DEFCON 1.
Video Games October 1st. 2006, 8:10pm
I grew up a Cold War baby in the shadow of Fernald, Ohio, producer of uranium for the United States government and polluter of our local water table. The aura of nuclear annihilation was something I recognized and reconciled in my very early childhood. Watching a movie like WarGames or Doctor Strangelove, I always thought that one of the strikes on the "big board" was going to be no more than a half a mile from my home. Regardless, I always wondered why no one ever made a "Global Thermonuclear War" game.
Games played at work can be set on an eight hour time scale, meaning you could be playing the same long game all day. Betrayal, politics and alliances at work! Slaughter your coworker’s countries! One of the best additions is the "Boss Mode", where a quick tap of the "Esc" key twice will hide the game in the task bar. The bar will flash when hidden after a hostile action is taken, meaning you could play all day and never let anyone in on the fact that you are plotting the world’s demise. Awesome.
My first game, I was Europe versus the United States. My tight coastline and heavy backup radar penetration meant that surprise attacks were going to be difficult. I launched my naval assault, determined to wipe out the East Coast. After I sank several US ships, I eventually got some targets in sight. I launched my strikes as soon as possible, hoping to wipe out all the launch sites before I got struck in return. I failed to calculate in air defense, so most of my launches were shot down. I did manage to rack up a few cities, but sadly the retaliatory strikes got past my radar when my air base in Spain was nuked from a hidden submarine from the coast of Africa. I only lost by a few million casualties.
The image of the slowly arcing ICBM coming in to pound Amsterdam or New York is something from a movie. As the casualties rack up and the leaders board changes, the game makes you discover something about yourself. Yes, war is terrible, and nuclear holocaust is most foul, but if everyone is going out, it’s best to go out on top saying, "You’ll never enjoy your victory."
Next time, global domination will be mine.
2 Responses to “DEFCON 1.”
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October 2nd, 2006 at 12:39 am
Had you majored in political science, you would have known that America’s COld War strategy (Mutual Assured Destruction) was a three-legged stool (land-based ICBMs, nuclear subs, and constant air presence). You should always have some bombers in flight in case the other two options are knocked out. You should really have accounted for air cover, especially from the United States. Seriously.
Dr. Strangelove is one of my all-time favorite movies. Gentlemen, there’s no fighting in the War Room! Does the game let you build a Doomsday Machine?
October 2nd, 2006 at 9:07 am
No, but everyone still dies anyway. As long as you aren’t firing ICBMs, you have a “defensive shield” of sorts that protects some of the cities around the launcher. The problem is the time it takes to go from defensive to offensive mode, or vice versa. If you launch ALL your ICBMs at the same time, you’ll be a sitting duck for several minutes as the nukes are flying. No one wants that.
I had no capability to launch fighters to scope out the defenses after a few carriers in the Atlantic were sank. My bombing wave was easily shot down, followed by my ICBMs. In later games I did get off some MRBMs from my submarines that took out a few coastal cities.
Considering this game has low system requirements,has a free demo (what I’m playing at the moment), and only costs ~20 dollars if you want to play it with a few players, it’s a good time.