Blogs One nuclear war is enough

http://www.bit-tech.net/blog/gaming/2012/10/25/one-nuclear-war-is-enough/

 

Agree completely here - I played a few times with Defcon, losing and winning, and at the end of it I was just left with that melancholic dread you describe. Now it just sits unused in the games list, a silent monument to my fears.

Fantastic to play though, like all the Introversion stuff.

 

But did you kill Santa ? (Yes, this is a serious question about your gameplay)

 

HELLO SIMON. DO YOU WANT TO PLAY A GAME? _

 

I played Defcon so much I was dreaming about it.

I was much, much, younger when it came out and I just saw the strategic "nuke everything" side.

I played it again the other week, added a couple of mods to it (Mostly the more real maps), and the combination of seeing the country, being older and a little wiser, made it a superbly haunting game.

Do I drop the bomb on them - Even though they're meant to be my allies - Because they're the closer threat than the USA?

Do I send my submarine fleets on what is, effectively, suicide missions to obliterate a meagre few cities and silos?

I haven't played it again since. I fear that if I play it too often, these days, I'll start shaking and rocking in the corner of the room.

 

So I'm not the only one who was moved by this game.
I can shoot hundreds of people in the face in a graphically detailed FPS and feel nothing, but watching the death tolls pop up after ICBMs hit city after city left me feeling shaken.

 

@Nexxo - I think David's discovered that the only winning move is not to play...

 

That made me laugh!

I loved Defcon, bought it on the strength of the bit-tech review & loved it so much I bought a second copy and posted it to my brother thinking we'd play against each-other online. That was about two weeks after the review, (whenever that was) and we've yet to play a game against each-other...

 

LMAO, quality.

I never finsihed one game.
I think the 7 figure casualty tally put me off.

 

finished only a couple of games and must agree, spent more time thinking of defcon than playing it. the calmness of the basic UI as it tells you dispassionately the estimated casualties of a hit on a city is definitely memorable.

 

Sure haha

I'll have to check this one out...

 

After reading this article I recently picked this game up. I'm not quite sure I can put into words the how this game makes me feel, but it certainly left an impression.

The game encourages you to place your silos near to your most populous cities, but if the enemy takes them out then you've lost already. It's quite easy to sneak your submarines quite close to the enemy shoreline, but doing so is extremely risky - once they fire a missile their location is revealed and they'll be toast if an enemy fleet moves in; therefore do you save them as your ace in the hole, or use them as a first-strike weapon to weaken enemy defences and let your silos take care of the real damage? Do you try to defend as much as possible or throw everything into an all-out attack, hoping that sheer weight of numbers will overwhelm the enemy defences? Often your careful planning and delicate strategies are casually tossed out the window as soon as the bombs start dropping. Seeing a hailstorm of ICBMs languidly sailing down into your territory in slow motion while knowing full well that you can't possibly defend against all of them is quite possibly one of the most harrowing experiences I've ever had in a game (that and Aerith from FF7, but let's not dredge up that old memory today!).

I don't know if it's the simplistic neon interface masking the brutal truth of what this game is really about, watching the "score" counts for either side racking up slowly but steadily, or the sheer terror of watching all your carefully laid plans being torn apart like a wet paper bag in a mushroom cloud... Either way, it's a pretty damn memorable game.

 

When I saw pre-release stuff about this game, I couldn't wait for it. Here was the game I desperately wanted to play every since I saw Wargames, a childhood dream finally coming to fruition! And then I played it.

I suspect I killed more people in that first game than I have killed in every other game I have ever played put together. Watching my first nukes land on civilian targets and seeing the cold, clinical casualty statistics popping up was a harrowing experience indeed. The child in me was ecstatic while the adult in me was in turmoil over how I could possibly enjoy a simulation where I was *required* by the rules of the game to push the button myself and slaughter innocents in the hundreds of millions.

The soundtrack perfectly fits the mood of the game, with one of the finest little touches I've ever seen. As your population drops, the music drops in pitch and playback speed, adding an inescapable and constant reminder of your failure to the proceedings.

This game, despite the fact I play it very rarely, is firmly fixed in my top 5 favourite games list. I can heartily recommended playing this game locked to x1 speed, headphones on with the music running, intoxicant of your choice to hand - because after about 100 minutes, you'll need it pretty badly.

 

I only played a demo version - does the full game retain the deeply disturbing soundtrack?