Do you remember the Cold War? Me neither, but since I was old enough to understand the basic premise of the nuclear bomb, I have been enthralled with it. The logical conclusion to this enthrallment was to enter the grade eight science fair with a display of all things nuclear. I didn’t win. I got second. Some fancy pants environmental project won.
I learned two valuable lessons from this:
- Nuclear bombs were still super awesome.
- I had a crush on the shorter of the two girls that won first place.
Fast forward a whole bunch of years and bad haircuts and here I am today. I don’t really remember much about the shorter of the two girls (I don’t think we even dated), but I am still fascinated with the bomb.
That mostly brings us to what I am writing about - Defcon. You see, I setup a distraction in the form of preamble. While you were busy dealing with connecting the story to the title, I was launching a genocidal number of nuclear weapons at your face… or at least I would have if we had been playing Defcon together, a game of nuclear chess, without all those chess pieces and rules. It’s much simpler.
You move through five stages of Defcon:
- 5. Lay down radars and airbases.
- 4. Place silos and submarines.
- 3. Scout enemy territory for location of their units.
- 2. Let off some nukes for distraction (or not, that’s extra distracting).
- 1. Let off the rest of your nukes and pray to whatever maker you believe in that more of your nukes make it through to the enemy than theirs do to you (just like if the Cold War had turned hot).
I can tell you it’s quite tense as you watch and launch your numerous nukes to the other side of the world (via your silos, bombers, or submarines) and wait and hope, and hope some more. And yet, it is also strangely calming. The entire scene is set to a slow and somber orchestra that surrounds you as nuclear missiles dance through the air; one, two, three-four, one, two… You watch as a warhead slowly travels in an arc to its destination city, gliding past incoming fire from an enemy air defense, and upon impact lights up the surrounding area in a heart warming white glow. Half of Paris has been wiped out. And the beautiful, relaxing music continues…
You can sign yourself up for mutual assured destruction in either single player or multiplayer form. When embarking alone, you will play against computer controlled opponents that do a respectable job of keeping you guessing. Playing real people is the bigger challenge, and the spanking I was given time and again is precisely why I like computer opponents. Anyway, think about it, which sounds better?
- I am smarter than cOOlfuzion8.
- I am smarter than a computer.
I think you can see where I am coming from. But should you feel the need to compete against those that I cannot, you will find fifteen or so online games at any time (plus the ability host your own). Alliances can be made and broken (I’m looking at you Italy) during the game. Use your allies for vital airspace and then drop them some sweet, sweet thanks in the form of obliteration when you are flying overhead. What?!? It’s a global nuclear war, your allies are only as good as dead! Seize the moment before they do, because they will!
What is intriguing about the game is that in the beginning you are at Defcon 5 , you already know that you all lose when Defcon 1 comes to an end. It’s just that one of you can claim to have slightly more living and heavily radiated survivors than the rest. Your opponents will rack up megadeaths regardless of your skill. It only takes one nuke. Hence Defcon’s subtitle: Everybody Dies.
Introversion, the studio of fine folks behind Defcon, are the same people who devised the unique hacking game, Uplink (note: I would like to clarify that I state that they are fine folks, but in reality I know none of them, there is a chance they are in fact not fine, though they probably are). I enjoyed Uplink so much I found myself waiting for the release of Defcon on PC. Later it was published for the Mac by Ambrosia. That was late 2006.
Three years later, I enjoy Defcon just as much. You can sit down after work and in anywhere from thirty to sixty minutes can have accomplished some serious annihilation. The graphics, which are well suited for the game, are timeless and so have not aged in those three years. In some respects it’s similar to Tetris. I forget about it for a while, find it again, play it, love it, forget it again, and wait to rediscover it down the road.
That is Defcon. It is simple in premise and satisfying in its conclusion. I like bombs and think you should too, give it a spin.
I need to re-visit this game I played a demo sometime ago and just ended up nuking large parts of the world with no real progress, it was fun and engaging from a “me boy, me kill things” kind of way but i never really gave it a chance.
Yeah, you definitely need to play through the tutorial. Once you are done that, the concept and execution is simple enough. Otherwise, as you said, you end up nuking random areas. I strongly encourage you to give it another shot!