War Games

"A bit better than Missile Command"

I never much liked Missile Command as I felt it was too abstract, but I think War Games for Coleco Vision improves on it slightly. It's a bit of a take-off on the movie's end, only there actually is a nuclear strike in War Games. Your main object, as Professor Falken controlling the country's nuclear defenses, is to hold off the strike for five minutes of real time. The country's Defcon(along with that of six sectors) is shown on a command screen, and it dictates what you try to do. If at the end of the time the country has been at Defcon 1 for less than a minute, you win the game, and your points, based on what you've saved, are tallied. They generally increment by millions, and I think this may be the first game where I scored a million, which was a big thrill then and still pretty neat now. The Russians have several ways of attacking--submarine, plane, or missile--and you can defend with planes, missiles, or a satellite that goes through the zones in a predetermined path. The game allows you a little more time than Missile Command does to pick your spots to fire in(I mean, with six different sectors, it better, but the difference is REALLY significant,) making it less of an adrenaline rush and more of a cerebral challenge.

The game controls are pretty confusing at first. With all the options it's a bit tough to grasp what's going on, and although you can get through the game just with ABM's(ground missiles) on the lowest difficult level(there are eight) to get better requires a lot more savvy. The controls for sub-missile, satellite, interceptor jets and ABM's are thankfully separate except for, of course, moving the target. Having the full view of the USA with the DEFCONs of six areas, which you can swap between with ease, is nice as well. You really feel like you're in charge of the country's defense systems. Some nice touches of the play is that one sort of missile can't do everything--for instance, ABM missiles only have so much range, and they can't hit a submarine even if it's in range. Unlike Missile Command there are no chain reactions of explosions, but there's no need, either.

The graphics are pretty good for the time--it's clear where the cities and the attack and defense are. Your missiles are more than carets that change into straight lines, and just having the US graphics makes you feel as though you're defending something worth defending. There are charred remains where a city or military base is no more. In the area of sound, there are the general sort of alert sirens and the unfortunate typewriter noise(I hate it when games revert to the typewriter!) at the game's start and end.

That the game lasts exactly five minutes means you don't have to waste a lot of time trying to get a new high score. Although the game probably doesn't deserve too much more than five minutes, it's an interesting diversion, and with the different levels you can improve your game without having to play way too much. It's hardly classic and not terribly original, but it's the sort of more-than-decent console games that were the trademark of the Coleco.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 12/10/00, Updated 12/10/00