Author: scharfschutze
Type: PC Game
Released: 1999
Designer: Firaxis Games
Publisher: Aspyr Software (Electronic Arts)
Genre: Turn-based strategy
Earth, 2060. Mankind's old enemies (war, disease, famine) have returned to our overpopulated world with a vengeance. In a desperate attempt to save our race, the United Nations commissions a space mission to a habitable world circling Alpha Centauri, a binary star system that is the closest solar system to our own. The UN Starship Unity carries on it colonists and all the supplies necessary to make the planet habitable; technologies, building materials, and so on. Unfortunately, voyaging alone in space has its disadvantages, and the colonists are awakened from cryogenic sleep early to discover that a reactor malfunction has damaged the Unity and all communication with Earth has been lost. The assassination of the ship's captain complicates matters further, as the crew descends into mutiny, rallying around seven powerful figures who each have their own plans and agendas. As the ship reaches Chiron, the name of their destination, the reactor malfunction reaches critical, and the mutinous factions of the crew escape their ship and pilot down to the surface of what they simply call Planet.
This is the beginning of one of the absolute best turn-based strategy games I've ever played. Developed by the legendary Sid Meiers and Brian Reynolds (the team that brought us Civilization, Civ 2 and Civ 3), this is a logical offshoot of the successful Civilization franchise. In the ever-popular Civilization II, one of the paths to victory was to build a ship and launch it to Alpha Centauri. Guess where the name of this game comes from... Like in the original, you take command of a nation, in this case any one of seven factions battling for supremacy on the new world. These factions are divided along strict philosophical lines; the Spartan Federation (my favourite) being military-oriented survivalists, the Lord's Believers religious fanatics and Morgan Industries extremely laissez-faire capitalists.
But this is hardly a Civilization clone. Some people call it that, and I heartily disagree. Starting with the same basic principle (build a nation, build units, wipe everybody else off the face of Planet) and the same basic interface (turns representing years, square-based movement), Firaxis took Alpha Centauri down paths Civ2 never did. For starters, the entire game is made infinitely easier to manage by the inclusion of base "governors". Basically, you can tell the base what to do, based on the four principles of the game: Explore, Discover, Build, and Conquer. The tech tree is built around these principles as well. As well, the tech tree has also been seriously worked on, but we'll get to that later... Anyway, depending on what you tell your governors to do, it will build base improvements and units to fulfill that purpose. If you set it to Explore, for example, the governor will build units like Colony Pods (units that build bases) and fast units like Rovers (kind of like dune buggies, except Rovers carry guns). If you set it to Conquer, well... let's just hope your enemies have body bags handy. All this without having to do it yourself.
While we're on the topic of units, it's a good time to discuss another aspect of gameplay that sets Alpha Centarui apart from Civilization and its successors. When you research technology, you do not receive new units like Phalanxes, Cavalry, or Tanks. Instead, certain technologies provide you with components for units, allowing the player to completely customize units to his or her liking. There are five component "fields". Chassis is basically what the unit is, ranging from Infantry to Hovertank to Needlejet (a kind of jet fighter for the 22nd Century), and this dictates to an extent what it can do. Infantry, for example, make great defensive units and get a bonus in combat against bases, while Rovers and Hovertanks are much faster and get certain combat bonuses based on the terrain present in their square. The Weapon "field" is rather self-explanatory, except it also includes abilities like Colony Pods (allowing the unit to build bases) or Former Pods (which allow the unit to modify the terrain). The Defense field is also self-explanatory: it determines how well your unit can defend based on its armour type. The Power Plant field is an interesting concept because it determines two things: how many hit points the unit has and also how cheap it is. Contrary to what you might expect, a more advanced reactor makes high-tech units somewhat less expensive. Last but certainly not least, you can give a unit up to two Special Abilities ranging from enhanced defense to anti-aircraft defenses to siege ability. This combination for unit building alone keeps the replay value extremely strong.
Bases are the keystone of your gaming experience, and Alpha Centauri makes successful base management extremely rewarding. Picking the location for your bases is extremely important, and you can either choose a resource-rich powerhouse or a strategic chokehold. Either way, the base can be customized with over one hundred Base Improvements. Furthermore, your bases act as factories for your units. As well, bases can build any of the large number of Secret Projects: to understand what these are, think futuristic Wonders of the World. These range from the Weather Paradigm (which makes the process of terraforming a whole lot faster) to the Ascent to Transcendence (building this Secret Project is one of several ways to win the game). Through improved Social Engineering (replacing the government types of Civilization) you can really make those factories churn out units or make the people very, very happy (which gets stuff done quickly too; it all depends on whether or not you like using force or persuasion).
The technology tree, one of the fundamentals of Civilization-esque gaming since the original made its way onto the scene, has been completely reformed. In the original Civilization and Civilization II, technologies were divided into a number of categories that corresponded to what they did. This was cool, but all the different tech types got really confusing and, to tell the truth, I learned not to pay attention to it. Doing that in this game is a very bad idea, not to mention hard to do. The tech tree is divided into four branches: Explore, Discover, Build, and Conquer. Each technology is also given a number corresponding to how high up the specific branch it is, say, Industrial Base (B1) meaning that it's a "level one" Build technology. This has two main benefits. First, it lets you know where exactly you stand on any particular tree and serves as a fair judge of your faction's technical progress. Secondly, it makes a useful warning if a rival faction is trying to swindle superior technology from you with second-rate inventions.
This leads me into the final selling point of this game: diplomacy. One of the most enjoyable aspects of the original Civilization series was the ability to interact with the AI-controlled nations through diplomatic (as opposed to military) means. This has been expanded upon and enhanced in Alpha Centauri. The diplomatic options available to you at any given time vary a great deal depending on the situation, and your discussions with the other factions range from amicable exchanges between allies to brutal extortion backed by a whole lot of lead. To top it off, the AI has a very well-designed set of personalities that match their faction's perspective on life. In this game, even your allies can get very pissed off if you "slip" into a lifestyle they don't approve of: for example, being a Democratic faction aligned with the totalitarian Human Hive is a really, really, bad idea. They'll launch a sneak attack on you for doing that.
I don't know if this is just me being spoiled on high-performance 3-D games, but I found the graphics in this game were just a tad simplistic. Granted, the use of actual rise and fall in the terrain to symbolize mountains and valleys was very cool (kudos to Firaxis for that one), but I would have liked a bit more variation in unit and terrain appearance. For instance, is there any reason why most of the vehicles look like variations on the Rover? Overall, though, nothing detracted from the gameplay, and it all certainly gave the notion of being on an alien world.
Effects: 9.5/10I'm very biased on this, but whenever gaming companies go to the effort of providing skilled voice actors who can actually create a character, I give 'em a whole lot of Brownie Points. Each of the seven faction leaders had their own unique voice that gave quite a bit of background on who they were, and every technology has its own little accompanying text, usually read by one of the seven leaders. Elsewhere, the sounds (from the screech of lasers to the crunch of exploding vehicles) perfectly complemented the gameplay, and I will always remember how creeped out I was after hearing the whining call of the native Mind Worms for the first time.
Gameplay: 8.5/10Like graphics, this is a category I found a wee bit rough on the edges. The guys at Firaxis brought a whole lot of elements together in this game, and there are inevitably going to be loose ends that can't be tied up. For me, the pet peeve was a lot of moving between various game screens to do all the various functions in the game, and the game always runs a little funny; unfortunately, patching it hasn't quite fixed the problem. Still, it's certainly a grade-A effort.
Replayability: 9.9/10I don't usually grade other than by half-points, but this game comes so close to perfection that I had to make an exception. The only con to replay value is that the AI tends to get a little repetitive, and with only seven factions, you find yourself fighting the same damn battles frequently. However, the customizable units, re-formable terrain, extreme competitiveness of the AI, and massive tech tree will always keep any player satisfied.
Overall: 9/10The guys at Firaxis sure know how to make a game. The only words of caution I can offer is that if you aren't a fan of turn-based games or even strategy games, better not try this one, 'cause it's big on both. But if you are, as I am, a fan of such favourites as Civilization and Civ 2, then this is certainly the game for you. It has its quirks, and it ain't perfect, but personally, I always say there isn't any such thing as a perfect game. If there was, we'd all play it. And that would get boring.