A honest opinion about SMAC. (Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri)

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Author Topic:   A honest opinion about SMAC. (Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri)

Tgzo posted 03-08-99 06:09 PM ET
First, let me just start off with SMAC perhaps isn't what every Civ/CivII fans are looking for. Maybe it's more suitable for those people who never played Civ2 type of game and why? Here are the reasons:
About a few month ago, I got a fresh copy of Pcgamer magazine near a grocery store by my house, and as I was flipping through them. I spot a preview of the soon-to-come Alpha Centauri, and it reads "Preview of the sequel to the best-selling game CivII designed by Sid Meier's and Brian Reynolds". I was immediately attracted and read the preview over and over again, because it's got some very neat information in it.
Now almost half a year had past since the time I read the preview, and a few weeks before SMAC was released, I went to my Number one resource station of Alpha Centauri, of course is the forum section of this pretty-good looking site. Now I read many other people/staff's opinion and ratings of Alpha Centauri, most of the comment are negative (maybe it's not a lucky day for Alpha Centauri), but a few rated extraordinarily high. I deicided to wait for the next issue of Pcgamer and see some rating from the real gamers, they gave it a shocking score of 98%. It really made me a bit surprised, is Alpha Centauri really this good? Or maybe Pcgamer screwed this time up? With some hesitation, I chose to buy a copy and try it out.
Now I got on the bus on Sunday and went to future shop where they sell electronics and other computer related software/hardware/computers. It took me a while to locate the game from many other fancy-looking boxes. I picked it up and paied 69 CND for the game. It really felt like a punch in the gut, but I swallowed it and brought it home doubtfully.
It took me a day to try this game, because I didn't get a chance to use the computer on the day I bought the game. And guess what? After I installed the game, a bug was encountered immediately, not enough memory and I don't have the latest drive for DirectX. I restarted my maybe-a-bit-old computer <By the way it's a 133 mhz pentium/24X Cd rom/ 1190 mb of hard drive>
and took me five minutes to re-install it. Now this time was successful except for the long installing time. I finally saw the Alpha Centauri intro movie popped out into my view. The movie was..well let me put it this way...a bit lame for those people who don't give care about the darn movie. I gave up after 10 seconds of watching and went straight for the gameplay. When I selected my race and a few other process (the process was actually easier in CivII) I came into the gameplay, now everything is revealed. The graphics in the game was medicore, heck the graphics was pretty good, far higher than what I was expecting from the stinky mouth of other people who said the graphics was childish and lame. The sound was a bit blurry, you can't hear very well that everything they said. The interface was confusing, very complicated. But I knew and saw other people opinions, them too considered Alpha centauri's interface is a bit complicated than Civ II, in fact it's 2-4 times harder to understand. The gameplay was basically the same CivII. Seriously, it didn't take me a long guess before I knew what I have to make right after my terraformer was built, the gameplay of Civilization remain there, except it's more complex and better. But the gameplay is a bit confusing, maybe it's because I didn't really get very far into the game and read only little of information that is provided in the manual. I really disliked the gameplay in fact, because I knew it was another CivII clone with better options. After all Civ II had wasted hours and hours of my time, and I was expecting something unique and refreshing, but at the same time as complicated as CivII, maybe my expectation is too high, or maybe it is what game should be like.
Now in conclusion, I would say that Civ II was less complex than Alpha Centauri and I would bravely say SMAC is better than CivII, but I would warn you if you have extremely high expectation for this game, then you will be partially disappointed in graphics, interface, and sound, though they can be improved. And I think it should be a safe bet if you spent 30-90 bucks on this game. My opinions is that I'm partially disappointed, but a lot of the features I expected is in the game.
(For those people who are curious of what you get in return for the 60 bucks you spent on this game here are all the stuff that is included in the box:
1. A nice box.
2. A 250 page (very small in size) but beefy manual with some cool stories and statistic
3. A poster with all the technologies available in the game.
4. one installation guide about 15 pages thick.
5. 2 advertsiment brochures.
6. A registeration card.
7. The Cd of course.)
That is all I have to say about this game any replies or comments are welcome.
fkloster posted 03-08-99 06:15 PM ET
Hey TGZ0, SMAC is easily the most consuming and entertaining game I have ever played. Once they fix the few bugs remainging this game will be a masterpiece of fun! my .02
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Author	Topic: A honest opinion about SMAC. (Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri)
Tgzo	posted 03-08-99 06:09 PM ET First, let me just start off with SMAC perhaps isn't what every Civ/CivII fans are looking for. Maybe it's more suitable for those people who never played Civ2 type of game and why? Here are the reasons: About a few month ago, I got a fresh copy of Pcgamer magazine near a grocery store by my house, and as I was flipping through them. I spot a preview of the soon-to-come Alpha Centauri, and it reads "Preview of the sequel to the best-selling game CivII designed by Sid Meier's and Brian Reynolds". I was immediately attracted and read the preview over and over again, because it's got some very neat information in it. Now almost half a year had past since the time I read the preview, and a few weeks before SMAC was released, I went to my Number one resource station of Alpha Centauri, of course is the forum section of this pretty-good looking site. Now I read many other people/staff's opinion and ratings of Alpha Centauri, most of the comment are negative (maybe it's not a lucky day for Alpha Centauri), but a few rated extraordinarily high. I deicided to wait for the next issue of Pcgamer and see some rating from the real gamers, they gave it a shocking score of 98%. It really made me a bit surprised, is Alpha Centauri really this good? Or maybe Pcgamer screwed this time up? With some hesitation, I chose to buy a copy and try it out. Now I got on the bus on Sunday and went to future shop where they sell electronics and other computer related software/hardware/computers. It took me a while to locate the game from many other fancy-looking boxes. I picked it up and paied 69 CND for the game. It really felt like a punch in the gut, but I swallowed it and brought it home doubtfully. It took me a day to try this game, because I didn't get a chance to use the computer on the day I bought the game. And guess what? After I installed the game, a bug was encountered immediately, not enough memory and I don't have the latest drive for DirectX. I restarted my maybe-a-bit-old computer <By the way it's a 133 mhz pentium/24X Cd rom/ 1190 mb of hard drive> and took me five minutes to re-install it. Now this time was successful except for the long installing time. I finally saw the Alpha Centauri intro movie popped out into my view. The movie was..well let me put it this way...a bit lame for those people who don't give care about the darn movie. I gave up after 10 seconds of watching and went straight for the gameplay. When I selected my race and a few other process (the process was actually easier in CivII) I came into the gameplay, now everything is revealed. The graphics in the game was medicore, heck the graphics was pretty good, far higher than what I was expecting from the stinky mouth of other people who said the graphics was childish and lame. The sound was a bit blurry, you can't hear very well that everything they said. The interface was confusing, very complicated. But I knew and saw other people opinions, them too considered Alpha centauri's interface is a bit complicated than Civ II, in fact it's 2-4 times harder to understand. The gameplay was basically the same CivII. Seriously, it didn't take me a long guess before I knew what I have to make right after my terraformer was built, the gameplay of Civilization remain there, except it's more complex and better. But the gameplay is a bit confusing, maybe it's because I didn't really get very far into the game and read only little of information that is provided in the manual. I really disliked the gameplay in fact, because I knew it was another CivII clone with better options. After all Civ II had wasted hours and hours of my time, and I was expecting something unique and refreshing, but at the same time as complicated as CivII, maybe my expectation is too high, or maybe it is what game should be like. Now in conclusion, I would say that Civ II was less complex than Alpha Centauri and I would bravely say SMAC is better than CivII, but I would warn you if you have extremely high expectation for this game, then you will be partially disappointed in graphics, interface, and sound, though they can be improved. And I think it should be a safe bet if you spent 30-90 bucks on this game. My opinions is that I'm partially disappointed, but a lot of the features I expected is in the game. (For those people who are curious of what you get in return for the 60 bucks you spent on this game here are all the stuff that is included in the box: 1. A nice box. 2. A 250 page (very small in size) but beefy manual with some cool stories and statistic 3. A poster with all the technologies available in the game. 4. one installation guide about 15 pages thick. 5. 2 advertsiment brochures. 6. A registeration card. 7. The Cd of course.) That is all I have to say about this game any replies or comments are welcome.
fkloster	posted 03-08-99 06:15 PM ET Hey TGZ0, SMAC is easily the most consuming and entertaining game I have ever played. Once they fix the few bugs remainging this game will be a masterpiece of fun! my .02