Features
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License:
Free to try; $17.50 to buy
- Editor's Rating:
- Average User Rating:
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Downloads:
23,305
- Operating Systems:
Windows 2000, Windows XP
- Additional Requirements:
Windows 2000/XP
- Limitations:
Limited gameplay
- Date Added:
October 06, 2006
Publisher's description of Defcon: Everybody Dies demo
It's global thermonuclear war, and nobody wins. But maybe (just maybe) you can lose the least. Defcon lets players compete against up to 6 other opponents online in an all-out nuclear war. Strategically place silos, radar, carriers, submarines in order to save as many of your people as possible, while wreaking havoc on your opponents.
This demo lets you play the tutorial and a single-player game against one AI-controlled opponent. The demo also includes LAN and online play.
Editor's review of Defcon: Everybody Dies demo
stars
- "Shall we play a game?"
- Version reviewed: Defcon: Everybody Dies demo
This real-time strategy game from the creators of Uplink and Darwinia is completely derivative and original at the same time. Borrowing freely from the movie WarGames, Defcon stages a semirealistic game of global thermonuclear war. Though the unique style of the game, complete with ambient music and people occasionally sobbing or coughing in the background, creates an immersive atmosphere, the demo falls just short of a top rating. Occasional crashes and an awkward tutorial detract from the engaging yet creepy multiplayer gameplay.
The action occurs as a clock counts down the minutes and hours from Defcon 5 (the start of the conflict) to Defcon 1 (all-out nuclear war). You have until Defcon 3 to place all your units, which include radar, missile silos, air bases, and fleets, which in turn consist of carriers, battleships, and submarines. Most units have several functions--for example, air bases can launch fully equipped nuclear bombers or fighters that scout enemy locations, and silos double as air-defense and offensive missile launchers. A seven-part tutorial walks you through the basics of the game, culminating in a very easy battle against a computer opponent. Though the tutorial provides a decent introduction to the action, there's no included documentation with the download, leaving it up to gamers to learn hot keys (if there are any) for options such as displaying current orders or radar coverage. Moving the mouse to the edges of the screen lets you navigate around the globe, but without hot keys for those items at the bottom, you may find yourself looking at Africa when you want to highlight orders in northern Europe. We experienced a few game crashes when playing against the computer AI, and contextual tutorial help often interfered with the action. Also, we may have blown our missiles too early, but we often spent time simply waiting for the game timer to run out. Despite these niggling complaints, Introversion has created another unique and polished game that military strategists should enjoy greatly.
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User reviews
- Average user rating: 3.2 stars out of 12 votes
- My rating: 0 stars Write review
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Showing 5 of 11 user reviewsSee all 11 user reviews
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3 out of 4 people found this review helpful
Version: Defcon: Everybody Dies demo
Pros: Introversion has done it again. Through their ingenuity and simple design, they have created an amazing, slower but still fun Real-Time Strategy game.
The premise is simple: use your units to fire nukes, bombs, bombers, ships, and more at the opposition. But it's all slower than your regular match of StarCraft: a single nuke can take upward into five minutes to run it's course (unless you kick up the speed dial at the top of the screen). This creates a tension that you have to experience, because it's less about the units and the power, and more about the player's interaction with each other. The graphics look really simple but cool, kind of a glowey, Tron sort of vibe.
This demo includes a tutorial, a computer to play against, and the limited ability to play against full-version internet players who don't have another demo player bothering them. This can give you hours of entertainment alone, and for such a small file, I can't recommend this highly enough.
Cons: It did not work with my older graphics card, which is equal to some aging dedicated graphics sets (a 32mb RivaTNT2). But as soon as I upgraded to a (pitifully weak) GeForce 200 MX, it moved like a dream. The memory was fine, I suspect this requires OpenGl support, or some of the special stuff on the GeForce.
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0 out of 1 people found this review helpful
Version: Defcon: Everybody Dies demo
Pros: ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
Cons: REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY SLOW GAME PLAY. GRAPHICS ARE EXTREMELY POOR. MUSIC IS VERY VERY ANNOYING. ABSOLUTELY NO SOUND EFFECTS. ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF WHY THIS SITE HAS BECOME A DUMPING GROUND FOR SOFTWARE EVEN MAJOR RETAILERS REFUSE TO CARRY. BEST BUY HAD THIS GAME FOR LESS THAN A WEEK BEFORE IT WAS PULLED FROM THEIR SHELVES. A TOTAL JOKE.
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1 out of 1 people found this review helpful
Version: Defcon: Everybody Dies demo
Pros: Incredible gameplay combined with an engine that'll run like a dream on any system make DEFCON: Everbody Dies one of the most intriguing and unsettling games in the market today.
Cons: No scalable AI, and no real "single player campaign", but when you think about it, why would there be?
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2 out of 3 people found this review helpful
Version: Defcon: Everybody Dies demo
"Pretty cool. But probebly the most violant game I've ever seen."
Pros: -Very simple interface and controls.
-Easy to learn.
-Nice and simple graphics, very effective.
-Very original game.
-Personizable interface colors.
Cons: -I don't like the principle of having to kill billions of innocent people to win.
-Gets borring after a while.
-It's a demo version, so you can forget custom maps or anything like that.
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2 out of 2 people found this review helpful
Version: Defcon: Everybody Dies demo
Pros: Almost perfect gameplay. Highly tactical.
- See all 11 user reviews Write review
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