War Games

In 1983 a movie came out which showed the perils of the cold war, and how two kids, mistakenly started playing a game with real life consequences. Growing up in the 80’s I had lots of time to watch this whenever it was on TV. I think that might have been one of the first times I realized I wanted to work with computers. It glamorized Nuclear warfare during the Cold War, and now it is truly a game.

Defcon is a new game being put out by Introversion. The game is a replica of that in the movie, except without the real world consequences of Russia or China launching their WMD at us, while we maneuver our battleships off the coast. Basically the premise of the game is to wipe out your oppenant with your Thermonuclear devices before they can do it to you. Take out strategic locations, like radar stations, military installations, and heavy civilian areas. Turn their countries into sheets of glass, and try not to let too many of your own people die.

Brutal…Yes, Disturbing…More than likely, Showing the truth of Nuclear Warfare…Defiantly. It’s games like this that I enjoy playing, but at the same point, kind of scare me because this sort of thing could possibly happen. So if it does, I want to be able to call the Pentagon and say, “Look, you need to take out the radar station in Uzbekistan first, put a couple battle groups in the Mediterranean to draw there attention south, then attack from Alaska and from Northern Europe at the same time…I’ve run the simulations, I know it will work.”