Nuclear War is a single player turn-based strategy game. It presents a satirical, cartoonish nuclear battle between five world powers. In the game, you have to blow the four opposing factions to smithereens – sometimes literally through a nuclear strike! You have various options to win, sometimes you can fire a missile or try to lure their population using propaganda. Occasionally a random event occurs, for example aliens would land on one of the factions and the population suddenly grows, or someone throws cows at the opposition, causing a major stampede and killing millions – creating some interesting repercussions to your well-laid plans!

The game is played between five players, four of which are computer controlled and chosen from a selection of 10 satirised “World Leaders” of the past decades (like Ronald Reagan or Mikhail Gorbachev). Each leader is given a country with five different populated cities and once a leader’s five cities are destroyed, he is out of the game. The objective in the game includes building up a decent arsenal, protecting your own cities and destroying the enemy ones by hurling propaganda or flaming nuclear death at them to be the last surviving player at the end.

Please note that we do not condone violence in games or in life. Remember this is a game in the 80s and as a child in those days where you get to have the “power” to make huge decisions like firing a missile is empowering! The game mechanic is interesting as it provides the player the opportunity to make strategic plans slowly due to the turn-based approach and implement, see what happens after. As various outcomes may occur after decisions are made, the game created a very real-world type decision-making matrix to see how to achieve victory. Very entertaining game!