Originally posted on May 4, 2007 @ 9:18 am

Being a married adult has its perks. I wouldn’t trade it for the world. But there’s one major downside…not enough time for video games!

Well, I decided to take action two weekends ago and bought 2 games from Best Buy. One, was Empire Earth 2 and the other was Defcon. Empire Earth 2 is your standard RTS game, only it’s chock-full and loaded with features, going from prehistoric times up to a time of futuristic weaponry.

I had played Empire Earth 1, so I knew what to expect from Empire Earth 2. It’s a fun game. But you know what, it’s the other game I bought, called Defcon, that I find myself addicted to.

The premise behind Defcon is that you are immersed in an approaching all-out, world-wide nuclear war. The music is eery. Combined with the premise of mass destruction, and a goal of killing as many people as possible from the enemy territories, I’ve got to admit that I felt a bit of unease in playing this game. It almost seems a little inhuman.

But I’m hooked.

The game itself is simple and elegant. It’s real time strategy, but there’s no resource collection. You basically have 5 stages of Defcon starting out at 5 and moving down to 1. In each of the 4 earliest stages you basically prepare for Defcon 1 where all out chaos emerges.

When each game starts you position your radars, nuclear silos, airfields, and navy fleets. Nuclear silos double as air and anti-missile defense but can only serve one function at a time. I usually start the game out leaving most of them in anti-missile defense mode until I’ve had the chance to use all my bombers to knock out the opponents silos.

Airfields have both fighters and bombers. Fighters have a very limited radius, but are mainly to protect the homeland. Bombers have something like a 1/2 -2/3 of the globe radius of movement. And silos can basically hit any location on earth.

Submarines are very important units in that you can sneak them up to your opponents shore and then launch quick and dirty nuke attacks. They also let you discover weak spots in the enemies defense.

Carriers are like roaming airfields. They have bombers and fighters. Battleships are good for defending subs and carriers or attacking the other teams subs and carriers.

At the end of the day, the game is all about mass destruction and the goal is to wipe out whole cities. Like I said, this has a bone chilling effect, but the suspense and the sheer adrenaline rush that you get are immeasurable.  Watching a nuclear war unfold….well it’s crazy.

From the very beginning of Defcon 5, the suspense starts building and doesn’t relent. There’s no toying around with resource building or waiting for the right moment to attack. The game forces you into nuclear war, and it’s this aspect along with the perfect simplicity of the game, that make it so intriguing. Just like a game of chess, the rules are simple, but the variety of games and strategies are huge. And because of its simplicity, anyone can jump in and play right away.

I’d give this game a 9/10 review and say its a must have for any fan of war games.