posted 03-10-99 12:14 AM ET        

Weaknesses: SMAC is not a revolutionary multimedia experience. The movies are adequate, but are nothing special. The same goes for the music, sound effects, and graphics, and I will venture to say that most games being released have SMAC beat in all these areas. And its got a few bugs. But...

Strengths: ...there has never been, in my opinion, a strategy game so well balanced (faction wise) and so engrossing as SMAC. The ammount of control is perfect; its a step above Civ, but not so complex as to hinder the gameplay. The AI is relatively smart (in comparison with most strat. games), especially for a game of this complexity. It's a slightly different feel from Civ, and may attract a slightly narrower audience than Civ because of its sci-fi background (I am justifying this on the observation that people that had never played ANY game before played Civ because they found the idea so fascinating, although I haven't seen this kind of enthusiasm from non-gamers about SMAC, though) The game is so deep and so true to not only strategy in general, but even in human behavior in some ways, that to call it a game seems demeaning; I think 'sociological-simulation' might be more appropriate. Although it only encompasses human nature and civilizaional sociology in general, it has done more than any game has before it. Even greats like Civ1, 2, and MOO2
pale in comparrison, in my humble opinion.
I think Sid and the guys at Firaxis have truly created the alma-matter (sp?) of strategy.

So for any prospective buyers out there, here's my advice. If you're into state-of-the art audio and video and nothing else, STAY AWAY FROM SMAC!
For those of you that enjoy a slower paced game that requires a great deal of thought and don't mind a steep learning curve, and also do not mind letting imagination fill in the gaps that the multimedia leaves, then run to your nearest game store and pick up SMAC.

I admit that my initial impression of SMAC was pretty negative! I was caught up in all the hype, like many of us, and being an avid Civ fan, I was really into the game before it was even released.

Then I played the demo, and I wasn't very impressed with the graphics after playing games like Unreal and such. But after climbing the learning curve I found what I was truly looking for; a great strat. game.

To close, I'd like to comment on the PC Gamer score of 98%. If this is relative to ALL games, then I would agree that this rating is too high. The game lacks in the audio-visual department that so many games focus on these days; to say otherwise is almost absurd. But relative to any true strat. game, there is none better. I'd give it a little under a hundred only because of bugs.

So, love it or hate it, SMAC IS the next evolution in the strategy game experience.