Remembrances of Games Past, Part #28 - Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri (1999) (PC) (Firaxis Games)

Channel:

Demiath

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Published on October 12, 2010 8:08:09 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWbjNBWaU7E

Game:

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri (1999)

Category:

Let's Play

Duration: 14:43

15,873 views

35

I've played Civilization games now and then ever since the very first entry in the series, but never quite managed to get into the complex mechanics properly or become fully immersed in the famously addictive gameplay. There is one notably exception, though, and that is Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri from 1999. Whereas the regular Civ games are centered around bland and generic nation states, Alpha Centauri took an entirely different approach by infusing some much-needed personality as well as ideology into Sid Meier's classic framework.

The game centers around seven factions with contrasting ideologies clearly inspired by real-world politics. Major 19th and 20th century movements and schools of thought such as environmentalism, free-market capitalism, fascism, communism, technocracy and liberal internationalism are all vividly personified by the seven faction leaders, and these intentionally colorful personalities really breathe life into the fairly abstract gameplay. With SMAC I feel like I'm not conquering just any old civilization - I'm trying to subdue Deidre Skye and her pesky treehuggers, halt Zakharov's dangerously ambitious research agenda, stop Pravin Lal's back-stabbing diplomacy, stamp out the militaristic fervor of Colonel Santiago and/or crush the fundamentalist threat posed by Miriam Godwinson.

Adding greatly to the game's atmosphere are the many fully voiced quotes (taken from major figures of intellectual history such as Aristotle, Plato, Machiavelli, Augustine and Immanuel Kant) which accompany the game's various research accomplishments alongside made-up quotes ascribed to the various fictional leaders. I remember how me and my friends at school used to learn these text chunks by heart and recite them seemingly at random, just for fun. At the time we weren't quite sure exactly what, for example, St. Augustine meant by saying "The wicked have told me of things that delight them, but not such things as your law has to tell" - but it sure sounded awfully intelligent and important somehow...

(Note: For various technical reasons the game's intro had to be replaced with a simple slideshow and a small part of the audio from the game's opening cinematic).

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