Monday, July 27, 2009

We Need a Sequel

We live in the age of sequels. The E3 press conferences for Microsoft and Nintendo this year were particularly full of sequels to darn near every decent game released on either platform. Some sequels are good, some sequels are bad, and there are some sequels that I would love to get my hands on that just haven't been made yet.

One that I have been eagerly awaiting for a decade is Alpha Centauri. Sid Meier and the amazing crew at Firaxis have put together a steady string of truly great games over the years. The Civilization series is the standard by which turn based strategy games are judged, and rightfully so. But in my mind, Alpha Centauri tops them all.

I have no idea what made this game so addictive. It was basically Civilization 2 with some tweaks, and Civ 2 never hooked me like Alpha Centauri did. Maybe it was the political model, or the vehicle customization, or well-reasoned but really-cool tech. Maybe it was environment. Honestly, I have no idea. And I'm ok with that.

Just so long Firaxis can recapture that magic in a sequel, that is. Alpha Cenauri, as much as any other game I've played, deserves to be brought back to life. A re-release via Steam or GoG would be a nice consolation prize, but I have my hopes pinned on a complete remake, Pirates style.

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