Unless you have been living under a rock since the dawn of the 386, you have probably heard of Sid Meier. While most noted for the Civilization series, Alpha Centauri was a new spin on the same old theme. At first glance Alpha Centauri seems like a redundant style of game play and game design, basically, Civilization in space. The Sid Meier style of empire building is a system that works though, and despite the first impression that this is a clone of his own game, it turns out to be a diamond in the rough and as much fun as any of his other titles.
The story, such as it is, begins with the fact you are a leader of an international colonization mission, the first colony to be established in the Alpha Centauri system. For those of you who are not into astronomy, Alpha Centauri is the nearest star system to our own. On the voyage, the united mission splinters into 7 factions. When they finally make planet fall, each faction with its followers descends on earth separately with the goal of having their philosophy govern the new planet. What they failed to realize was that the entire planet is alive, and industrious humans always find a way to harm nature… This time nature will fight back.
The game plays very similar to the Civilization series. You have cities that can produce a variety of things, such as military and domestic improvements, military and colonization units, and wonders of the new world. Each city creates revenue through taxes and research towards new technology. New technology opens more options in a variety of things, from stronger military units to new wonders to new unit abilities. There are two key differences to Alpha Centauri that are not present in Civilization. First, the planet works against you, rather than being a passive thing to be sculpted, angering the planet through an “ecological damage level” causes it to attack you, both physically with mind worms and other nasty creatures and by destroying your improvements with fungus. Second, each faction has a unique set of bonuses and penalties assessed to it. For instance, one faction researches faster but is more prone to riots and is easier to steal technology from. Victory can be achieved in many ways, you can defeat all your enemies through military force, by cornering the energy market (monetary victory), through diplomatic election (political victory), or through transcendence (technological victory).
The graphical interface is straight forward, but will take a little time to get used to. If you have never played this type of game before, you may have some trouble navigating it. The graphics are nothing superb, in fact, being a fairly old game they are downright ugly. The endless hours of world conquering, however, make up for the less than stellar visuals.
There are some flaws with the game, as it is not perfect. It is nearly impossible to maintain a state of non-war with the computer opponents. It makes diplomacy a little one sided. Even though you can create allies in this game which confer many bonuses to both of you, in the end the computer always breaks their word and attacks you, normally it is just a matter of time. Also, the inclusion of Planet Buster missiles detracts heavily from the late game stages. Planet buster missiles destroy everything in a 3x3 square around the blast site. It destroys both land and cities, meaning a powerful city can be leveled in a single shot and often times they get researched far before any defense can be created for them. It causes global outrage and everyone declares war, the planet goes ballistic and starts pounding the heck out of everyone, and the computer will use these with reckless abandon! Usually, this turns the late game into something straight out of Water World, where you find yourself spending more time trying to prevent the local fauna from devouring your cities.
Alpha Centauri is another mark in the history of brilliant game design by Sid Meier. Coming between Civilization 2 and 3, you can really see this game’s impact on the Civ series, which adopted the unit power meter, special faction abilities, and separate units for colonization and land improvement. If you are a fan of strategy games at all, this game will keep you occupied for days on end. This was, in my opinion, the greatest game of 1999, and I dare someone to find one better.
I am the PR Manager for a successful game company and enjoy writing reviews for non-competing products. I am married to a lovely wife and we have a lovely daughter named Rowan, who is currently two. I am also a professional juggler and swordfighter, which comes in handy in a variety of situations.
