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The Laptop Collection

The Laptop Collection

List Price: $19.99
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Buy this for Alpha Centauri/AlienCrossfire and you win!
Review: Hello. I would just like to say that Alpha Centauri and Alien Crossfire are far from perfect. They are, however two of the best games I have played since 1999. It is nearly 2004 and I am still playing both games religiously. If you look around the web or put some effort into it, it is not that hard to put together a large scale play by e-mail game. While single player is great, a long-term multiplayer game is downright awesome.

The custom units feature actually is used in multiplayer games, as your opponents are just as crafty, if not more so, than yourself. The game really shines when you play it with other people. It does suffer from "balance" issues though. It is just a matter of working around them. Don't expect a "Blizzard level of polish" but pure raw gaming fun. If you like empire building games this is the Granddaddy that isn't going to be replaced until they come out with SMAC 2. Trust me, it is regarded as one of the best turn based games to date for a reason. Civilization 3 hasn't topped it yet (even with all its expansions), but that is open to opinion. This pack is worth it for these two games alone.

I've heard decent things about the other games as well. Don't pass this up if you're already interested.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: It works with Windows XP perfectly like advertise
Review: I bought this for the same reason everybody else did AC & ACXF & it's the greatest game ever & unlike those of pretend it doesnt work in Win XP, It does for real.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Not for XP or Modern Computers.....
Review: I bought this specifically for Sid Meier's Alien Crossfire, because I already had Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. Alie Crossfire is an exapnsion. I last saw it for sale on the net for about $100. The product listing claims that the games play using Windows XP. That simply is not true. Alien Crossfire does not work in XP. I even went out and got an Alien Crossfire patch, but that didn't make it run in XP either. So, I was greatli disappointed. I had played SimCity 3000 before and liked it a lot, so if you don't have SimCity 4 (which is at least twice the cost of this gamepack), it may be worth the cost of the pack for this one game. It is a great improvement over SimCity 2000. I have never tried SimCity 4 to know whether it is worth twice the price of SimCity 3000. I tried Tiger Woods, without reading any docs, but I have played other golf games without docs and enjoyed them. I did not enjoy Tiger Woods and I thought theings like gameplay and graphics were not even up to the standards of five years ago, when it came out. I never tried Red Alert 2 yet. I think any place that advertises XP play and sell this should refund the money unless they can get all these games to run in XP. I couldn't. I feel ripped off.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Alpha Centauri runs ok on Windows XP
Review: I installed Alpha Centauri on my Windows XP laptop. And it runs without a hitch. The catch is to click "no" when you are asked to install DirectX 6. I had previously installed Direct X 9 on my laptop and i did not have any problems running the game.

I expect that Alien Crossfire behaves the same.

I do not know about the other games, but if they are using Direct X, just refusing to install the obsolete version which comes with the distribution and having the latest ones installed on your computer should do the trick. This is why Direct X was created, to make the game porting to a different OS painless.

About the games themselves - I love the small space occupied on the harddrive and how fast they are on a decent laptop. A much better gaming experience than the Civilization III, for example, where I wait for ever for the next turn.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Alpha Centauri runs ok on Windows XP
Review: I installed Alpha Centauri on my Windows XP laptop. And it runs without a hitch. The catch is to click "no" when you are asked to install DirectX 6. I had previously installed Direct X 9 on my laptop and i did not have any problems running the game.

I expect that Alien Crossfire behaves the same.

I do not know about the other games, but if they are using Direct X, just refusing to install the obsolete version which comes with the distribution and having the latest ones installed on your computer should do the trick. This is why Direct X was created, to make the game porting to a different OS painless.

About the games themselves - I love the small space occupied on the harddrive and how fast they are on a decent laptop. A much better gaming experience than the Civilization III, for example, where I wait for ever for the next turn.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Not for Win XP!
Review: Mislabelled advertisement here. I recently ordered this collection thinking the included games had been updated for windows xp, as indicated in the item description and implied by the title. However, the games themselves were simply the same old windows 95/98 games repackaged. So...although the games themselves are indeed classics, the system info as described here is incorrect and the games will not work on your xp laptop. Win 95/98 only!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Three classics in one box
Review: The only con of this set is that I don't care about golf at all. Otherwise, it's all great. If I had to make a shortlist of the ten best games I've seen, Red Alert 2, Sim City 3000 and Alpha Centauri would certainly be among them. And they're all here! For this price! Of course these titles do not fit the high graphical standards of the latest competitors in their respective genres, but it is far more important to note how good the games are aside of their visual side.

Alpha Centauri contains the familiar Civilization story in a great SF setting, and I rate this game above the more recent Civilization 3 in some respects (the wonder movies, the diplomacy, the resources). It's certainly the best game in the package and I can't recommend it enough. You get the add-on Alien Crossfire at the same time.

I don't recall how often I've played the real-time strategy game Red Alert 2 online, but it was quite often! In terms of gameplay, RA2 is outweighed by the classic Starcraft, but the game is easier to play and also funnier in some ways. But you haven't seen this game in its entirety until you know the terrific and crazy add-on Yuri's Revenge, which is not included here. So try to find that add-on too.

Sim City is just as addicting as the above two. Here the focus is on building a successful city. This isn't easy for beginners, and you'll have to go bankrupt a lot of times before a really successful city arises. A good idea is to make debts and sign a lot of contracts that give you money, regardless if there are side effects. Once you have a stabilized city, you can tear the contracts anyway. Those who don't have patience can use cheats or start with pre-made cities, although that takes away some of the fun.

The three games above (and forget the golf stuff) are all classics and deserve to be played by anyone interested in the genres. Highly recommended.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Golf? Who cares about golf?
Review: This is a pack worth buying if you don't have Windows XP installed. WARNING! As far as I have been able to determine on my home systems, this will NOT install correctly on a computer running Windows XP.

I've reviewed Sid Meier's "Alpha Centauri" and the "Alien Crossfire" expansion pack before. But let me just say that this collection is worth far more than the price of admission just for the "Alpha Centauri/Alien Crossfire" duo.

Then this pack goes and adds two other greats - "Red Alert II" and "Sim City 3000".

However, for golf fans, let me say that I've heard that the Tiger Woods disc is one of the better games for golf enthusiasts, although I've never installed this game, nor played it.

The playability of these four games is immense. "Red Alert II" is a worthy successor to the Red Alert collection of games. Anyone who likes infantry style games will enjoy "Red Alert II" and its theme of the Soviets trying to invade America. "Sim City 3000" was one of the best "tycoon" type games on the market, allowing you to design and build your own city and watch to see if people come. So many scenarios are on this one disc that it will keep you occupied for hours. Finally, a word about "Alpha Centauri" - if you like "Civilization" type games, you'll love Alpha Centauri. And the inclusion of Alien Crossfire makes this an even better game and adds many great features.

This pack would have merited five stars had they eliminated the selection of "Tiger Wood's Golf" and included the "Yuri's Revenge" supplement for Red Alert II.

Golf? Who needs Golf with games like Alpha Centauri (=with= the formerly highly collectible and rare "Alien Crossfire" expansion!) "Red Alert II" and "Sim City 3000".

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Golf? Who cares about golf?
Review: This is a pack worth buying if you don't have Windows XP installed. WARNING! As far as I have been able to determine on my home systems, this will NOT install correctly on a computer running Windows XP.

I've reviewed Sid Meier's "Alpha Centauri" and the "Alien Crossfire" expansion pack before. But let me just say that this collection is worth far more than the price of admission just for the "Alpha Centauri/Alien Crossfire" duo.

Then this pack goes and adds two other greats - "Red Alert II" and "Sim City 3000".

However, for golf fans, let me say that I've heard that the Tiger Woods disc is one of the better games for golf enthusiasts, although I've never installed this game, nor played it.

The playability of these four games is immense. "Red Alert II" is a worthy successor to the Red Alert collection of games. Anyone who likes infantry style games will enjoy "Red Alert II" and its theme of the Soviets trying to invade America. "Sim City 3000" was one of the best "tycoon" type games on the market, allowing you to design and build your own city and watch to see if people come. So many scenarios are on this one disc that it will keep you occupied for hours. Finally, a word about "Alpha Centauri" - if you like "Civilization" type games, you'll love Alpha Centauri. And the inclusion of Alien Crossfire makes this an even better game and adds many great features.

This pack would have merited five stars had they eliminated the selection of "Tiger Wood's Golf" and included the "Yuri's Revenge" supplement for Red Alert II.

Golf? Who needs Golf with games like Alpha Centauri (=with= the formerly highly collectible and rare "Alien Crossfire" expansion!) "Red Alert II" and "Sim City 3000".

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The best PC game ever!!! and a few others
Review: This is an excellent bargain. Alpha Centauri and Alien Corssfire is the best gaming experience that you can have on the PC. I've never enjoyed a more addictive and compelling game. Red Alert 2 is a great game as well. The real-time strategy genre isn't my favorite, but I enjoyed Red Alert 2. Its over the top units and story kept my interest. The other 2 games are just icing on the already delicious cake. You can't do better for 20 bucks....
And the Alpha centauri games do work fine under Windows XP. Not only can you run the games in compatibility mode, but a patch has been released that allow the games to run native to XP. Get the patch at Firaxis.com.


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