Introversion are neither "the last of the bedroom programmers", nor actually that good, IMO. I found Defcon...dull. As usual for them, both the action and the strategy elements are disappointingly shallow. I wanted to like this one, becuase the basic idea should be good, but any game you can walk away from for an hour and come back to find that you've won is doing something wrong. The atmosphere was a nonexistant mixture of elevator music and trundling line-art (it might be tense if there were any real penalty to being nuked, but, as long as you've emptied everything on a higher-population enemy, you've won). Mind you, I thought that Darwinia was ugly, rather than "retro", too.
I think MAD did the whole global thermonuclear warfare game a lot better a few years back (although was likewise troubled by a fiddly interface). All this reminds me, though, that I must dig out a tenner for Armadillo Run, which is the result of a bedroom programmer with a good idea, a good implementation, and a lot less pretense.
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zvi and
Bah.
Date: 2006-10-06 01:34 pm (UTC)I think MAD did the whole global thermonuclear warfare game a lot better a few years back (although was likewise troubled by a fiddly interface). All this reminds me, though, that I must dig out a tenner for Armadillo Run, which is the result of a bedroom programmer with a good idea, a good implementation, and a lot less pretense.