This is probably the most emotionally heavy game I've ever played. Fighters leaving their bases to scout, only to be shot down minutes later. Bombers flying over the ocean, never to return. Submarines firing their missiles before being destroyed. Dozens of ICBMs streaking over the Arctic, bound for doomed cities. The sense of relief when a nuke is knocked out by air defense, sparing millions of lives. The dread and fear when the game announces that the enemy has launched their ICBMs. The urgency to retaliate before your own silos are bombed. And finally, the horror as a swarm of nukes race towards your defenseless cities.
I think why it's so emotional is ironically how cold and unfeeling it is When a city is flattened or a battleship is sunk there is no "God save us alll" or "Why did this have to happened?!" It simply tells you that _x_ amount of people died or that you lost a ship It's so cold, like a computer programming, unable to feel empathy or emotion, just doing what its been programmed to do to the best of its ability, regardless of the consequence or aftermath doing so would bring There is no glory or honor, no right or wrong, just compete annihilation to everything that has and will be, with no regard to human emotion or will
and then when it hits a city moments later it will tell you how many souls perished and you can hear the coughs of women men and children dying from radiation sickness
Played this with some friends, and at Defcon 1 Nobody fired a missile for a solid 5 minutes. Once the first launch was detected you were able to hear the fear in the voices while playing. We were playing the slowest game mode, and it really felt like something bad happened once the missiles were under way. Its a great game.
That's the worst time ever, you know you have too, but you don't want to be the one, since if you do, you'll be the target for everyone else, but at the same time, you know you can gain a tactical advantage by nuking airfields, radars, etc
Well that's also sorta how it'd work. one launch is detected and suddenly counter launches happen, the first nuke strikes and ICBM launches gets detected for retaliation strikes... Leaders just want that one nuke hit to lead to capitulation... but no, that's not what'd happen.
I always try and time nukes on the silos to come in a large group, that way it cant get as many. You can do this by sending out the bombers at the last 30 seconds of DECON2 and then target them for a city way in the interior. When the bomber is active you can target a nearer target and just launch. Put 6 bombers together and overwhelm the silos, after you scrub the silos and airfields use your silos on the cities.
A deadly disease from the brain-affecting branch can grant delirium so its victims will experience that weird, pleasurable, confused pain while they're dying. Nukes can't. It's just a flash - and millions are gone. There's no cure for nuclear blast, there's no confused pleasure from it, there's only express mass oblivion at the hands of those in war bunkers who deem themselves more important and worthy of survival than so many other humans.
@@thundersoul6795 there's no cure from radiation and the cancer that brings with it, the mutation, bleeding out from wounds that the harsh destroyed environment can cause to the human body while being outside after the bomb... looking for water, fresh water and food or if any person is alive or if the corpses are sitting there in a no man's land after the devastation
I like the reverse war thing during the second half of the video, with the missiles returning, and fleets retreating. Gives a nice "it doesn't have to be this way" vibe.
i once played this game on a Big game settings, maxed out everything. max nukes, and controlled 3 continent's, the match lastet about 8 hours, and it was.. and experience a can't forget.. it was depressing.. and it felt like.. i was actually in charge.. sitting in the war room, leading my troops to hell.. and death... a war that wasn't meant to be won.. the experience is unexplainable.. for every city I've destroyed... i felt sad.. and not only that.. it was also for every city i couldn't defend... i even felt sorry for the pilots i send over to attack the enemy planes.. knewing that the enemy was to far away for my troops to return back and land.. knowing they died in vein.. those 8 hours.. felt like forever, and the when i send some bombers over those hellish lands i have destroyed with the nukes.. i just wanted to know.. what those pilots saw from their cockpits... looking towards major cites.. capitals.. lands.. continents.. in flames... pure hell.. and the worst part was.. even tho i won... i didn't feel like i even did anything close to winning.. only the lost everything.. both sides lost everything... and the music haunted me.. this game made me feel... something i really never felt before... play it, and you'll experience it too.. i do not regret it
I already experience too Especially Greenland, Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Turkey, Philipines, every nation on oceania, New Zealand, Kazakhstan because they aren't unplayable and make me wonder why they not on player/AI control territory but suddenly i realize they will die because nuclear winter that slowly make them from normal live to experience nulcear winter And i feel like my sins crawling my back
TNO is also pretty up there but on a much more intimate and.. just, if you like GSGs but wish it was more politicking and story driven.. TNO is a hell scape that rivals the greats of dystopian fiction.
This game is a unique example of a horror RTS. It does a very good job of invoking the feeling of existential dread, that unique fear not just of death, but of utter obliteration of everything you ever stood for and cared about.
Fatin Marwat That's what imo is truly terrifying in this game - people ; men, women, children, families, all their memories, everything these people were, everything they ever did - everything gone, annihilated in the blink of an eye, and for the generals in the bunkers it's nothing but statistics on a strategic map...collateral damage of a war that will kill billions...
Jared Prymont Yeah this game makes me emotional. I'm somewhat of a war monger at heart, but this is too much. No thrill of war, no excitement, only the truth in despair. The crying woman in the ambient sound, the slowing of the music when most of the world is burned. This game bites at your soul.
Well that good thing. Enjoy your life until last I won this game once but suddenly i feel like watching countless people die and the soundtrack (oh god. It haunting me) really creepy because Every people you kill and every soldier, pilots, navy crew die for nothing. Somehow i quickly delete the game and forgive to god because this game haunt me forever
Everyone: This game show the destructive power of the human race and how we are always teetering on the edge of total annihilation. Stellaris Players: Nervously chuckles after wiping out have a galaxy and enslaving the rest.
@@Nikomariko if u get the Gigastructural Engineering mod, u can initiate a quest and find the core of the galaxy, from which u can build upon a Quasi Stellar Obliterator > a massive galactic gun that u can crack up to 10 planets at the same time anywhere on the galaxy or up to 4 whole systems with the planets and the stars and everything in it, or heck if u want u can wipe out a whole star cluster > basically it destroys a whole system and all the systems connected to it by hyperlanes including the hyperlanes :) it is quite satisfying to c the whole map blown up xD, it also triggers an event, if u are playing vs computers they form a galactic alliance, including the pirates and the fallen empires and they all attack u, it can be fun to play :)
@@Asgardians3t gonna try this out i actually thought the etherope machine (crisis megastructure) was a system killer gun but sadly its only a galactic whiping bomb
Developers should have added more things, like Geiger Counter sound on areas with heavy radiation and maybe even fragments of panicked radio chatter and news before nukes hit major cities (With radio activity becoming static when bomb levels the city). + there should be something in game that would make you feel like a complete crap and war criminal if you started launching nukes first.
@NinjaRafter: My heart sunk just seeing the nuke signs all over the map pointing that the end of the world was iminent, even if it was just a simulation...
It's like a "hand squeeze" contest (if anyone else has done that), you know the other person is going to squeeze your hand as hard as they can, and if you do nothing, it will hurt more, but if you squeeze back, the pain is less... but then no one wants to let go first
***** indeed..and the crying kid. First time i played i felt like a President/Dictator with the finger on a big red button..and when pressed you can do nothing but watch..and ingame..hear =( Depressing but good game
@@fargusmaloy Hi dude. I hope ur doing well! It's scary to hear about all those arrests and general unrest in russia... Best wishes for you from Germany :)
@@tryhart1240 thanks. Although i always kept low profile and not in any immediate danger - unlike ukrainians. My fears are probably something germans in the 30-s could relate to, while ukrainians probably feel something out of the USSR book. I see dictatorship and madness, people fleeing the country, and absolutly brainwashed neighbours, friends and relatives. What i mean is - i read V. Clemperer, about living in Third Reich and remember watching Unsere Mutter, Unsere Vater - but i never thought that i would be unlucky enough to watch that kind of shit unfolding right before me. Most oppostioner-russians thought that putin is just a thug and a thief and not really the problem for anyone but us.
Up in the International Space Station.... Scott Tingle: Hey. Anton.... Look.... We're passing over Russia now. Anton Shkaplerov: Scott? Do you see on the Crimean Peninsula? About the southern border, 44 North and 33 East? Slightly left. That's my home. Scott: It's.... Burning. It's goddamn on fire, Anton! *Anton says nothing but tears are forming in his eyes.* Scott: Is it meaningless to say "I'm sorry", even when I'm technically your enemy? Anton: Never. In fact, it's probably the sweetest thing I've heard in a long time.
No matter what nationality a person is, he is still eaten by the inner human feeling, the consciousness of values. He looks at his sweet home and realizes that the house is on fire. He looks at the lovely fields and forests... Burned and don't back in life. He cannot still react, if already to cry and worry about the lost homeland, especially native home? Relatives, friends... The ashes of this terrible dirt engulfed everyone! There is no madness human limit...
It will take an act of great suffering to finally break our pride as a species, and help to unify those left standing in a peace that will hopefully this time last.
That final part of Madness just tears at me every time. Usually around the time it plays in-game a woman begins to cry as she watches her world come to a violent and abrupt end from the safety of the war room's computer screen. I can only imagine the horror and sorrow she must feel knowing each blip on the radar brings forth another nail for the coffin of humanity.
I grew up on RTS games. It's a shame they've fallen out of fashion, relegated to a niche market. Maybe it's always been that way - a "30yo boomer" genre. Still, when you grow up in a family with a military background, chances are, you'll feel compelled to serve your nation too. I never could - disabled on paper, unfit for service. Maybe that's why I naturally flocked to RTS. Maybe that's why I became politically aware at an early age. Command and Conquer taught me the adrenaline involved in warfare - the action, the struggle and stress for a leader to make the right decisions on a moment's notice. But still, it was very clearly a game - fictional universe, crazy tech... As I got older, I moved to 'grand strategy' - Europa Universalis, Hearts of Iron, and such. Here, you were taught about the logistical nightmare of war - allocating equipment, running a nation, trading, being diplomatic... Instead of putting you on the field, it put you in an administrative position - 'desk warriors' the regulars in most national militaries call them; people who've never seen combat firsthand, and are mentally disconnected from the reality on the ground and how bad it gets. In games like these, you're introduced to the SCALE of the event - millions of deaths, billions of dollars in destroyed equipment - all neatly tacked on a clipboard when it's all said and done. Disconnected as you may be, there's still a human element involved - the units talk and shout for glory, your men desert, a nation's spirit breaks as the people rise up in a civil war for freedom... This one strips it all away - the bloodrush of action, the unit feedback, the lives of the everyman... None of that shit matters. Here, you're introduced to fear. A sterile, pale blue monitor with primitive, raster-line visuals that look more at home on a late 70's. supercomputer. You don't hear anything but mild beeps and steady breathing. You don't see anything but sterile, plain graphics representing boots kn the ground - and a steadily climbing count of numbers. Who are they? Who cares. War doesn't care.
That's the saddest part about the reality of Nuclear War. This is what they'd see. The men and women calmly giving out orders to obliterate nations, while they are safe in their hideouts.
_serve your nation_ Stupidest shit ever. Going to kill some people you don't even fucking know because some rich guy in government told you so? That's something maniac-tier.
@@TheHylianJuggalo I feel ya there man, I was attracted to the Halo games because my Grandfather served in Vietnam and I wanted to serve America just as he did, but I have terrible seasonal alergies and suffer from asperger's syndrome, so I'd never be eligible for military service, frankly, this game makes me glad I'm not eligible for military service.
I think I underestimate the power of atomic warheads. It would be awful in a large city centre, crowds of panicked people rush around you, seeing a mother clutch a baby in her arms, hearing a rifle shoot in the distance, a man leaning against a wall, with a bottle of liquor in his hand, given up. In a home with an open door, an extemely eerie test tone plays as the leader says their final words to their doomed nation. You see a figure leap off the top of a large building. Then, silence. The entire city halts as everyone stares at a small flash of light. Many clutch their eyes and scream. For a second, everything around you bursts into silent flames as if it were touched by the hand of a demon. All of a sudden, your entire world explodes and is turned into nothing as atomic fire swallows you and a hundred thousand people. Every building, hundreds of years of ingenuity and creativity, are immediately vaporized. Every artist's painting, every child's scrapbook, every baby boomer's mixtape, every effort of all these people are immediately for naught. Millions of collective consciousnesses are lost, every scrap of your past, present and future existence completely obliterated, eternally buried in the depths of human hostility and error.
today i put the West against the East... just to see how it would play out... wow... this game manages to put you in a very sad mood with only a few stats popping up here and there... there are no winners in nuclear warfare
But what is the point? If you lose you'll get wiped out off the face of the Earth, win but you killed millions of people and you did on what they were supposed to do to you and with that resources are lost and the most important resource of all is human life and in a blink of an eye it's all gone. What is the point to play a game of tic tack toe with two experienced players knowing both will have enough knowledge on what the enemy will do?
@@ferbthe2gadgetguy maybe that is the point entropy is always moving to a state of disorder i.e. the opposite of our societies and complex world. Maybe it’s almost inevitable that we destroy ourselves with one final blast to end life for good and return the universe towards its unobserved march towards darkness.
This is art and this is how I judge game value. The music is genius. It deepens one's melancholia and anxiety while depriving you of any dreams resulting in the striping of the soul overshadowed by the powerlessness of the ever impending doom.
ikr, i didnt know this game till a few months ago, and before i played DEFCON i actually played ICBM first, and then i found out about DEFCON, and honestly, DEFCON is better, it has the atmosphere and music, builds up tension, and makes the game more competitive by limiting how many units and buildings u have, while in ICBM u can rebuild anything that gets destroyed, the music is more action type and it just seems too relaxed, i prefer the dark and dreadful atmosphere of DEFCON
Imagine sitting in a nuclear sub, it launched a missile, and nearly an hour later your sub is hit and your on the other side of the sub. For a split second you wish the sub will be completely destroyed so you don't have to drown to death in pitch black darkness hearing rushing water, metal crumbling, and cries of agony.
The add on sound effects, a woman crying, a woman coughing, echoing feet walking down a hallway. The ominous AUUUNK!!! of the DECON clock counting down to DEFCON 1. Then the even more ominous AUUUNK AUUUNK AUUUNK AUUUNK AUUUNK of nukes being launched, the low rumbling sound of millions of people vaporizing. Such an incredible game. Very simple, very few bells or whistles. Just nuclear devastation then the cold scorecard at the end telling you who won. This game was bloody genius. Horrifying, but genius.
this is in my top 10 games of all time. It's so simple, yet so engaging. Introversion are an amazing company. I'll never forget the games that would last 6 hours, and the pacts made that were always ultimately broken. Playing this game when I was 12 years old is probably the reason for my nihilistic outlook on the world now
I know who am I to tell you but you probably shouldn’t have a nihilistic world view. Even if it logically makes the most sense you have to stray away from it if you want to maintain a healthy sense of self worth. Just pick something that you consider important and stick with that.
"Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night. Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night. Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light." -Dylan Thomas
I want to make an escape room where the theme/timer is preventing imminent nuclear war. A dictator of a small fictional nuclear armed country has lost support from his people and has no intention of stepping down. The participants of the game are his closest cabinet/generals/whatever, who have also lost faith in him. An argument ensued immediately before the start of the game and the dictator has escaped to his panic room, where he is capable of launching the weapons from. The whole building is locked down and you've got to break into the panic room and murder the dictator before he's able to launch missiles from. I'll steal the soundtrack and game footage from Defcon to play on a projector screen when I do
"There are no winners in a war. There are only losers. At both sides. And those who live on, sometimes envying those who left. Because your body may remain intact, but your soul never. War spares no one. And leaves behind not winners, but ... survivors. Crushed. Crumpled. War is not the feats that are sung in songs. Not legendary heroes who are remembered forever, and not a beautiful dance with swords. It is fear, rot, emptiness and death. And victory is not a holiday, but a time when you can throw down your weapons and dismantle the ashes left in the place of flourishing cities. To clear the land from the remains of people, animals ... states. Trying to find and collect fragments of a former life, a peaceful life, and not being able to do it..." Ridge Gambit. - Evgenia Safonova
@@Cobretsov2022 ICBMS carry nukes. The conflict would start conventional. Then there would be an exchange of tactical battlefield nuclear weapons. Perhaps a few short range salvos, all aimed at strictly military targets. But if things don’t temper down within a few hours, it’ll be an all out nuclear war killing well over a billion people in the first few hours. Even scarier is the idea of an accidental nuclear exchange. It’s almost happened already. One system glitch, one terrorist hacker, one rouge general, one misinterpretation of intel and the world ends. That is most likely what will happen.
@@ajaxaceofaces possibilities are endless for a nuke to go off. Rouge nuke compound disobeys the high command and launch’s a nuke. Therefor starting the third global war. But for the rouge general. I think it is a tad bit unrealistic. As a nuke order is a presidential order. No matter the nation even if he was rouge. Although there is still a possibility.
A very intense game indeed. The soundtrack only adds to the game perfectly. Creepy and scary, it even seems to go into slow-mo play, making it sound very eerie.
Horror games always lack that personal touch. That universal fear. But this.. this is like making the victim of domestic violence play the game of hiding from a spouse who wants to murder you. Only it's everyone. Everyone has a personal element in this because everyone is always under the threat of nuclear annihilation by human fallacy. There will never be a feeling of complete safety again.
I always change the music when I play Speed Defcon, I dunno, Speed defcon just vibes different than normal defcon. Normal defcon is slower, depressing and suspenseful, and the music accompanying it fits all of those criteria, whereas speed defcon is faster and a lot more brutal, forcing you to make your decisions ASAFP instead of being nailbiting like normal Defcon. I like to play Speed Defcon to music like this: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-q21EU0NmnMU.html
what fascinates me is how we went from battles in plains with swords, to intercontinental front lines spanning thousands of kilometers. during the cuban missile crisis, kennedy and khruschev both thought of politics as a game of chess, only to realize later on that they were merely throwing dice with the amount of screw-ups that happened. october 27th 1962, nicknamed the "black saturday" is the single day the world came closest to nuclear annihilation with the US defense condition at DEFCON 2, the infamous doomsday clock could've nearly counted down to zero. the craziest part about this game is that the world map given to you is a featureless war room style map. you're hidden in a bunker, all the while not seeing what you're actually hitting in person. you get to see your country burn
"They said it's the end of the world... it happen's, none of us are prepared, none of us, known this could happen, we did everything we can to not let that happen, but it happens.... Year's of peace ended when the politicians cares about power, money and prestige, they ended the world with a single button, i don't care who started this button, what i care is to know i still alive, i lost my family, my friend's, my beautiful wife and my son in this world... i am alone with my daugther & son, i can not make them like how my wife did, all i know... is another bloody chapter of the world." **Notes of a Survivor unknown**
DEFCON 5 -- Business as Usual DEFCON 4 -- Rise of Tensions DEFCON 3 -- End of Negotiations DEFCON 2 -- The Moment of Hesitation DEFCON 1 -- *ARMAGEDDON*
19:30 In a dark, cold, hallway of control panels. Max: (writing down codes and lines upon lines of encryptions) Murphy: .... Max: make sure you write down the coordinates for Malta. (Coffee cup smashes on the ground in the distance) ???: Oh GOOOODDD NOOOooooo Why GOD!!!! (Sobs) M.O.: hey hey get it together please it's only a screen.... Max: it's not Its a screen of what is happening out there. (Long beep eminates from Murphy's panel) Murphy: (exhales sharply and trembles) Max: Murphy, you good? Murphy: ..... N- n- I don't know Max: (peaks at Murphy's panel) (It reads in green almost congratulatory, "Hit successful") -murphy's hand begin to shake almost like never before his hands grasping the pencil like a long list item, upon seeing this Max knows well what's happening- Murphy: what the are we doing Max... Max: I know but I prefer not say.... ( The screen reads "Hit successful, Vienna struck, approximate count: 2.9m") -murphy's realization hits him, hits him hard unlike ever before- Murphy: 2.9 million people dead Max by mY FUCKING HAND MAXWELL (he begins to tear up and let's his sadness out) Max: hey hey calm down you on- Murphy: how can I calm down Max, my father was a murderer and killed three people, I killed three MILLION BY THE FUCKING PRESS OF BUTTON!!! Max: I know, and we can't do anything Murphy I'm sorry. (Begins to comfort him) *pan outwards* - a dark room of halls with screens far that the eye can see, red, green, yellow, blue lights flicker and luminate the darkness of the factory of death, as each flickering light indicates the inevitable death that is the cities that we're chosen to destroy, sobs and screams of agony and guilt are only heard through out the gloomy and depressing space that is the control room were you are given the key to total destruction-
At 15:00 it’s extremely frightening. The deafening silence of the world after multiple Nuclear explosions sends chills down my spine. Deaths in the billions, globe enters a deep famine and nations torn apart. There’s nothing… nothing.
What disturbs me like all we can see is just a digital screen of real time war but we would be always wondering what is actually going on in the actual war.
