Ok, so today I am going to talk about a game that I absolutely love. For any of the older people out there, just think Joshua in Wargames. The name of the game is Global ThermoNuclear War. Actually its Defcon, but thats a small details. Here is what Introversion has to say about their game.
Quote:
You play the role of a military Commander hidden deep within an Underground bunker. Your mission - to successfully exterminate your enemy's civilian population whilst disabling their ability to attack your own. Start by launching your battleships, subs and bombers in order to decimate your opponent's defences. Scramble together your alliances but remember only one can stand victorious.
Prepare your pre-emptive strike before one of your supposed allies gets the same idea. Choose the perfect moment for betrayal, obliterating your opponents with an apocalyptic thermonuclear barrage, but get it wrong and their devastating counter attack will bring you to your knees!
It's Global Thermonuclear War, and nobody wins. But maybe - just maybe - you can lose the least.
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Now, what I find to be one of the most beautiful parts of this game, is the absolute simplicity. This is a game you can pick up and start playing in 5 minutes. The startegies take much longer to learn and master, but the basics come very quickly. I'll start first by going over the units.
Silos
The most obvious part of a nuclear war, your silos provide 2 seperate abilities. You have 10 ICBM's that can reach the world over, and they also provide air defense, shooting down incoming plans and nukes.
Radars
Your radar is the weakest building you have defensively, but very important. Who doesn't need to see where there enemy is?
Airfields
Allows you to launch fighters and bombers both, 5 of each.
Next I'll go into the actual military units, starting with the planes.
Fighters
Fly around and attack ships or bombers. No nukes.
Bombers
Bombers carry SRBM's and have a very long range. They are rather weak against air defense, but can be effective in helping to sink ships after their nukes are lauched.
Now for the navy.
Aircraft Carriers
Has 5 fighters and 2 bombers per ship. Also has an anti-sub mode to try and find the enemy before they launch.
Battleships
Run of the mill ships, can attack airplanes and other ships both.
Submarines
5 MRBM's per sub for nuke capabilities. They are undetected normally until they make a nuke launch or go active radar. If a carrier is on anti-sub mode, they can however be found easily.
Now then, a little more helpful info regarding the gameplay. You can play up to 6 players per game, AI or human, and have up to 10 spectators per match as well. There are 7 game modes, as well as 3 scoring modes.
Default
Score points by nuking your opponents cities. DEFCON will play at the slowest requested speed.
Office mode
DEFCON will run in a window with no sound, and in real-time for no more than 6 hours. If the boss appears press esc twice to hide the window. Double click on the DEFCON taskbar icon to resume command of your country!
Bigworld
The world is twice as big! Each unit is half the normal size, and has half the radar range, half the weapon range, and moves at half the speed. For those who love a long game.
Speed DEFCON
DEFCON will run at full speed and will last no longer than 15 minutes. Pausing is disabled. Instinctive and brutal!
Diplomacy
All players will start as a member of the green alliance, with radar sharing turned on and scoring set to ‘Survivor’ (see below). How long will the alliance last? Three or more human players recommended.
Tournament
Standard rules are enforce. Players are assigned random territories, and spectators can’t communicate with players during play.
Custom
No specific rules are enforced - anything goes. Set-up your game by selecting ‘Advanced Options’.
SCORE MODES Default
You score 2 points for every enemy kill, and lose 1 point for everyone you fail to protect in your own territory.
Genocide
You score 1 point for every enemy kill.
Survivor
You score 1 point for every survivor in your territory. All teams start with 100 points and the score can only go down.
Graphics and Sound
Well, this is probably one of the most important things about this game. The graphics are very basic, so it takes very little to be able to play this game well. Here are the system requirements, you be the judge.
- Windows 98 / ME / 2000 / XP
- P3-600, Geforce 2
- 128 Mb RAM
- 60 Mb Hard Disk
- Internet connection for multiplayer games
There isn't a huge amount of sounds throughout this game, I usually play it with music going on Winamp in the background.
Bottom Line
Each game played on default settings will usually take between 15-30 minutes depending on how people play. This game completely supports online play, obviously, and has a nice and simple server lobby. Being as this is pretty well a small title from an indie developer, your not going to find thousands of games like on CoD4 or something, but it usually does not take long to find a game to play. And nothing beats hooking up with a friend or 3 for some cold blooded war. Another wonderful thing, is that it is on Steam for a measly $14.99. It is the fastest starting game I have on Steam as well, which is a cool thing. If you don't think the idea of orchestrating a global nuclear war sounds like fun, all I can ask is; what the hell is wrong with you?
