Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri (1999)

Developer: Firaxis Release Year: 1999 Genre: Strategy Played On: PC Date "Finished": 29 Jun, 2026 Time Played: 10 Hours and counting... I started playing Alpha Centauri this week completely on a whim, after watching part of NoClip's documentary series about Disco Elysium while sick in bed, and hearing one of the developers name-drop it as being "the best Civilization game." And uh...holy moly. I was not prepared to agree with them, but this little beauty really pulled me in. Right off the bat, the game is extremely effective at creating an offputting, unnerving (yet inviting) atmosphere of being in an unknown place with people you don’t know if you can trust. The music is very sparse, and mostly made up of low drones and eerie alien sounds. The vocal performances are quite flat and dry (positive), which adds to the serious, unnerving tone. They're also quite compressed due to the technological constraints of the era, but that actually really plays into the vibe they're going for. In a…