'Aftermath': In Full 'Crisis' Mode
"Cuban Missile Crisis" finds factions battling even after nuclear war.
(Strategy First)
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The fall of 1962 was probably about as close as the world has ever come to destroying itself. President John F. Kennedy demanded that Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev remove nuclear missile launching sites from Cuba. The two superpowers flexed their muscles, and kids in school practiced duck-and-cover drills. In the end, Russia blinked and the crisis was averted.
But what if nuclear war had erupted instead? That's what the military simulation game "Cuban Missile Crisis: The Aftermath" attempts to answer.
In the scenario, almost 90 percent of the population of the United States is wiped out. Europe is decimated. Russia faces the freeze of a nuclear winter. And still the world keeps fighting. In the game, a conventional war with scattered units trying to eke out an existence for their home nations begins almost as soon as the nuclear fires die down. Your missions are mostly to capture supply depots and ammunitions dumps, since whatever is left is all the world has.
You control one of four factions, each with slightly different post-World War II-type units. You can be China, the Soviet Union, the U.S. and British team, or the French and German team, which band together out of desperation.
There are two components to the game. One is a tactical map set on a background that looks like 1950s high technology. This is actually the best part, as you plan where to move your forces. Eventually enemies will meet, and then the game enters a real-time combat interface. While it works for small engagements, the battles quickly get out of hand to the point that no one could possibly control their army. You have to manage everything, including managing ammo and fuel replacement for vehicles, setting up minefields, repairing bridges and hunting down an enemy that always seems to be one step ahead. This gives the computer a tremendous advantage as it fires unseen artillery at you and gives little chance to return fire while you micromanage everything.
The game is an interesting concept, but the intense level of detail (every unit in the world's armies has several paragraphs describing its history and capabilities) seems more suited to thinking turn-based players who, like me, will be quickly overwhelmed when bullets start flying.
-- John Breeden II
Cuban Missile Crisis: The Aftermath Teen, PC Windows 98/ME/2000/XP ($30) Strategy First
