Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri™ Planetary Pack

It's a little strange how ahead of its time Alpha Centauri was. This is a 4X game with climate change, rising sea levels, terrain deformation, and a unit designer where you create your own units based on the technology you have unlocked. Get used to the graphics and UI and there is a cutting edge game here that will satisfy long time 4X fans. Its mechanics are perfectly balanced; there is enough complexity for a lot of weird sandbox approaches to work, but it's not so complicated that you get overwhelmed. What really makes this game stand out though is the setting and narrative and how this is connected with the gameplay. The setting of Alpha Centauri is what makes this A LOT more than just Civilization in space. The asset (and problem) of Civilization is that it tells a story we're vaguely familiar with; history as constant progress and struggle, fire -> wheel -> nuclear bomb. It doesn't really have a story of it's own. How can there be any kind of depth to a story where Caesar is fighting Napoleon with nukes? But Alpha Centauri's story is free from our expectations. There are seven factions, each with their own ideologies and approaches, with seven leaders, each with their own character traits and agenda's. They are very well written and they all have nuance and depth. We truly don't know how the future will turn out. Flavour text for buildings and research sketch a deep, philosophical world. There is a real story here that is meshed incredibly well with gameplay. Like other classics such as Morrowind and Deus Ex, Alpha Centauri proves how vital setting and narrative is to making a classic. If you like strategy, 4X, or even just good science fiction, you will enjoy this game a lot.

Sid Meier has outdone himself. This game, I would argue, is a work of art. Though the graphics have not aged that well, the gameplay is still intact enough to for great replay value. The level of customization is beyond what most modern games do. The story, although meager, is plenty enough to keep you engaged, but does not overwhelm you with detail. Take my last playthrough; I started as the University faction, but ended up doing more conquest than actual research. I had enough planet busters to stand as a lone superpower. In the end, I swindled my way to becoming the supreme leader though conquest, manipulation, bribes, and, oh yes, research. Machiavelli would be proud. Have fun Earthlings

More in-depth options and controls than current civilization games, interesting plot and factions, and can consume hours of your life. I once made a world where I had an entire continent to myself. I then sent out saboteurs to frame other factions for attacks. I then funded a world war where everyone was fighting everyone else but I was still allies with everyone. they didn't like me being allies with their enemies, but never went against me because I gave them loans to fund their war. I bankrupted all the factions with loan debt and I never had to put any of my funding into military. I've never been able to do that again.

SMAC/SMAC works on Win 7, x64, Intel Gen1-I7 @ 3.3ghz with nVidia GTX570. All videos and in-game functionality works great, and I was VERY worried about that pre-purchase! I've NOT found a problem in-game that I experienced with my previous versions of this game. However, this game doesn't play nice towards external applications. 1> Don't bother hitting ALT-TAB, CTRL-ESC, or WIN-anything. The keys are bound to work in-game only and somehow forces Windows/Explorer to "forget" these exist while the game is running. I'm running on a quad-monitor system, but even with that monitor count, as the second point is going to mention, normal tasks of swapping windows (Alt-Tab), opening new applications (Win-R), and general navigation of your computer via keyboard becomes a pain. 2> SMAC launches to be full screen on whatever you designate as your "primary monitor" and is also run as "Always On Top". So ANY applications you have will appear UNDER the SMAC window. So if you do manage to launch an application, and if that application happens to start on your primary monitor, you CAN'T get to the application. ALT-SPACE is disabled, so you can't use the usual trick to move windows around with the usual key presses. 3> This game has sucked my time up from doing anything else productive on my computer. Two of my four monitors probably feel useless as one just tells me the time, and the other is holding all my desktop icons. ;)

Not sure what it is about this game but I've always come back to it. I remember being obsessed with the demo back in 98. Was a high school student so couldn't afford the full version. Something about it even then was so attractive. I remember 100% agreeing with PC Gamers highest score of all time for the game and being happy that such a great game got that highest award. I'm not really a 4x player honestly I'm more of an FPS and RTS guy but the atmosphere, sounds, graphics setting... everything about this game just click. The dark overtone and the "uknown" are just fantastic. I actually got a little obsessed and bought all 3 novels as well. The gameplay just offers so much, again not a 4x expert or player really but the ability to customize units is great, the diplomacy options actually feel meaningful and the ever present mind worms even late game cause concern. Even as late as November 2020 I was found myself playing on my period accurate K6 450mhz machine until 5am in the morning.. on a work night. The games just so addictive. It captures the 90s spirit so perfectly. Hard to really think of many negatives honestly. No game has ever even came close to scratching the itch of this game.