Defcon
Developer: Introversion
Publisher: Introversion
System: PC
Release Date: Sept. 29, 2006
Official Web site
In a nutshell: Shall we play a game? How about Global Thermonuclear War?
0:01 I love the green on black colors in the intro screen. Very WarGames (see "In a Nutshell")
0:02 Tutorial time. Apparently destroying the world is a complex process.
0:04 I love the sort of low dirge playing in the background. Really nerve-wracking.
0:05 "Silos in air defense mode are very effective at taking down nukes." I knew there was something unrealistic about this game.
0:07 The tutorial feels very tense even though the enemy isn't firing at me. Mostly because of the great music. I'm still getting the hang of the interface ... clicks don't always do what I expect.
0:11 Things move painfully slowly in "real time." I thought World War III was supposed to be quick and painless. Thank god you can speed up the timer significantly.
0:13 "UAE hit, 2.0 million dead." The text pops up as if this occurrence was the most natural thing in the world. Chilling.
0:20 "Move your subs as close to the enemy coastline as possible and lets rack up some MegaDeaths." What, the band?
0:25 Tokyo hit, 9.5M dead. The music swells and slows like a whimpering record player. I love it!
0:31 My first real battle against the CPU. There's an oceanic skirmish, and then not much happens for a while. Watching war from this high up is excruciatingly clinical.
0:36 After a very slow start, everything happens at once. They launched first, I swear. I quickly lose 67 to -8.
0:41 The Asians seem to have used their nukes too soon. I'm launching a bunch, and a few get through. Bombers coming to their aid. I'm closing in: 58-10.
0:43 The countdown timer ends my attack prematurely. I "lose" the tutorial battle 58-20. Of course, the real losers are the millions of dead people. I'm not very good at this.
0:46 I love the rolling demo, it just lets the computer play itself, like a beautifully destructive screen saver.
0:52 This time I'm controlling the Russians. A lot more land to defend. Try to use my fleets and fighters more strategically.
0:58 After falling behind 141 to -71, I realize I have no idea what I'm doing. I just can't keep track of all this stuff at once. I wish things were a little more automatic.
1:04 I narrow it to 123 to -34 before it's over. Still ... ugh.
Would I play this game for more than an hour: Maybe.
Why? I lovethe aestethic and the idea, but I can't seem to wrap my brain around the strategy.
This game based on a demo version downloaded from the official Web site.
4 comments:
I find that it takes a couple of games before you really get this game down, and playing with friends definitly ups the fun factor. Other than that, be sure to adjust the speed as you need when you're starting out, and try playing as all of the different continents. Hope you enjoy it more as you continue playing!
-GF
I got basically a day or two of gameplay before I concluded that I had squeezed all the life out of the game.
Once you figured out the basic strategy elements, there's not much more to go from there since the options are so limited.
It's a bit like playing checkers on a board 3 squares wide.
agreed with no-name, theres a bit of a learning curve... omg... that was a great similarity to wargames... though the movie was totally 'gah'...
Should you continue to play:
The trick is to discover (or cause) a weak point in your enemy's anti-nuke cover, then coordinate a barrage of as many nukes as possible into a relatively small area, thus overwhelming the poor chap and maximising the potential for Megadeath to play a concert in someone else's home town.
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