The classic that originally started the war dialing generation seems to never fade, and its core idea of simulating a Global Thermonuclear War has motivated the authors of Defcon - The Game to come up with a fully realistic representation of it. I recently took the time to play around with it -- it's so compact you can even play it on a removable media --, and I must say I never enjoyed seeing my missile projections and the sound effects out of my launches. The trailer speaks for itself!Rule number one of thermonuclear war, launch your ICBMs as soon as you hear the Defcon 1 alert, or you risk lossing your silos due to the AIs "shooting into the dark" or conducting reconnaissance, however, keep one silo -- each has 10 ICBMs reaching anywhere on the map -- as you wouldn't be able to hit the biggest cities by the time you don't neutralize the surrounding air-defense. Submarines are sneaky and very powerful with each holding 5 missiles, but firing occures if the target is within range so make sure you position yourself where you should be. Sea and air-to-air battles are very common and there aren't any land conflicts at all. Make sure you don't fire from numerous submarines simultaneously, as if there's a figher in the air it will detect and attack the submarrine. On the other hand, use fighters to distract the air-defense firing at them while your ICBMs pass through and reach their target.
If I were to descibe the WarGames simulation in two words, that would be, tense and very addictive. Moreover, you don't need a multi-million game or movie budget to make an impression, as this game, and "The Day After" do. Goodbye Europe -- alliances are a powerful force given you convince some AIs to ally with you, but at the end there could be only one winner.
