DEFCON, which is inspired by the 1983 film, Wargames, is an online multiplayer experience based around global thermonuclear war where players will command their forces as a General hidden deep within an underground bunker. You are oblivious to the carnage that is sweeping the world as you and your opponents throw everything at one another – even a nuke or two. In order to win this titanic Cold War struggle you must deploy your units efficiently to disable and to destroy your enemy’s ability to retaliate against you. Players will need to make tactical alliances and be deceptive in order to ensure their survival.
It's only South America, no one will miss it.
Everyone loses in DEFCON, but in order to win you must make sure that your loses are minimal. Points are rewarded or lost throughout the game depending on your ability to take out enemy units and protecting your own. It’s more than a case of sweeping in and wiping out your enemies. To guarantee success, you must position your units effectively to ensure that you remain undetected to your enemy and to disable their ability to attack you.
DEFCON is made up of a single player mode and multiplayer mode where players can battle it out against computer controlled opponents or other players. Both modes work in a similar way where you must ultimately destroy all your opponents and receive the least amount of losses yourself. A typical game normally lasts between 30 and 40 minutes, and you can choose to be naughty or nice.
The game is played on a simplistic map view of the entire world where you can zoom in on areas to issue out vital orders to your units. You have a number of units at your disposal, with some that are more effective than others in certain situations. Firstly, you have ground installation units which include radar dishes that can detect hidden enemy units, airbases that launch fighters and long-range bombers and missile silos that can launch nuclear warheads and shoot down incoming aircraft and nukes. You also have navy units such as carriers, battleships and submarines as well as air forces such as fighter jets, bombers that can fire nuclear warheads.
Who would've thought that nuking other nations would be so... colourful?
Each of your units in the game has radar coverage, some with more coverage than others. Enemy units will only appear on your screen when they appear in your radar coverage, so it is often important to suss out your enemies before launching an attack. Taking out key units such as missile silos and radar dishes early will ensure much more success when launching an attack. There's also some units in the game that don’t show up on the radar screen, such as subs, which means that it is equally important to remain defensive as well as offensive throughout the entire duration of the fight.
The game also features a DEFCON status system that determines the level of activity you and your enemies can make. There are five levels within this system that ensure to add to the strategy immensely. DEFCON Level 5 is where no hostile actions can take place but you can move your naval units within international waters. Level 4 will allow radar coverage to provide information on enemy units within range. Level 3 begins conventional naval and airborne combat. Level 2 enables more aggressive hostile actions. Whilst, finally, Level 1 lets the use of nuclear attacks come into play. It’s certainly a different approach in terms of gameplay, but will no doubt add to the surprise of this cutthroat warfare game.
Much like their other games, Introversion’s DEFCON appears to be fairly simple in terms of visual appearance. However, just like Darwinia, this little gem seems to be packing one heck of a punch in terms of gameplay quality and may just yet be one of the rising stars this year.
Loading...
