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 | Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri |
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Product Description
Legendary designer Sid Meier presents the next evolution in strategy games, with the addictive gameplay. Explore the alien planet that is your new home and uncover its myriad mysteries. Discover over 75 extraordinary technologies. Build over 60 base upgrades and large scale secret projects for your empire. Conquer your enemies with a war machine that you design from over 32,000 possible unit types. Included with Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri is Alien Crossfire Expansion Pack. It adds seven new playable factions, new technologies, new secret projects, new base facilities, new weapons, armor, special abilities and an expanded storyline.Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #7263 in Video Games
- Brand: Electronic Arts
- Model: 10509
- Published on: 1998
- Released on: 1999-02-09
- ESRB Rating: Everyone
- Platforms: Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows 95
- Format: CD-ROM
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Review
Fans of earlier Sid Meier games, such as Civilization
and Railroad Tycoon, will love Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri,
the strategy game where players lead a colony expedition on a new
planet. This game employs the same rules and concepts as Civilization,
but with a new, slicker interface. Within the game, you can now
automate tasks that--in the earlier game--were repetitive and dull. The
factions also have a better mix of leaders; three of the seven factions
are headed by women.
Players begin by assuming leadership of one
of seven colony factions, establishing a base on the unexplored world. A
balance of priorities is critical: conquering territory, developing
technology, and expanding the faction's population are all crucial
factors in your survival. If a faction's military output is low, it may
be vulnerable to attacks by others or by dangerous mind worms that roam
the landscape. On the other hand, building war machines at the expense
of scientific research may result in trying to manage a massive but
obsolete war machine or a rebellious population.
This
easy-to-learn and thoroughly absorbing game takes the best features of
the original classic and sets them in an exciting new world. --Alyx
Dellamonica
Amazon.com Product
Description
Sid Meier presents the next evolution in strategy
games. Explore the alien planet that is your new home and uncover its
mysteries. Discover over 75 extraordinary technologies. Build over 60
base upgrades. Conquer your enemies with a war machine that you design
from over 32,000 possible unit types.
GameSpot
Review
Ever have one of those conversations about those magic
games you decided to boot up before dinner, just to get a look at it,
and the next thing you knew was 4 a.m. and you were still hungry?
Invariably, in such conversations, Sid Meier's Civilization is cited as
one of the worst offenders in creating "bleary-eyed next day at work,
but boy was it fun" syndrome. Well, be warned: Sid Meier's Alpha
Centauri is another one of those games that can make hours pass like
minutes, a game that makes you put a cooler full of sandwiches and sodas
next to your computer desk so you don't have to get up all weekend.
Created
by Brian Reynolds and Sid Meier, the team that brought us Civilization
II, Alpha Centauri is clearly the spiritual sequel to that game. Civ II
ends with you leaving behind the conflicts of Earth to make a new life
on Alpha Centauri. This game picks up with a colony ship reaching that
system, but it turns out that moving to the stars doesn't change
mankind's basic nature. Before the colony ship lands, the crew splits up
into seven factions with different priorities for the new world. Each
decides to land on its own and try to remake the planet in its own
philosophical image.
Thus, it turns out that life on the new
planet is going to be much like the life man knew on Earth - exploring
new territories, setting up colonies, and using diplomacy and war to
deal with the other societies. To this effect, gamers will find that
Alpha Centauri's gameplay looks and feels much like Civ II's. The map
perspective is similar, the command interface is virtually identical,
and there are nearly direct corollaries between some of the historical
and science fiction elements of each game. Sure, mindworms may take the
place of barbarians, and you may create Planetary Datalinks instead of
the Great Library, but gameplay will feel instantly familiar to any Civ
II player.
However, this is true in the same way that Starcraft
will feel familiar to any Warcraft II player. While Alpha Centauri
shamelessly borrows the elements that made its predecessor magic, the
game here is much richer, more sophisticated, and better tailored to
individual styles of playing than Civ II.
A big concern with
moving to a science fiction realm is accessibility. After all, even
those of us burdened with a typical American public school education are
familiar with the basics of historical civilizations and the progress
of technology throughout the centuries. But xenofungus, cyberethics, and
polymorphic encryption are new concepts to everyone. To keep from
overwhelming you or requiring you to memorize the manual beforehand,
Firaxis has created a well-done interactive tutorial which can walk you
through each interface window the first time it pops up, and warn you if
you're neglecting important game elements. In addition, there's a
well-done Datalink help system with detailed information on all the
game's controls, technologies, and units. The help system is thorough
enough that you may not even need to crack the game's 250-page manual.
You should, though, as it includes excellent background information, as
well as a number of handy charts.
Gameplay is the familiar
exploration/discovery/building/conquest model. You'll establish cities,
explore
the area around it, and build both military and research
infrastructures. As in Civ II, you can build farms and roads to make
your economy more useful and productive. Be aware, though, that this is
an alien planet, and the ecosystem may not react kindly to manipulation.
In fact, the planet is in many ways another player to compete with.
Handle it properly and it can be an ally, allowing you to tame the
dangerous mindworms that roam its surface and use them against your
human enemies.
Alpha Centauri takes automation to a new height,
with features that will be welcome to gamers who don't enjoy management
and to anyone who has dozens of units and cities in the latter stages of
a game. You can put governors in charge of cities, with a priority to
explore, discover, build, or conquer. The governor will then choose
which units and improvements to produce (of course, you can jump in at
any time and alter the production queue). Similarly, units can be put on
autopilot, allowing formers to automatically terraform, scouts to
explore on their own, and so on. Those who enjoy micromanagement can
leave everything in manual mode and manage every aspect of their
society.
The game features a very rich technology tree. While
almost all technologies are available to all players, the varying
strategies used by each faction helps keep everyone from having the
identical endgame forces. Particularly cool is the design workshop,
which lets you create custom vehicles using available armor, weapon,
power, and chassis combinations. The ability to upgrade units (at a
cost) keeps you from being saddled with outdated forces. Further, the
scenario and map editors, as well as modifiable "rule" text files, will
allow you to create a wide variety of custom scenarios.
Alpha
Centauri's most impressive aspect, though, is the faction AI. The seven
factions have very different priorities - economy, religion, peace,
environment, knowledge, survivalism, and authoritarianism. These
philosophies not only come through in each faction's play styles, but
also in how they react to what you do in the game. Warlike behavior
won't endear you to the UN, and the Believers aren't thrilled about high
technology. Commit atrocities such as nerve stapling to keep your
population orderly and nobody will like you. As in real life, though, if
you get powerful enough, everyone will want to be your friend.
Winning
the game can be done in a number of ways. Conquer all the other
factions (alone or with allies), win a diplomatic victory by being
elected supreme ruler, corner the global energy market to gain economic
victory, or go for the gusto and complete the Ascent to Transcendence
secret project. (From the description of this, though, it sounds
frighteningly like donning your Nikes and going off to ride a
comet.)There are few nits to pick with the game. Some minor bugs exist,
such as free armor on air vehicles, but many were fixed with the 2.0
patch and more will be zapped in 3.0. Diplomacy can be annoying at times
- you may wonder how Sister Miriam can suddenly break your alliance and
join with Colonel Santiago to attack you, when just 30 turns back
Santiago was eating into Miriam's territory. However, such inexplicable
choices do occasionally happen in real life, and overall diplomacy is
better handled here than in any prior strategy game.
Alpha
Centauri's multiplayer support is well done, with simultaneous movement
that keeps you from having to sit around while other players make their
moves. Particularly nice is built-in voice chat, very handy for gloating
to enemies when you take one of their cities. Of course, turn-based
strategy games require a fair time commitment, and getting players
together for multiplayer sessions can be difficult. Firaxis has a free
matchmaking service at www.alphahq.net. The first patch added
play-by-email support, so when a game runs long you can save it at the
end of a turn and continue it via email at your leisure, and then pick
it up again "live" later.
Although it may feel a lot like Civ II
on the surface, Alpha Centauri is a much more refined game. As has been
the case more often than not, Sid Meier's name in the title signifies
quality. With its top-notch diplomacy, civilization building, and
wargame elements, Alpha Centauri is the new pinnacle of turn-based
strategy games. --Denny Atkin
--Copyright ©1998 GameSpot
Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form
or medium without express written permission of GameSpot is prohibited.
Customer Reviews
Greatest Strategy Game Ever
For those who have freqented
the worlds of Sid Meier before, this purchase should come as second
nature: you will not be disappointed. Alpha improves all of the original
concepts of Civilization 2 and adds some of its own- such as borders,
social engineering and unit design. Territorial borders is a simple
improvement that is just plain wonderful. Social engineering takes some
getting used to- I was a sceptic -but after a few tries it is a
necessity and adds a new standard to the genere. The technologies also
will confuse those of us who are not physics and advanced
microbiology/genetics majors; however, the general idea will not take
long to grasp. Trade is improved and varies in ways that the far
surpasses Civ 2. Unit variety is, well. . . amazing. The Graphics in
game play are well done and the cinematics that appear throughout are
top notch. One slight downer is the diplomatic relations: a few more
choices, but not much change overall. When advancing the difficulty
setting Alpha still falls into the old trap of just making the
computer's units stronger, which can be frustrating. On the other hand,
perhaps it is just reducing the advantage the player's units hold in
easier settings.
A word of warning: this game can be detrimental
to one's GPA if not used with caution. Addiction will follow quickly if
moderation is not enforced. I recommend having a friend or roommate hide
the CD on occasion.
Few games will provide as many hours of
enjoyment as this one will. More fun for your dollar!
Civilization in space? Sounds good!
And it is! I had always loved
Sid Meier's Civilization II, and the idea of playing this game with
better graphics and in a science-fiction setting sounded great to me:
wouldn't that lead to almost endless possibilities? And Alpha Centauri
does not disappoint. The story is based on the following: in the end of
Civilization II, a space ship is sent to the Alpha Centauri star system,
in order to colonize a new world. But then, the passengers in the ship
separate into different ideological groups. Right before the landing on
the planet, the ship encounters technical problems and all passengers
have to leave it. Of course, what'd you expect, all seven factions are
spread equally over the planet and the whole familiar game of colonizing
a planet starts all over again. But now in a completely different
setting: space.
The makers have tried to copy many familiar Civ
features to this game: the pirates have become `mind worms': natives of
the planet that attack your units now and then. The goody huts are also
present, in the form of wrecks from the spaceship that sometimes contain
nice stuff. The landscape looks a little different (by the way, it's in
3-D, unlike that of the later game Civ 3) from Earth, the resources
have other colours, but in the end it's very easy to recognize. It is
again possible to build things like mines, roads, irrigation and much
more. Maybe the most important difference considering the terrain
options is the fact that you can build sea towns later on in the game.
Oh, and cities are now called `bases'! The familiar system of city
buildings (now called improvements) and Wonders still exists.
Considering
the units, there is less variety than in Civilization. But it would be
impossible to include as many units as the original has: this game
starts in the near-future, after all. The makers have done the
following: there are a few basic prototypes (infantry, artillery, fast
cars, air jets, ships, etc.) that can be upgraded all the time through
the game. This was an excellent idea, as too many weird new units would
make the game very confusing. Also, it is now possible to construct your
own units with the various upgrades!
One unit I mention in
particular: the Planet Buster rocket. The name says it all: it is a
devastating weapon that blows away entire bases and leaves behind
nothing but water squares. So this is a much more powerful weapon even
than the infamous nuke missiles from Civ. But this WMD is considered as a
crime against humanity (quite logical, eh?) and the use of it will turn
all other nations against you. But it can be declared legal at the
Planetary Council.
As said, there are seven factions, such as the
University, the Spartans, the Human Hive, the Peacekeepers, the
Believers and so on. Each faction has its own characteristics: the
University researches very quickly (therefore it's my favourite side);
the Hive (sort of communists) has a very loyal people; the Spartans can
sustain armies easily etcetera. Also, during the game you can twist the
characteristics of your own faction endlessly. But the different groups
also have their own behaviour. For example, the Believers keep demanding
all sorts of things from you and often declare war after a refusal. On
the other hand, the Peacekeepers and the University are nearly always
trustworthy friends.
The existence of so many complex factions
makes a good diplomacy inevitable, and this is where the game excels.
You can talk almost endlessly with your neighbours and use your
friendship for many things. For instance, when two neighbours are at
war, you can kindly ask them to end these reckless activities. If you
have built up a good reputation during the game, there's a good chance
that they will stop the war. This is a great aspect of the game:
especially on the higher levels it makes you feel like you're a great
diplomat! On the other hand, when you're not considered trustworthy
(which happens when you start wars against friends too often) they won't
even consider listening. The programmed texts are also very funny,
especially those in the conversations with the Believers! There is also a
Planetary Council in which all nations can vote for a proposed measure.
And it's often just as divided as the UN...
There are several
ways to win the game. Of course, it's possible to kick all six
competitors out and conquer the entire planet. That's probably the most
challenging and funny option. It is also possible to build the greatest
of all wonders: the Ascent to Transcendence. This wonder, believe it or
not, creates a new kind of human beings and ends the human era as we
know it. A less complicated ways to win, is gathering a lot of bucks and
conquer the global market. And finally, the members of the Planetary
Council can elect you General Secretary, which makes you the
democratically elected ruler of the planet.
The presentation of
Alpha Centauri is simply great. Notice the nice flap-out box. It also
has a very thorough manual and a nice poster of all technologies in the
game (at least, in my version). The in-game setting is also very good.
The terrific Wonder movies of Civ II (often I built Wonders just to see
those clips) are back, now even better and very `informative' about the
world you have built. The music is not as prominent: most of the
soundtrack consists of dark background music that fits the science
fiction setting of the game very well.
Well, I could go on for
hours about this endlessly complex and fascinating game but it's enough
for now. Alpha Centauri is every bit as interesting as its earthly
predecessor Civilization and that should be enough to convince every fan
of the franchise. But a warning for those new to this kind of game:
it's... pretty addictive!
Superior game!
Awesome game from Sid Meier
and Brian Reynolds. The division of factions by ideals instead of
nationality, the great AI and diplomacy, the complex technology
progression with its divisions of Explore, Discover, Build, and Conquer,
the thousands of options available, and all the differing levels of
management from almost complete automation to micromanagement make this
game enthralling. I am not particularly into science fiction and
wondered if I would like this game, but they did such a great job with
it that it is very fun. There were several things they could have
improved, including the tech tree, making more ways to win, and some
slight improvements to the factions, especially the religious faction,
but it is worth 5 stars nonetheless.
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