Ed Hewitt Yet another Tech & Gaming Blog!

Defcon Review

Struggling to find anything to write about, so I will continue with my series of posts from my articles in Full Circle Magazine. The next article is a review of Defcon taken from Issue 21. Also, just updated to WordPress 3.0! First post written with the landmark release of WordPress.

This month, I am reviewing one of my favourite PC games. Defcon is a cross platform RTS from UK developers, Introversion Software. The game is based around nuclear warfare. You select a nation, and fight in a nuclear war with up to 6 nations. The game is based on the film War Games. The game features both single players and multiplayers, but they are the same - except you will face AI-controlled nations, or real people controlling the nations. The game is not free: the full game costs £10/$19.50. However, the demo gives you a good idea what the game is about.

As soon as you start the game, you get a sense of bad times. The vector graphics represent a 1980's military computer, and the music of people slowly dying. As I have already said you have the choice of a single or multiplayer match. They are both the same, but in single player you can have from 2 to 5 bots in your match, whereas in multiplayer you can have up to 6 players. You select a "nation", which includes Europe, North America, South America, USSR, Asia, and Africa. A match takes about 45 minutes to 1 hour to complete, but there are also several game types, such as Speed Defcon (15 min. match), Office mode (6 hour match) and Diplomacy mode (everyone is in the same alliance, until someone attacks). However, in the demo you can play only standard Defcon.

In a match, you are presented with a world map showing all the nations and cities within. The match is separated into 5 parts. In Defcon 5 & 4, you begin by placing your units. You have 3 types of buildings, and 3 types of units to place, during this time. The buildings are Radar (to see where missiles and other units are), Silos (to defend and attack nations), and Airfield (for launching fighters and bombers). The units are Submarines (for launching missiles), battleships (for destroying other ships), and Aircraft carriers (for launching fighters and bombers). Once all your units are placed, you can move your units into position. When you reach Defcon 3 & 2 you can now start naval and air attacks. Finally, you will reach the best part of the game, Defcon 1, Nuclear warfare. Select your silos for attack, move subs into position, and launch your nukes at the cities in the enemy's nation.

It may seem simple enough, but it's all about chance, and where and when your enemies will launch their nukes. You may lose your entire fleet before Defcon 1, which can have a bad effect during Defcon 1. You may launch your nukes too soon, then you're wide open for attacks. When your silos are launching their nukes, they can not defend at the same time. You may launch your nukes too late, when your enemy's defences are strong, or you may run out of time. You may even be attacked by people in your own alliance. Anything could happen. No game is the same. This means there is no winning strategy which works every time. There are no winners in nuclear warfare; Defcon follows this belief. In order to "win", it's not about how many people you killed, it's about losing the least.

Defcon is an excellent RTS, best played online. It is simple and easy to pick up, but can be hard to find ways to win. Once you think you have cracked it, you probably haven't. The style and look of the game is everything, but it is worth trying the demo. The demo is a good way to experience both offline and online matches. The game is for Linux, but also Windows and Mac. All three operating systems can play together, so get your Windows and Mac friends to play. You can download Defcon from www.introversion.co.uk/defcon. The file is a .tar.gz file, but it's just a few lib files and a shell script which you run in the terminal -- no need to install. Defcon works perfectly on Ubuntu 7.10, 8.04 and 8.10 (haven't tried it on any other Ubuntu versions).