''Nuclear War'' is a single player turn-based strategy game developed by New World Computing and released for the

Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers introduced by Commodore in 1985. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16- or 32-bit processors, 256 KB or more of RAM, mouse-based GUIs, and significantly improved graphi ...

in 1989 and later for MS-DOS. It presents a

satirical Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming or e ...

, cartoonish nuclear battle between five world powers, in which the winner is whoever retains some population when everyone else on earth is dead.

Gameplay

The game's introduction includes an homage to '' Dr. Strangelove''. Each player - one human, four computer-controlled - is represented by a caricature of a national leader (the MS-DOS version allowed more than one human player). If there is a computer-controlled winner at the end of the game, that leader is depicted jumping for joy in the middle of a blasted wasteland, crowing "I won! I won!". If the player wins only the high score board is shown. Once a player (computer or human) loses, all of their stockpiled weapons are automatically launched. It is possible for a game to have no winner because of this. If this happens, a cut scene of the earth shattering and exploding is shown, and the high score table appears (though without any new entries).

Characters

The following characters are available in the game; the public figure being satirized is listed in parentheses. *Ronnie Raygun (

Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...

) *P.M. Satcher ( Margaret Thatcher) *Infidel Castro (

Fidel Castro Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (; ; 13 August 1926 – 25 November 2016) was a Cuban revolutionary and politician who was the leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2008, serving as the prime minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976 and president from 1976 to 200 ...

) *Col. Malomar Khadaffy ( Muammar al-Gaddafi) *Ayatollah Kookamamie (

Ruhollah Khomeini Ruhollah Khomeini, Ayatollah Khomeini, Imam Khomeini ( , ; ; 17 May 1900 – 3 June 1989) was an Iranian political and religious leader who served as the first supreme leader of Iran from 1979 until his death in 1989. He was the founder of ...

) *Mao the Pun ( Mao Zedong) *Jimi Farmer ( Jimmy Carter) *Tricky Dick ( Richard Nixon) *Mikhail Gorabachef (

Mikhail Gorbachev Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet politician who served as the 8th and final leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country's dissolution in 1991. He served a ...

) *Ghanji ( Mahatma Gandhi)

Reception

In the July 1990 edition of '' Games International'' (Issue 16), Brian Walker didn't think this was a particularly challenging game, commenting, "All good clean fun with nothing to stretch the brain cells." He concluded by giving the game a rating of 7 out of 10 for gameplay and 8 out of 10 for graphics, saying, "What lifts the game above average is the omnipresent humour." In the July 1990 edition of ''

Dragon A dragon is a reptilian legendary creature that appears in the folklore of many cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but dragons in western cultures since the High Middle Ages have often been depicted as ...

'' (Issue #159), Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk Lesser characterized the game as "challenging", despite its tongue in cheek humour. However, they were disappointed that only one player could play the game at a time. Nevertheless, they gave the game an above-average rating of 4 out of 5. In the October 1990 edition of ''

Computer Gaming World ''Computer Gaming World'' (CGW) was an American computer game magazine published between 1981 and 2006. One of the few magazines of the era to survive the video game crash of 1983, it was sold to Ziff Davis in 1993. It expanded greatly through ...

'', Chuck Moss favorably reviewed the game's graphics, fast and brief game play, and humorous computer opponents. Surveys of opinions about wargames with modern settings conducted for ''Computer Gaming World'' in 1992 and 1994 awarded the game a rating of 3 out of 5.

References

External links

Gameplay

Characters

Reception

See also

References

External links