In Sid Meier's classic strategy games Civilization and Civilization II, you achieve the pinnacle of human progress by colonizing our next-nearest star. In Alpha Centauri, you finally get to guide the fate of the space-faring colonists.
But it's no field trip: As you approach Centauri's only habitable world, meteors and mutiny send the ship hurtling into the atmosphere. Before impact, rival crew factions bail out in separate escape pods. Scattered across this strange planet with minimal supplies, the survivors begin civilization anew.
From that fascinating premise, Meier and lead designer Brian Reynolds have created one of the most ambitious gaming scenarios ever conceived, combining strategy and science fiction with complex concepts of social philosophy. Each of the surviving factions represents a distinct ideology; players get to choose the one closest to their own worldview, taking its weaknesses with its strengths. Play as the hypercapitalist Morgan Industries, for example, and you get vast powers of wealth creation - but your citizens tend toward resource-hogging decadence. Play as the ecologically minded Gaia's Stepdaughters, and you're able to communicate with the planet itself - but your pacifist followers are vulnerable to military attack. In single-player mode, your competitors exhibit AI stratagems that adhere to their core philosophies. In multiplayer, your rivals are more varied and contentious than a UN conference hopped up on amphetamines.
A game with such wide-ranging aspirations is bound to have shortcomings. Theory and strategy don't always congeal; sometimes Alpha Centauri feels like a sociology lecture interrupted by occasional gunfire. And apart from some intriguing video interludes, the graphics and audio push no technological envelope. Ultimately, though, the innovations at work here are far more rewarding: This is a game that turns conquest into a form of interactive literature.
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri: $49.95. Electronic Arts: (800) 245 4525, www.alphacentauri.com.
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