Civilization... but in space.
I don't 'like' but don't 'don't like' Civilization. I like space. Does that mean Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri is finally the 4X title that I can sink my teeth into, allowing me to soar through the skies like a SpaceX rocket? Or will my time be more like a flat-earther in a steamship?
The last, best hope for mankind has gotten all 'human-y' and have fallen out with each other, their colony ship exploding and sending the survivors to seven separate parts of the Planet, which is a bit of a weird way to explain how there are seven factions vying for control over an alien planet, but that's what we've got to work with, so run with it.
Oh, also, the Planet is alive and teeming with alien natives. Got that? Good.
Frustrations
Alpha Centauri has a meaty manual. It's two hundred and fifty pages of... manual. I don't know what's in it - I didn't read it after skimming the contents and finding that out. But it's a 4X game, so it'll be a lot of pointing and clicking and menus and oh good lord what the hell is going on?
Nutrients? Psych? Energy Allocations? And this screen can be found in the first tutorial where your objective is to build a base? There is a looooot of stuff that you ought to be aware of here.
Tutorial #1 introduces you to your surroundings by teaching you how to explore. Through some clicking and dragging, I eventually stumbled into the natives, some brain worms, if memory serves, who promptly explode and that's that.
What I read about the brain worms on Wikipedia was kinda neat. What I saw was kinda pathetic. I must not be allowed to see the cool stuff this early.
There are some mysterious monoliths to discover too, which did things. That was good.
After a few turns, half of which were spent clicking around the screen wondering why nothing was moving, I settled the second base, thus meeting one of the requirements of the tutorial. The other was eradicating the brain worms, but seeing as they like to explode when you get too close, that's hardly a mission objective.
There was only one thing to do upon completing this tutorial.
Final Word
I don't want to say I hated Alpha Centauri, but having played the same five minute introductory mission three times now, and still not understand just what turn I'm on, or how far my units can move, or what I'm working towards, or what X, Y, and Z does, and whether I should even know about X, Y, or Z yet, I'm quite cranky.
This blog has been about discovering titles that I would never have known about otherwise, and for the longest time, Alpha Centauri was a title that I knew had issues with modern systems and that I might never be able to play it. Turns out that I own a seemingly fully working game now, but can't get two minutes into it without getting irked by something.
The sheer amount of stuff that Alpha Centauri promises is - to read about - astounding. Social Engineering plays its part here. The local wildlife can be killed or worked with. The ground beneath your feet is alive and sentient, for Christ sake, and working with it is a victory condition, and willingly merging your consciousness with it is a victory condition, and there are all these other unusual scenarios that make this 4X game unlike a great many other 4X games, and yet I can't get into the bloody thing.
It seems as though you are required to read the manual, else have intimate knowledge of the Civilization series in order to get up and running here. The tutorial is an exercise in fumbling, and while fumbling and failure often lead to learning and improvement, they don't half frustrate when you are expecting to be introduced to a game - forget playing a game, introduced to a game.
I'm in such a mood after the initial experience that I can't even sit through someone playing it on YouTube - even their explanations full of 'you don't need to know this' and 'I'll explain that in more detail when it's an issue' count as too much, too soon.
Is there a game worthy of the 1001 list in Alpha Centauri? It's Civilization in space, of course there is. Will I play it? Ask me closer to 2118.
Fun Facts
There are - or were while in development at least - systems in place to keep track of the effects the weather and the state of your terraforming have on the ecosystem. You can mould the land to your needs, but there may well be cnosequences for doing so. Do you take the risk? Also, what a lovely thing to read about. Really wish I could get past the tutorial and experience that for myself...
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, developed by Firaxis Games, first released in 1999.
Version 'played': Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri Planetary Pack, PC, 2000.
Version 'watched': PC, 1999 (GeneralConfusionPlays)