Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri

Rating:
Summary: To the end of time, i will play this game
Review: This is one of my favorite games in the world, i am in my 20s and still play this game. it is so time consuming and fun that i go to sleep thinking of it after playing for hours. Sid Meier is a genius. i have a ps2 and play that as well but Alpha Centauri and Civilization are still the most fun.

Rating:
Summary: Completely Awesome
Review: My opinion of this game is basically this: wow.

I am confident in saying this is my favorite game of all time. When I started playing this game, I thought it was a war game and only thought of it as that. Even though I was TERRIBLY wrong, you can still treat Alpha Centauri simply as a war game and be 100% satisfied with it. However, it's so, so, so much more. I've been playing it for over a year now, and I'm still learning new features and aspects of the game that I never noticed. I like how if you are a beginner, you can set base production to "governor" and that will direct production according to your current priorities if you don't really know what you're doing yet. Also, there are multiple ways of achieving victory, not just conquest like most games. These include: conquest (conquer everyone), diplomatic (get elected supreme leader), cooperative (destroy enemies and share victory with allies), economic (monopolize the planet's economy) and transcendence (begin the next stage of human evolution). There may be one or two I forgot about, but as you can see it's more than simply a war game. However, like in reality, you will need to maintain a military to defend yourself against more aggressive factions.

I love how the game lets you customize certain things. Your government isn't limited to despotism, monarchy, democracy, etc... You get to choose how your government works on many different levels, such as values, economics, etc... Also, you get to design your own units. Want a swarm of fighters to intercept enemy aircraft without a huge support cost? You got it. Want a few units equipped with nerve gas that you can paradrop into your enemies terrirory just in case things get desperate? You got that too. There are so many combinations you can create, it gives the game more depth than most.

I suppose the biggest negative factors are 1)it's complexity and 2)it's similarity to the Civilation series. However, these are minor as 1)there are ways of simplifying gameplay and once you understand it's complexity, you only get that much more out of the game and 2)even though it is similar to Civilization, there are also many differences and I think this game is far superior to any of the civilization games.

I could go on and on about the game, but I highly recommend you at least download the demo and give it a chance. I am comfortable saying if you give it a fair chance to win you over, your time will not be a waste.

Rating:
Summary: Good space simulator
Review: This is a good space simulator. It allows you to control many different aspects of your people, including socio/economic model, resources, transportation, security, etc. It also allows you to design your own units based on what technologies you have researched. It is also a good macroscopic military strategy game. It is turn-based, so if you play only RTS don't play this. If you don't mind turn-based games, though, and you like space-based strategy games, you should play this. The graphics are second-rate, but that is just because it is old.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent stopping point between Civ 2 & 3
Review: This game is just unique and quirky enough to get the coveted five stars. The whole idea (story) is a perfect lead-in for the game itself. And it does employ a few aspects found in Civ III - the automatic growth of cities, the fighting that is not quite to the death, the addition of new Wonders... Great game and lots of fun.