Alpha Centauri

INFORMATION                                                     
Developer: Firaxis Games                                        
Turn based Strategy
Reviewed by: Zeshan Siddiqui

INTRODUCTION
The world has been lost, earth as we know it is dead and man must survive in order to carry on the legacy of Darwinism.  A planet has been found and the governing body of the biggest affiliations that were left on the earth has crashed on to a planet. These affiliation of groups and rangers think very differently. Each faction or group comes to the planet with different agendas. There are seven factions in Alpha Centauri; each faction specializes in a particular field of research. The faction that you choose utilizes that particular type of research and technology to win the game. Alpha Centauri is a very deep game; you can achieve victory in five ways through the use of military, economic, diplomatic, transcendence, and cooperative power.

GRAPHICS – 93
Wow…. That about sums it all up for Sid Mirer's Alpha Centauri graphics.  When you start playing the game it seems to dull and boring as graphics are concerned; but oh … oh my God … you get blow away with the small things. When you make a new technological discovery you feel like your in a CAD application. The new Technology is so customizable that you will feel like a person trying to find performance parts for your little Honda Civic or a Chevy small block.  During conquering of another faction you see these nice small video clips that seem to be out of the some ILM studio or Pixar.  Sure during most game play you don’t see the good graphics but just wait till you take over some one or get new technology. Heck if you really want to see the CAD applications just go and build your own vehicle.

INTERFACE. - 94
The interface of Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri (SMAC) is just your simple point and click. You could say it has a GUI alaa Windows. The keyboard can be used but good luck in remembering all the Keys can control movements. I would recommend a mouse to play this game, sorry no joystick support. It’s a simple point and click type of game. One menu leads to another in such simplicity that with in minutes you can understand everything. It is easy to change the guy you controlling or you can automate the person so that the computer will move it in the best interest of your territory.

GAMEPLAY - 97
This is a very fun game to play. I was addicted to the demo at first, and the real game blew me away. Some of you who have played the demo and just got the real game might want to close your mouth so you don’t drool over your self or the keyboard.  The game starts off with your colony pod crashing and a troop that you control to begin exploration. You quickly set up a base camp and start surviving by building farms and a solar collectors to collect energy which can be used to create more things, such as better technology.  As you get more people to control you can automate them. I recommend automating the building equipment the AI does a very good job of commanding them. They first start to build farms then come the solar plants and most important in my book, roads. Roads can help you move units faster even in enemy territory. As you population grows you get to meet the rest of the groups. Other groups usually want some thing from you or want to sing a treaty of some kind with you. This treaty can range from a collaborated monopoly to you or the group sizing control of all their bases to you. They usually give their bases and stuff to you usually when you are such a threat that either you are about to run them out of existence or they want to be on the winning side. Diplomacy can take you as far as beating the game but being the rebel Benedict Arnold is very fun… trust me on that one. I once took control of a faction and I was getting all the resources. They where the 3rd biggest faction and we signed a diplomatic treaty in which they would kind have become a subsidiary of me. I quickly got all their technology and started to place troops in their bases, (just think of the British troops being American colony homes back in the revolutionary war). As I betrayed the faction each of their bases fell with me in control of each base. I out numbered the other faction 3 to 1. After the fall of the 4 bases only oneremained I knew what it was producing and how much of a defense it had. Quickly gathering my troops and my spy team, I set to send in my nice C.I.A to steal all money and then sabotage all production of the new coming technology. The faction died at my hand. Don’t get me wrong it is still hard to deal with the other 4 factions. It is a very hard game. As you raise your technology people will want your technology, and will even fight for it. The council might impose sanctions on you so watch what you do to whom… unless you take out the head councils' faction. If you get elected as the council leader by a nice majority vote you can repeal the sanctions order and start asking other factions to vote for you when the time comes, or on a proposal that you might give in the next meeting. There are a few ways to win the game … which I have not been able to do yet, the four ways to beat the game is either by conquest, diplomatic, economic, or transcend… depending on your set options in the setup screen. Winning is different in the scenarios, when you play them limits will be set and you will know the winning conditions.  During the game many advances can be made with technology and diplomacy. You can acquire technology by diplomacy, research, discovery, or sometimes just by recovering a supply pod that got broken off from the initial landing on to the planet. You can set each one of your bases to specialize in what ever agenda you want. You can set the bases to conquer exploration, discovery or build.  Game play is very fun and very hard at the same time. One word of advice… makes sure your technology is better than all the other factions. Do not sell your information to any one, as other will not give you any thing in return that is very up to date. They might want your nuclear technology in which you might have 5 advances and in return they will give you farm technology that is only advance by 2.  If you want some technology from some other faction give energy credits. Remember Darwinism… SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST!

AUDIO - 75
To put is simply…the Audio is decent you find you’re self-playing to something that would be out of an old 8-bit nintendo system. The audio is the same during the whole game…there is no change in audio during the game play. I got sick just listening to it. The only high light comes when you get to the extremely nice cut scenes.  Trust me after a while you will want to turn on your radio or a listen to something different. Watch out when the cut scene comes cause you will want to hear the sound then.

DIFFICULTY – 97
This is a very difficult game especially when you your are in the deep end of the water. As the game starts it is very easy since your neighboring factions do not bother you or any thing. At the council meetings they decides on things such as who to elect and what to propositions to pass and what not to.  Terror comes when you are the lowest on the supply chain of sort big groups might want to take you over. Take over will be less if the UN faction is there. The guy is like a "all we are saying…. Is give peace a chance".  If you take him out and his faction it goes back to Darwinism. You and all the other factions are on their own. Make sure you choose your faction wisely as each has their own strengths and agendas as to what to do with the world and what not to. And do not take any other faction for granted. The AI does play like you do, I did make a nice pact with another faction, no troops were placed in the others bases or technology was given, we had both united in order to destroy another faction. After the request of technology from me by the other faction, I refused because of my military technological superiority I was attacked. Continual difficulty in resource management and technology add up, you are constantly thinking and clicking away, in hopes of conquering or uniting with other factions.

OVERALL - 91
Over all this is a great game. You will, as they say get seduced to the dark side. I once said I would stop playing in one hour and turns out I got so caught up that the next time I saw the clock it was 3 hours later. You wont need to make a caffeine run for this game … I think the caffeine is included… at least for me it was.