How do you improve on perfection? You can't. It's hyperbole of course, to refer to any game as perfect, but several games come close. One of the most complete and near perfect of all game designs is Sid Meier's Civilization. This venerable classic was an incredible world simulation that chronicled man's rise from the dawn of civilization to his first flight to the stars. Civilization allowed you to create a world-spanning empire from a single prehistoric tribe. Aside from some AI problems, you'd be hard-pressed to find anything really wrong with its design. The only way you could really improve on a game like Civilization is to add more of everything - more units, more Wonders, more technologies - and better AI. Civilization II proved as much when it released two years ago. It was a sequel to Civilization but didn't veer from the formula that made the first such a winner. Civilization II, despite the prefix of Sid Meier's name, was a Brian Reynolds game. Meier offered advice, but Reynolds designed Civilization II.
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri is Brian Reynold's next game. Confused?
Alpha Centauri follows a similar style of play exemplified in games like Empire and Civilization, but it should offer plenty of innovative gameplay.
What do you do for an encore after you designed the follow-up to one of the greatest games of all time? Well, Reynolds can't exactly design a Civilization sequel, since he and Meier no longer work for MicroProse, but his next game, Alpha Centauri, continues the same tradition of intelligent gameplay he nurtured in Sid Meier's Civilization II. Although the fundamental gameplay in Alpha Centauri is similar to Civilization II, where Alpha Centauri will really shine is in the details. And those details are amazing. Alpha Centauri takes a proven Brian Reynolds design and makes it bigger and better. I was lucky enough to play an exclusive beta version of Alpha Centauri, with many of the game's features already implemented, and I was completely addicted to it. In a lot of ways, my experiences with Alpha Centauri mirrored my experiences with Civ and Civ II, and as any fan of either game knows, that is an absolutely good thing. Brian Reynolds and Firaxis want to put their MicroProse days behind them, and that includes memories of games like Civilization II. Because Alpha Centauri builds on a design Brian Reynolds used for Civilization II, it will seem familiar, but upon closer inspection, it's revealed to be a game that stands tall on its own merits.
So how good is Alpha Centauri, and how different will it be from Reynolds' last game, Civilization II? Read on, and we'll tell you all about it.
