your rivals to provide yourself with the ability to build superior units and influence, manipulate, or even conquer your fellow faction leaders.
But the gameplay goes deeper than just second-guessing the easy-to-predict, if not primitive A.I. of the game; in Alpha Centauri, one must learn not only to tame his/her rivals, friends, and Pact Brothers, but also the planet itself. A primitive neural network held together by the rampantly growing clusters of Xenofungus, Voice, as it is called, contacts you in event-triggered interludes, growing steadily more wary (and dangerous) as it studies the human race and it's seemingly inherent need to destroy the ecosystem of planets they colonize. As time passes in the game, Alpha Centauri's natural defenses are steadily increased, the Mindworms, evolve into both aquatic and airborne monsters, allowing "Planet" to hit you (and the other factions) with a three-pronged attack of increasingly more numerous (and deadly) specimens.
In the spirit of Human tenacity and the need to tame this new planet, terraforming has also been built into the game, allowing you to build steadily better terrain modifications that can cut down the movement costs of your units, feed your bases, provide cover for your troops, or even pull water from an otherwise ungenerous sky.
Alpha Centauri is by no means a graphically superior game; rather the opposite, actually. The maps, units, even buildings give a rough illusion of three dimensionality, but in truth, the entire game, much like other, older strategy titles, such as "StarCraft," is composed of the harsh, two dimensional graphics we have come to expect from classic games. That's not to say that Alpha Centauri's two dimensional graphics are not good. It's art is very well done, and it's smoothness carries a sort of dignity and artistic quality that is lacking in the polygon-rich environs of today's strategy games.
A lot of Alpha Centauri's sounds are stock- that is to say, common, cheap, and obvious. The sound used for weapons fire is the same sound I've heard countless times in several dozen other applications, such as car commercials, and low-budget films. But it does have an extensive library of ambient beats, simple little files that play in the background, giving the game an eerie, alien feel that changes as the gameplay progresses, picking up during "high stress situations," and slowing during calm sessions of planning, plotting, and research.
Featuring multiplayer and map-creation functions, Alpha Centauri's capabilites don't end at the singleplayer level. Play online with your friends, (that is, if you know anyone who still plays this game,) or make new maps to be tamed, not just by your faction, but by the seven other computer controlled factions as well.
All things considered, Alpha Centauri's gameplay and storyline more than make up for it's inferiorities in graphics and A.I. I definitely recommend this title, that is, if you're willing to spend time fully immersed in an ocean of hard-core strategy that has the wonderful capacity to be utterly different everytime it is played; if not, it's still worth a try, who knows, maybe you'll end up enjoying it as much as I do.
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