Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri

[Strategikal]

If you can't wait for Beyond Earth, why not grab Alpha Centauri from Gog.com? It's on sale this weekend for just $2.39. It also includes the expansion pack Alien Crossfire.

http://www.gog.com/game/sid_meiers_alpha_centauri

If you've never played this before you really should pick it up. Unlike most 15 year old games, it's aged quite well and is still quite playable. It runs and looks good in high res on large monitors too (if you tweak the resolution in the .ini file), see screenshot below.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=229970184
Gog's version runs on newer versions of Windows and on Mac too.

Or if you want to play SMAC's spiritual successor, check out Pandora: First Contact:

http://www.slitherine.com/games/PandoraPC

[Mister Staby]

Old game = boring, now go and play pac-man and tetris grandpa!

[Undergrowler]

Publicado originalmente por Mr.Staby:

Old game = boring, now go and play pac-man and tetris grandpa!

Actually it have a lot of interesting features that none or very few other games have. The only boring thing with it is the graphics and that's in the eye of the beholder.

[Strategikal]

Publicado originalmente por Mr.Staby:

Old game = boring, now go and play pac-man and tetris grandpa!

Don't you mean Panzer Blitz and Advanced Squad Leader? Never played the two games you mentioned.

[Savage]

I also bought it a while back from a GOG sale and oh boy it has aged.

[Strategikal]

True, but not as much as I expected. Most games from that era look far worse. Did you get it running in hi-res?

[Strategikal]

Pandora First Contact hasn't aged though, it's only 5 months old...

http://youtu.be/cBcRZEIQLUk

[kafkaclone]

i still play alpha centauri a couple games a year. 15 years later and it aint dead yet in my book. newer isnt always better...sometimes its just a faster rush to the jumk box.

[Strategikal]

Publicado originalmente por kafkaclone:

i still play alpha centauri a couple games a year. 15 years later and it aint dead yet in my book. newer isnt always better...sometimes its just a faster rush to the jumk box.

I'm very pleased to hear that. When I bought it (again) a few months ago, I started playing it and was suprised how playable it still was. If only I wasn't so swamped with new games right now I'd happily play it again, and I'd certainly like to, if I can find the time. I never did buy the expansion first time around, so I'm quite interested in trying that.

Yeah, newer isn't always better, gameplay is what it's all about. Sure, the graphics are not cutting edge, but they're not that bad for an old game, certainly they look nicely sharp in hi-res (I can't stand old games with enlarged blocky graphics). It's been a long time since I built any underwater cities.

Even so, I bought Pandora not long ago and I'm really enjoying that. Still part way through my first game. It may not be an exact clone of SMAC (as some would like) but it's more than close enough to capture the flavour of it IMO, and with modern 3D graphics and hexes it's more or less equivalent to Civ 5 looks-wise. It's definitely what Civ and SMAC fans should be playing now IMO, but few people seem to know about it at the moment. Hopefully it will be released on Steam in the not too distant future.

[MutherGuse]

i like cheese

[Crim]

Publicado originalmente por Strategikal:

Pandora First Contact hasn't aged though, it's only 5 months old...

Honestly, this is basically EXACTLY what I expect Beyond Earth will be

[Strategikal]

Well if they've seen Pandora, they might try to make it a bit different on purpose. In fact, seeing Pandora might have given them the idea for Beyond Earth.

It really is about time we had a change from Earth history over and over again. I know it's interesting, but I'm not sure if I could have faced Civ 6 to be yet another game about Earth history. It's time for a change!