Defcon

This review has been written right as the holiday deluge of games hits the market so I hope this reaches you, the Internet gaming public, in time.  You there, put down your Guitar Hero 2 controller and listen.  What's your friend doing there? Is he wearing chain armor?  Oh he's getting ready for Medieval 2, right? Fine, fine, that's completely understandable, I want that, too.  But explain to me what your other friend is doing?  He's studying?  By the gods man finals aren't for a few more weeks. Heck it's not even Thanksgiving! Look I don't care if he has a scholarship and has to keep his grades up, slap him upside the head with his printer and drag him over here I got something important to say. 

Great, now sit down and shut up because this is important.  Look at me right in the eyes.  Ok, now listen close cause I'm only go say this once. Buy Defcon, right the hell now.  This is not a drill, this is not an exercise, this is not a pile of money from a game company telling you to do this.  This is me, your old buddy Sphinx, fellow gamer and one who finds himself with limited funds for games right now.  Defcon is Bejeweled for guys since it lets you obliterate entire cities with 10 megaton warheads launched from bombers, nuclear subs, and missile silos. However it is delivered in such a manner that one can become proficient in the game due to its small learning curve but never become a true master due to the large array of strategic possibilities to win or lose. 

The RTS game Defcon is worth breaking open your piggy bank and sneaking in a few quick games before its buried underneath all the big items coming out this holiday.  In fact, you don't have to make a very big hole in the bank since the game sells for under $20.  Here let me even give you a link for the game if you don't have Steam installed and can't buy it through that system. 

Okay, you hit the link and looked around, right? Good, good.  Yes, yes, I know the graphics aren't that great but you've always said you're a gamer where quality comes first, right? I mean you even said you're "totally fucking hardcore," right?  Yes man but chill, I know there isn't any resource gathering or hundreds of little farmers to mine gold working for you but would you just chill out and bear with me.  It's still a RTS, okay? RTS stands for "Real-Time Strategy," right and not "micromanage hundreds of little people to build a bigger army than the other guy" which is what most of the games have become, right?  Good, you see my point. 

Look man, it's global thermonuclear war. Ah, okay I got your attention, didn't I? I knew the words nuclear and war might grab you by the short hairs a little.  Let me explain this little gem real quick.  Defcon reminds those of us who were kids in the 80s about a little movie called War Games.  Basically a kid uses a modem -- that's right an old internet connection before DSL -- to hack into his school and eventually ends up dialing into NORAD.  *sigh* Yes I know such a thing probably couldn't happen but its a movie and so just -- oh forget the overall plot.  At the end of the movie the computer prepares to start World War III by launching all the nukes but the good guys stop it by having it play itself to show that nuclear war is bad.   Look we were dumber back then about computers, okay?

ANYWAY, Defcon possesses the same stylistic motif as the computer screens in War Games but now you and your buddies can square off in nuclear war in head to head play or with up to six players across the Internet or LAN.  The game mechanics are really quite simple. At first each person is given units to deploy including air defense units that are also your nuclear silos, airbases for bombers and jets, and radars to detect incoming enemy forces. A timer counts down to the next defense condition (Defcon) and as you get closer to Defcon 1 (nuclear weapon release allowed), you can take on more and more aggressive tactics against your enemy.  At Defcon 3, for example, your naval and fighter forces will begin attacking enemy units for control of the sea and to neutralize the enemy's bomber and submarine threat. When the timer gets to Defcon 1 all parties get to start launching their nukes.  Naturally your strategy must change if you lose your entire navy or find yourself the king of the Atlantic which means no two games will ever be the same or allow you to employ the same tactic over and over again.

The trick though is protecting your civilians while killing as many of their civilians as possible.  Think of it as a game of chess with your opponents but if you lose you don't just lose a pawn or a knight. You deploy your pieces, position for the start of the game and eventually you attempt to make your killing stroke.  If you play it right your cities will still be standing and you can enjoy a nice beverage while brushing the dusty remains of your enemy off your shoulders.  Fail, and your entire side of the board becomes a radioactive wasteland crawling with mutated humans who fight to survive in the post-apocalyptic horror that your created because of your bad choices.  Your name becomes a new curse word and women avert their children's eyes as you walk by their refugee camp trying to survive and not be eaten by roaming scavenger cyberpunks or starving pack dogs who might get turned into blood sausage by roaming militia bands (BAM, Wasteland reference. Old school gamers represent!)

Okay its not nearly that melodramatic. In fact, the entire process of waging World War III is dealt with in a detached almost sterile manner as you shuffle your own forces across a world map to protect your cities while attempting to time a perfect nuclear decapitation of your enemies cities.  While such a balance might seem easy, never fool yourself into thinking that as more often than not an opponent might see a weakness you fail to realize. When that happens you might as well call it a day and watch your score sink to nothing as your precious cities are wiped off the map piece by piece.

The true stress of this game does not occur in a head to head match or even a match of you and your buddies dog piling on the computer. No, the real nail biting, hair tearing stress occurs in a game mode called Diplomacy.  In this mode (hopefully six people at once), everyone starts out on the same side with their own territory. But, with the in-game text chat system and some intuitive menu commands, cease fires, alliances, and the break down of said events can occur on a whim and then be re-established if desired.  For example, last night in a diplomacy game I was in control of South America with Africa and North America on my side.  Initially we were working together but at one point I started launching at North America who was also on my team since I had everything in position to do so (trust me, if you have six nuclear subs ready to launch all of their missiles in tandem you don't waste that) Seeing me distracted, Africa also dropped out of the alliance with N. America and launched at me and N. America.  Since I had already converted my anti-aircraft missiles to nuclear silos there was nothing I could do and I quickly lost.  Again, just one slip up and you're putting the remains of your cities in little tiny ziploc bags.

The overall gameplay is genius and I in fact have mathematical proof of its level of awesome. I posit to you the theory that for me a game's fun factor can be determined by it's kill ratio.

(gibs / cost of game) * time (in hours)

For example, in the first 20 minutes of Defcon it works like this:

(20 million/$15) * 0.3 hours = 400,000 level of ass kicking gibness

BF2, on the other hand works out like this for me after playing over a year

(11,000/$60 [including all expansion pack costs]) * 364 hours = 66,733 level of ass kicking gibness.

A game of hangman however sucks so bad that it won't even compute.

(1death/$0) * .1 hours = not-calculable!

Getting your scores measured in megadeaths is almost surreal when you consider most games like shooters only let the average player (like me) get about 20-30 kills per match.  Yes, yes, nuclear war is bad and all that stuff so its cruel to measure such things and deem them awesome. But guess what, it's a game and if you can honestly say that you don't get a rush from delivering a huge nuclear donkey punch to your opponent and turning their major cities into a white hot glowing parking lot then I'm very, very, sorry for you.

By narrowing the scope of the objective and the resources at your disposable to complete the objective of surviving a nuclear exchange, the folks at Introversion have created probably the perfect RTS game if you have a desire for quick gaming fix with your buddies or complete strangers.  I know the Sanitarium has not reviewed that many games this year but of all of them, this is best of the bunch.  

Email Sphinx if you want.