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If only days and nights were longer..

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: January 22, 2003
Author: Amazon User

so I could play this masterpiece more often! When I ended my long and profound relationship with civ2, having attained one
of the first monster scores on the net, I thought that nothing would ever come close to the feeling I got out of diving deep
into the perplexity of Sid Mayer's classic.
I bought AC out of curiosity. I first went through the manual. Magic! I then started studying the game. More magic!
The offspring of the Mayer-Reynolds collaboration was nothing short of miraculous. The game had all the stengths of civ2 and none of its weaknesses! Micromanagement was introduced abolishing the tedious bits of civ. Customizing land,sea&air units was an absolute killer. The sound was smooth as silk.The overall display was devine.
And then it was the concept... That game's concept could easily stand alone as a great read in the sci-fi bookmarket.
Making some very simple changes in the text files such as city names, gender, quotes etc. the player can personalize a faction and actually become part of the story; and what a beautiful story it is. The living planet, the fantastic future science tree along with its mind-twisting excerpts from the "datalinks", a word that inevidably sends one back,momentarily, to the haunting intro movie, the combination of socio-political models producing incredibly unusual types of goverment, the eery peace emanating from the alien atmosphere... No matter how violent your strategy may be, the nature of the game is such that it will eventually force you to think more, kill less and try harder.
All of the above and much more will be experienced to their full extent ONLY by those who will invest time and effort in getting to know all the subtleties of this hard-to-master gem and not by those who think that they know the game because,after a few reloads, they finally managed to win at deity level.
Finishing this well deserved encomium I would like to point out the only flaw I found in AC. That is the use of a single
wav. file for all hand-held/turret mounted weapons regardless of class, power and age. Big no-no. The amount of research and attention to detail that ,evidently, the designers put into this game just goes to prove that this one just slipped under their noses.
Ah well, nothing's perfect after all...

Long and Enjoyable

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: June 01, 2001
Author: Amazon User

You will need many days to play one full game of Alpha but the time investment is worth it. The game has many levels of strategy requiring the player to think through every decision. At the highest level, the AI will kick you butt until you learn the various techniques that will propel you to victory. I thouroughly enjoy this game!

My first Cd-rom game.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: September 24, 2001
Author: Amazon User

This being my first game (and without any info with it), it's great. I have had for about five months now and have completely defeated it with all factions and settings. If I could only find the expantion pack "Alein Crossfire". I have searched the net but no luck 'it's no longer avaliable'. May you faction be strong!

A good game at a great price...

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: September 28, 2001
Author: Amazon User

This is basically another version of Civilization, although with different and interesting technologies and units and improvements. It's very good and lovers of Civilization will love this turn-based game. It takes a long time to play, but it maintains its playability through a couple of games before you start getting bored with it. It only gets four stars however because it is not really a revolutionary game...This is evolution.

Was not sure of "turn play" type game but....

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: January 08, 2001
Author: Amazon User

...wow, was it adicitve. I was very skepticle of "turn based" type game play. Mainly because I am new to PC gamming. Only a year of this.

I thought what the hell at this "bargin price" of just $14.99 at Best Buy. So I did it and was very surprised. The depth of the game is great and is very difficult even at the "easier" levels.

This game is a winner and if you want yet another game to keep you from doing things that you should be doing...this one will most definitely eat up those precious hours in the day...and err, night.

Excellent Strategy

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: January 21, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I enjoy strategy games and this game fits the bill well. The computer-managed factions behave realistically and the game is quite playable. The philosophical blurbs and/or small videos whenever you discover something new are a nice touch too.

Sid Meir's Alpha Centarie

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: October 16, 2000
Author: Amazon User

All I've done to date is download the demo version. But all I can say is: "wow! what a game!". Absolutely the best demo I have ever downloaded. And so far, it looks to be the best strategy game out there. You bet I will purchase this game asap! My husband and I can't get enough! Now it's time to get a second computer.... The demo alone allows a unique game each time it is played. Many options and many levels to explore. So far, I highly recommend it!

Alpha Centauri

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 5 / 15
Date: November 14, 2000
Author: Amazon User

When I first bought the game I knew nothing about it but the box looked pretty cool. The game is addicting but only while you're playing it. The first night I had it one of my friends started playing it and continued all the way into the night till around 4:00 a.m..

You'll probably play for a couple of hours the first time you play but you won't be motivated to play a second time after that. The game is just too complicated the instruction manual is a novel and there are no cool videos.

Not for the short of patience

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 4
Date: June 04, 2001
Author: Amazon User

The graphics are impressive and the game is challenging. Like the other review said, though, this is not a game that can be played in one sitting. (Unless you plan sitting for, oh, 12 hours maybe.) I have two gripes: the annoying quotes from non-existent books, and sometimes my people won't go where I tell them to go.

Okay

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 9
Date: June 29, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Alphacent is an okay game that answers the question of what happened to the colony ship sent to alpha centuari in the civ series. The back story is well done, 7 different fations from the ship with differing political views decide to seperate upon arrival at the planet, and start their own civilisations.
The game is similar to the civ games, but if offers numerous improvements upon civ2. The controls are far more streamlined, and the computer interacts with you far more than in previous civ games. If you want, you can automate every unit and just manage city production, or vice versa, which saves times for those players with little.
The entire story and details of the game are a little weird to get your head around, this game starts off from a very high technology level, so naturally higher levels are hard to understand.
One thing I had a problem with in the game was that one of the political factions was a religious fundamnetalist group called 'The Believers', who's religion was christianity. So if you went to war with them, you were effectively fighting christianity, by destroying cities with names like 'The Hand of God' and 'New Eden'. As a christian, I had a problem with this, and it was one of the reasons I only gave this game 3 stars. It was my understanding that game designers tended to steer away from involving christianity heavily in their work, particularly in opposing it, simply out of respect for the religion. ...
Overall though, the game isn't too bad, but its simply too complex and full on for a newcomer to the civ universe to understand. Only for the die hard civ fanatics, if you're a casual strategy player, leave this one be.

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