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Jan 14th, 2008 at 11:56:09 - Alpha Centauri (PC) |
Summary:
Alpha Centauri is a Turn Based Strategy game in which the player plays as the leader of one of seven factions who have crash-landed on an alien world after the captain of their colonizing ship is killed and the ship destroyed.
Gameplay:
Throughout the first 45 minutes of the game, I felt constantly edgy, since the native life on the planet (mindworms) can appear out of nowhere, even in the middle of populated areas, giving the game a very good feeling of suspense. In addition, the other six computer controlled factions had distinctive personalities that made keeping the peace next to impossible.
The micro-management ability of the game makes it possible to tweak every single detail of your faction, or let the computer pick what is best. I enjoyed this feature, since I could turn on automatic to learn how the computer would handle certain features, then go about it myself (I love to micro-manage).
Gameplay:
During the second 45 minutes of the game, the mindworms started to become thicker, the planet itself started to fight back against the farms and improvments the factions had created, and the entire game map became a battlefield as faction relations dissolved. Sides were quickly drawn and the war began. Caught up in the excitement, I forgot completely that this was turn based, not real time, and I could take as long as I wanted to plan my strategy and move.
The whole game world seems very real, dispite the fact that the game is nearly ten years old. The individual faction leaders seem three-dimensional and alive, hurling insults or begging for mercy.
Design:
The most innovative thing I saw in the game was the unit editor, which allowed the player to design any unit possible from the ground up. The only thing I found frustrating about it was the fact that certain weapons/modules would not connect to certain chassis, with no explaination. Now, a colony pod I can understand, but why can't I put a transport module on a jet?
In addition, Alpha Centauri allows more than one way to win. In addition to Total Dominaiton, you can also choose to buy out the global energy market, become elected as supreme leader, or guide your faction to trancend to a higher level of being. Even though the game did eventually dissolve into war, these options still remained possibilities, though remote.
The game keeps players interested by first letting them build up a huge sandcastle for the first hour or so and then making them keep the waves off of it for the rest of the game.
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