Nuclear War

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Nuclear War
Studio New World Computing
Erstveröffent-
lichung		 1989
platform Amiga , MS-DOS
genre Strategy game
Game mode Single player , turn based
control mouse
medium diskette
language English

Nuclear War is a war computer game released in 1989 with distinctly satirical features. The player takes over the leadership of an imaginary country in a comic-style nuclear war.

Game concept

The player takes over the middle of five continents that cannot be identified in detail on the partial view of a globe. The four outer continents are being taken over by computer opponents who are modeled on real politicians of the 20th century. Comics versions by Richard Nixon , Jimmy Carter , Ronald Reagan , Margaret Thatcher , Mikhail Gorbachev , Fidel Castro , Muammar al-Gaddafi , Ruhollah Chomeini , Mohandas Gandhi and Mao Zedong are available . Each continent is home to five cities, each represented by a dwelling. The type of dwelling depends on the size of the population and ranges from a camping tent to an ultra-modern glass palace. Each player begins with a small starting arsenal of launchers, bombers, warheads and / or defense systems.

The human player as well as the computer player can choose one of the following actions in each round:

  • Armor : The player pauses a round, but his arsenal is supplemented by a quantity of armaments that cannot be determined in advance.
  • Provision of a delivery system : The player provides a delivery system (rocket or bomber) with a certain capacity (10, 20, 50 or 100 megatons of TNT) from his arsenal.
  • Nuclear attack : If the player has provided a carrier system in the previous round, he can equip it with a warhead of the appropriate capacity and select an enemy city to be fired at.
  • Setting up a defense screen : Reliably neutralizes all missiles or bombers that have been fired on the land in the relevant round.
  • Propaganda : Attempts to withdraw population from an opposing city of choice to one's own country. A very error-prone measure that can easily turn into the opposite or end in an unforeseen event.

When the player has made his decision, the actions are carried out in turn on the world map. Nuclear attacks and propaganda campaigns reduce the population of the affected city. The computer opponents remember to a certain extent who last attacked them and tend to retaliate. The computer opponents have features of their real role models. The cold warrior Reagan always bombs the one with whom he has the strongest conflict; Gandhi and Carter prefer "peaceful" propaganda and Gaddafi is quite unpredictable. If the population of a city drops to zero, it is lost for the rest of the game. A player has lost when all of his five cities are destroyed. He is eliminated from the game, but before that his remaining nuclear arsenal is fired at the other players.

The winner is the player who is left at the end. He is shown cheering in a radiation protection suit in front of an atomic desert in the final screen. However, it is possible that after the restarsenals of eliminated players have been fired, no other player remains. In this case, the earth explodes.

Victory in the game has at least as much to do with luck as it does with the right strategy. It is important to have a large starting population. Otherwise, a lot depends on the computer opponents fighting each other and not shooting at the player's continent. At most one can try to hold back or concentrate on an opponent who is already at war with someone else.

Satirical aspect

In Nuclear War , the nuclear world war is portrayed as a cute sandpit game by egomaniacal state leaders. Everything is done in bright colors, nice little bombers are being sent back and forth and there is no blood in the whole game. Every single action is commented on by the program - sometimes laconic ("21 million killed by nuclear weapon"), sometimes belittling ("Bomb shelters in use. Only 4 million killed."), Sometimes witty or ironic. The computer opponents are not stingy with comments either. The population of the continents, counted in the millions, serves only as cannon fodder and for arms production. Just like in real life, rocket and bomber models have martial, belittling or euphemistic names. Added to this is the short duration of the game of around 10 minutes. If the earth is broken, you can start all over again. Film quotes such as the ride on the atomic bomb from Dr. Strange or: How I learned to love the bomb or the cow catapult from The Knights of the Coconut were processed.

Test reports

The game was received very differently after its release. Ratings in test magazines ranged from rejection (“very limited game”, 1 out of 6 points) to enthusiasm (“fantastic game”, 88 out of 100 points). Some found it completely tasteless, others enjoyed the appropriate satire, black humor and a number of film quotes. With regard to the gameplay, the innovative game idea was recognized, while the lack of long-term motivation due to the same scenario was criticized.

Reviews of German-language game magazines:

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Test reports on Mobygames.de.Retrieved on February 20, 2013