This is the game every science fiction geek like me dreamed of in the sixties. Despite the lack of orbital and interp
User Rating: 10 | Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri PC
This is the game every science fiction geek like me dreamed of playing Avalon Hill games in the sixties. Despite the lack of orbital and interplanetary battle, it holds up better than the competition on almost every level. The AI is decisive and consistent, the tech tree is complex and involving, the factions are well balanced, and even the abstruse back story of Alpha Centauri, should you choose to read it, is literate, surprisingly deep, and cleverly thought out. I had hoped for years that Sid Meier would release an update of Alpha Centauri. However, I haven't found Civ 4 as involving as Civ 3, largely due to the lack of clarity in the graphics, and the lumpy uninteresting sameness of the topography. Rather than see the the same happen to this one; units overcomplicated to the point where they're hard to distinguish from one another, needlessly detailed animation you have to zoom in on to appreciate, and any semblance of style sacrificed for bland realism, I think it's just as well they leave Alpha Centari alone, a classic for the ages.
