Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri™ Planetary Pack Reviews

expansion kicks you out any time you try to start it and does not work do now purchase

A little simple compared to some of the later Civs, but the unit design function has never been beaten in anything since. It's a fun little game, nice story, replayable, challenging as you want, a classic.

A shining gem of a game. Best Civ game hands down no doubt. Hits all political spectrum. Outstanding custimization of units. Stands tall above any other civ game made after it. Best 4x game and even can say possibly best game ever made. Very replayable. IS HARD on high difficulty. Only negative is old old graphics and some outdated issues like cant group up units. Cannot recommend enough. Every time i play it i'm blown away at its scope and philosophy. A true Gem.

Honestly one of, if not the, best civ game. It just doesn't constrain you at all. So many bases, so much military and alien space age retro futurism. Get yourself a bottle of super lubricant and boot this baby up.

hey unfortunately Alien crossfire does not work on purchase. ive seen a few people say you have to install a bunch of mods and roll back a windows update to get it working correctly but honestly, i paid $7.90 for this which isnt much, but i expect anything i pay for to work right out of the box. If you just want to play the base game purchase it, but as of the writing of this review Alien Crossfire does not work, you get to the faction select screen, hit play and as soon as you name your first city the game crashes. I put through a refund request and will rebuy and change my review if this issue ever gets fixed.

Just bought and played this again in 2024, and had just as much fun as I did twenty five years ago. The game definitely shows its age in the graphics, awkward UI, limited game features, and more. But the overall game design just works in ways that is rare for 4X developers to nail. I believe part of its success is the unforgettable factions. Rather than creating dozens of cookie cutter characters with only minor variations in their stats, Alpha Centauri went with a small group of factions, ensuring that each one would be unique and memorable with a substantially different play style. The game is not without its faults, but Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri stands out as one of the best 4X games of all time. Edit: As a response to some of the negative reviews, I never had any issues with the game crashing. Seems to run perfectly fine for me. One thing that had me confused however is finding the Alien Crossfire DLC. I always launch from the desktop but for some reason, the DLC does not load from the Desktop. In order to play the DLC, one has to launch the game from the Steam Library. Apparently there is a work-around for this but its not a big deal.

This is a great game from the past. It just doesn't work right on modern machines. you'd think windows 11 would help?! O'well, maybe I'll try for a refund.

It's 2025 and this game is still a 10/10. While I have yet to afford Civ VII, in my opinion: this Sid Meiers turn based game is better than any of the modern Civ games that came after it. Every time I play a Civ game, I get the itch to play Alpha Centauri. Returning players and new players should keep in mind that this game was released in 1999. It doesn't handle some things as gracefully as you have come to expect from other Civ games. But it does not fall short of in-game content, extensive research, unit design, economics, projects and rich story telling - if you care to watch the FMV's and read the various excerpts. There is no other game like this. Calling it Civ in space would be a dishonest description. You play Civ on Alpha Centauri with the last remaining survivors of Earth - not past leaders. Man had taken itself to the brink and sent people into the stars to start again. The planet, Alpha Centauri, is Earth-like but along with the threat of the other factions, the planet itself holds sentient life that will spontaneously attack you. There is also another threat: Global Warming. The expansion pack, sadly, does not expand the original game; as we have become accustomed to, and is basically the same game but with 7 different factions. It's hard to gauge what a new player would feel about the expansion. For any die hard's, the original 7 factions are the best but overall the new 7 factions are fun to play and offer a different rhthym to playing. Tutorials are short and sweet while telling you what you need to know. The index is extensive and detailed. For any questions just push the menu button and give it a look through. Even changing how turns, notifications and combat is handled. 10/10. So grateful this was available on Steam for me to enjoy again.

warning!! as of february 26th alien crossfire is not working with windows 11, would refund but it was past the 14 days.

i actually played this game right after it came out in the 90's or early 2000's, loved playing it back then and still do today but it's kind of boring after you beat it several times but it does get challenging the further up the difficulty chart of course though. I've beaten the 2nd level which was very easy even after 20 years or so. now I'm going to try the third level again, if I remember correctly I actually beat the game on all 5 difficulty levels the first time i had this game and now I get to try it again. lol