Defcon

Heave nukes at your mates from one side of the world to the other.

Defcon will attract folk that have always wanted a starkly realistic global conflict war game, spiced up with a solid nuclear bashing in the end game. It’s unfortunate and surprising that there are precious few games that fit into this category.

Defcon looks the goods, with eerie green ray-traced borders and units against a solid black background. You can customise these colours but why you’d want to is beyond us – it looks supremely cool.

This is a nuclear war game – there are no other weapons of consequence. But it’s not a sim by any measure. On the grand global strategic level, a nuke is a nuke is a nuke, and in that respect Defcon is realistic. From silos, subs or bombers you launch nuclear missiles and if they make it through the enemy’s defences they pack a mighty wallop.

Defcon is a cleverly crafted and balanced multiplayer RTS. There’s a player vs AI mode, but you’ll quickly tire of that as the AI is predictable and very easily beatable. Shame that.

Where Defcon shines is with at least a couple of mates, although one-on-one works very well too. The game is structured around a series of ‘DefCon’ – or ‘Defence Condition’ states, the same ones NATO uses. Defcon 1 is all out nuclear war, while Defcon 5 is peace. When the game starts a timer begins, and every few minutes the Defcon state moves up one notch, closer to all out war.

In the initial phase you place your units, being ground-based radars, airfields missile silos, and your navy, being carriers, battleships and subs. This is where half the ‘strategy’ you bring to a game comes into play. It’s tempting to place airfields, for example, along the border nearest your enemy, but any ground station (in game terms) is a few hundred kilometres long! So, you are forced to spread your placements across your country, always compromising defensive and radar coverage for proximity of airfields to anywhere useful.

As the countdown reaches Defcon 3 you’re allowed to launch conventional attacks, at Defcon 1 nukes come into play.

Defcon’s strategy isn’t about launching a rain of nuclear missiles. It’s usually about timing, judgement and restraint. Each silo has two modes – defensive, where it shoots down incoming missiles and planes, and offensive for long range nukes. The thing is – and this is what the entire game is built around – it takes a few minutes for a silo to switch modes. So do you take a chance and launch nukes upfront, leaving yourself defenceless if a counter attack comes while it’s in progress? Or do you hold back and let the enemy rain nuclear death on you, while hoping that your silos shoot down most, leaving you with something left to finish the now impotent enemy off with?

Points are allocated per million people killed in cities. You can go straight for the cities and ignore the military installations, but far fewer nukes will get through while the defences are operational.

Defcon offers a very basic set of strategic decisions, but with enough scope to give creative players some satisfying fun. Its longevity is limited, but it’s unique enough to warrant having a go, especially seeing as it’s just US$14.95 via Steam.