Alpha Centauri

Rating:
Summary: Almost Perfect
Review: I wish there was a -1 to rate it. This game is the worst game I have ever played in my life! You may think it's not all that bad, but once you actually get into this game, and have lots of units to control, it becomes very boring, and time consuming. You have to watch Every Single unit on the entire screen move its little squares. I have got to give them credit for making the game, but they needed to spend just a little more time on it! To tell you the truth, I wouldn't have even wanted this game if I got it for free based on my experiance.

Rating:
Summary: One of the worst games yet!
Review: I wish there was a -1 to rate it. This game is the worst game I have ever played in my life! You may think it's not all that bad, but once you actually get into this game, and have lots of units to control, it becomes very boring, and time consuming. You have to watch Every Single unit on the entire screen move its little squares. I have got to give them credit for making the game, but they needed to spend just a little more time on it! To tell you the truth, I wouldn't have even wanted this game if I got it for free based on my experiance.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant
Review: I write this review well over a year after the game came out simply because I have to reiterate to those that may not have the game how great it actually is. I say this, because even after a year, I am still playing Alpha Centauri. There are not very many games that interest me 3 months after I beat them, much less a year. It is so satisfying on so many different levels that whenever I need a break from another game, I'll spend a couple days exploring Alpha Centauri again. There are several different ways to win. You can conquer the planet through military might, be elected Supreme Leader by the Planetary Council, Corner the Energy (the games currency) market, or the Ascent to Transendence, which is basically the most technologically advanced faction. Such parameters allow for varied styles. Want to beat your neighbor senseless? OK. Are you sneaky and want to forment revolts? You can do that to. Or you can buy off votes in the planetary council with cash or technologies. But it is many of the small things that make this game shine. Alliances actually work - your friends will help you when you need it, cut you off if you stab them in the back, and grow suspicious if you become to powerful. You can give away cities to reward a faithful vassal or pacify an enemy. If you commit atrocities against an enemy they will fight you to the last man. However, if you are a noble enemy, they will submit to your will and become your vassals. Such small details are glorious in the otherwise "kill 'em all" world of computer gaming. My few complaint with the games are niggling. On the higher difficulty levels it seems you are battling with a hostile planet rather than smarter enemies - which seems a copout for what is otherwise a robust AI. Also, the end game can really drag. If you have conquered two or three other factions and have a ton of cities to manage, a turn can take up to half an hour to manage everything. These small things aside, Alpha Centauri is brilliant game design at work. After a year I only wish other game designers had taken a look at some of the options the Firaxis team offered.

Rating:
Summary: STILL GOING
Review: I've had the pleasure of owning this game for over a year now and I still love to play it. After all this time I've never repeated a victory, meaning I've never had the same end result. The graphics are great and the speed is wonderful. There are so many diffrent options for you to choose from that it would be counter-productive to list them all here. I've recommended this game to everyone that has asked me about strategy games. So now I'm recommending this game to you. If you like turn based games and like playability then this is the game for you. You can't beat this price either, I paid alot more for it!!

Rating:
Summary: I'd give it negative stars if I could.
Review: I've played every game by Sid Myers and I've loved them all. I've spent years of my life playing Civilization and its sequals, so I was very excited when SMAC was announced and I promptly bought it.

This game - despite all hype to the contrary - is one of the worst ever made. Technically, the diplomacy model is as bad a anything in Civ, the graphics are extremely poor, and the planet will rise up against you no matter how green and harmonious your faction is. The plot is something right out of a hippie's drug-enduced dreams of eutopia and does its best to be a far-left political statement no matter how you try to play it, even to the point of hamstringing factions that don't agree with extremeist athiest and environmental views.

I gave it a fair shake regardless, and beat it with most factions, but the plot structures that it forces on you limit replayability and the game is just an eyesore. Skip the game and hope that Civ 3 won't follow the same disastrous path.

Rating:
Summary: The brightest star in the strategy game constellation
Review: If you like strategy games you've probably played Civilization II. Not doing so would be the same as saying you like desserts but have never tasted apple pie. Alpha Centauri is a rare treat for your strategy gaming taste buds. This game takes up where Civilization II left off - humanity departing Earth, heading for the star Alpha Centauri and it's planetary system to start afresh. We begin in typical human fashion - divided - the colonists have split into 7 factions, each seeking to develop their new home in their own fashion.

Gameplay is similar to Civilization II. As head of one of the factions you start with a single city, the first objective being exploration of the surrounding darkness and establishing your civilization. Quickly you encounter others and are faced with decisions. The game demands that you strike the right strategic balance between the imperatives of exploration, research, building and conquest. How will you seek to win? Through economic victory, military conquest or achieving transcendence? The ability to achieve different victories underlies one of the strengths of the game. Each faction has well developed philosophies and ideologies and their approach to life on Planet is influenced by these biases and it affects gameplay. For instance the Morganites emphasize economic development, the University faction pursues research, Gaians have an environmentally friendly approach to living on the planet and the UN group seeks peace and harmony. Beliefs affect behaviour and interaction between factions is excellently managed through a sophisticated diplomacy framework. Dealing with the Lord's believers and the militaristic Spartans is an exercise in patience and a lesson in managing aggression.

Another very sophisticated element is the ability to engage in social engineering which allows you to subtley shift your civilizations philosophy. Other strengths are the design workshop which allows for customization of units and the 'Governor' which can be fully automated to carry out city life according to the assigned imperatives (build, explore, research or military).

If the coming 'Empire Earth' lives up to it's promise, this game may be topped, but until then Alpha Centauri continues to shine as the brightest star in the strategy game genre.

Rating:
Summary: Even More Addicting than Civilization II
Review: If you've ever read the Red/Green/Blue Mars trilogy, much of this game will seem vaguely familiar--it borrows heavily from the concepts of terraforming Kim Stanley Robinson used.

The first expedition to another starsystem has malfunctioned. Seven different factions touch down on the surface of the Alpha Centauri system's primary planet. You lead one of them. Equipped with only a colony pod and a few basic technologies, you build bases and terraform the planet.

Although the strategic concepts are similar to Civilization II, several enhancements make this a much more interesting game. The planet itself can be your ally or your enemy. Each faction has a distinct personality & set of advantages. By playing a different faction, you can shift the strategic demands of game play. You can also queue production at each base. This means you don't have to perpetually return to bases to set production. You can automate formers to improve a base or build roads/mag tubes.

This is a turn-based game. If you have to walk away to take a phone call, play will stop until you return. The Alien Crossfire upgrade to the game adds a number of new technologies, new factions, and yet more strategies for play.

If you like the strategic illusion of building and running an empire, you'll have fun with this game. Whether you'd like to develop peaceably or conquer your opponents, this is the game for you. With so many possible combinations of play, the number of approaches to the game are virtually limitless.

(If you enjoyed this review, please leave positive feedback. You can read my other Amazon reviews by clicking on the "about me" link. Thanks!)

Rating:
Summary: Mind Altering
Review: In my opinion, Alpha Centauri is the best game ever made. Of course if you've never played a Sid Meir game before it'll take you a while to learn the controls, but it's well worth the effort. A very entertaining game, that has changed or made new life philosophies for me, with all the concepts it introduces and investigates.

Rating:
Summary: Great game at this price
Review: It took me a long, long time to really get into this game, but once I did, I really came to appreciate its complexity and playability. Like Civilization and other turn-based games, you develop a civilization from a single initial city with little military power, wealth, or technology into a large, planet-spanning, technologically advanced society. You compete with other growing civilizations (called "factions" in this game) for resources, land, and influence, and you can further your goals by military power, stealth, diplomacy, or a combination of these. Terraforming a hostile planet is also a very important part of the game.

Each game can play out very differently depending on the military and diplomatic choices that you make. You can also adjust many aspects of your society, such as your political and economic structures, values, and ideals, all of which have concrete effects on the game (making it easier or harder to learn new technologies, for example, or to produce highly trained military units). Also, one thing that is nice is that you have a lot of control over many automated features. If you want to manage every aspect of your city production or terraformer behavior, you can; or you can turn it all over to automated governors and forget about it.

Anyone who is familiar with turn-based strategy games will probably want to pick this up at this price. It does lack the historical connection that can make Civ 2 so addictive but is still a complex and interesting game (and it takes some time to figure out how everything works). Also, there are several different ways to win, so it's not necessary to go through the tedious process of capturing every single enemy city to win the game. If you have not played turn based games before, though, I'd recommend starting with CIV 2 and picking up the "scenarios" expansion pack.

Rating:
Summary: Good for a few days, but predictible to the core.
Review: The factional ideologies are simply either irelivant at easier levels or all important at the most difficult level. Unlike Civilization there is no historical reality to measure the power of this simulation, however the social engineering martix is a good add. Once you go through the different posibilities of victory at transcendi level it is just tedious button pushing and you might as well be playing Civ2 with a mod pack.