DEFCON

The game runs ok if you just want to play single player, but LAN or online multiplayer is a no-go. Inexplicably, the game still has DRM. Since GOG 'removed' the DRM by simply giving everyone the same key, no two GOG players can play together on the same server.

I really enjoy DEFCON, and have even used it as a teaching tool about nuclear war. Presentation-wise it's one of the most unique games out there. No fancy models, no cpu chugging physics engine, just a wire-frame map of the world with figures moving about. Nonetheless, as you get closer to zero hour and the eventual launch of your ICBMs the game gets increasingly tense, and dramatic. Finally, as your cities disappear and the death toll mounts, the horror begins to hit home in a surprisingly personal way, helped along by a brilliant ambient score. The crowning touch is knowing that the bunker-buster is heading for your bunker, and watching as the counter ticks down to your certain death. The game has a bit of a learning curve and you'll likely lose badly the first few times you play it, but once you master the basics, you'll find this can be a fun way to spend an hour.

The game itself deserves it. Aside from the steep learning curve and the tutorial being utter crap for online play this game holds some very deep potential for mind games versus human opponents trying to figure out where his subs are while you keep your own safe. The game itself have a lot of micro, you might not think that when watching it, but it does. You can only control 1 unit at a time, and when 12 carriers all those launch planes simultaneously it very quickly becomes a clusterfuck to control everything but that is part of the charm. What is not part of the charm though is the games appalling community. As there is no "quick match" games where you get ranked against similiar skilled opponents you are left with the game servers, 1v1, 2v2 and 3v3 or "diplomacy" which is more random. In the teamgame servers you will frequently get smashed by very good players who always teams up against the newplayers, talk badly about the newplayers and in general behave like shit towards the NewPlayer. Like any other game, it is just more profound here with the small community.

I'll use the old PC gamer review format to show what I consider to be the good, the bad, and the ugly of this game. The Good: I think the interface is very well designed; it is easy to place and control all your units, turn on and off layers of the map, yet at the same time it looks 8-bit enough that you can imagine that you're sitting in a bunker in NORAD or wherever those computers are. It is also a very atmospheric game, that manages to be creepy on a level most games can't hit. Knowing that other players are, in real time, placing missile silos and deploying subs to blow you up is a little sickening, and it forces you to deploy your own silos and subs, almost against your will. Finally, despite the widespread dissatisfaction with the CD-Key issue, there is still a pretty lively online community, filled with people who actually want to show you how to play. The Bad: Online games take forever, since usually the slowest person gets to set the game speed for everyone. I called it quits two hours into my first game, little knowing that that was a serious faux-pas. Also, even though there is a game mode called "Diplomacy," there is no game mechanic to have international agreements staving off nuclear war (which is what happened in real life); the game would just go on forever until someone launched. Also, there are no resources to control and thus no reason to fight with anyone. The game just relentlessly counts down until everyone is forced to launch. The Ugly: the game's take on nuclear technology is a little incomplete. For instance, in the game, your silos also act as missile defense platforms. However, in real life there were never any missiles fast enough or powerful enough to defeat incoming ICBMs. Also, for balance the game sometimes assigns players to Africa or S America, which were never host to significant numbers of nuclear bombs; even if they had been they were too politically fractured to ever had cooperated effectively. Also, there are no conventional land forces in the game, even though several nuclear powers had ground forces equipped with mobile ICBMs. Overall: B+. This is an enjoyable game, and I would recommend it if you're interested in strategy or if you like the concept. However, the design has a few too many oversights/flaws, and the game is a little too short on strategic depth, for me to really get into it.