In which the theme is subverted, slightly

The world lies before me, continents outlined by a cerulean sea. My cities are tiny vector-graphics gems of green against the black of the united states. On the other side of the world, a red constellation marks the homesteads of the Soviet Union.

Words flash across the screen--DEFCON 5--and a warning klaxon sounds against the eerie ambient backdrop: orchestral swells and human voices, garbled radio and the coughs of the dying.

I will have only moments to place my radar dishes and silos, my airbases and fleets. Only moments to prepare for this, the final war. In only a few dozen heartbeats--DEFCON 4--the fleets will begin to move, and soon thereafter, fighters will scramble--DEFCON 3--as bombers are readied, and battle will be joined in the seas and the air.

Carriers and battleships will explode amid the tangled swarm of fighters and bombers dogfighting above the seas--DEFCON 2--as submarines attempt to slip by undetected, carrying a fatal payload into the heart of enemy territory.

And then--DEFCON 1--the missiles will come, first from submarines and bombers, and then from silos as defense is abandoned in favor of the annihilation of the enemy.

Cities will die. Nations will fall. And the irradiated ruins will linger for thousands of years. I will count myself extraordinarily lucky if I maintain even half my population through the next fifteen minutes.

This is Introversion Software's DEFCON, and it doesn't have to deliver its compelling tactical and strategic gameplay at the breakneck pace above, but I have never experienced anything else quite like the experience of watching the world go to hell in less than fifteen minutes.

Change the game-mode, and you can dial back the speed as far as you like, micromanaging the naval battles and watching the missiles arc slowly inward towards your city, portents of doom for millions of people.

You can watch, gripped by an incredible sense of anxiety, as missile after missile pour out of your air defense silos to intercept. Sometimes they succeed, but sometimes... a bright burst of white, an abscence of noise so loud it hurts, and emotionless text to fill the silence, telling you what was hit, and how many are dead.

The strategy of this game is deep, and can include metagame options, like forming and dissolving alliances, that, combined with its online multiplayer modes, provide games that can last for hours and still feel gripping. However, the online community is fairly small.

When the game came out, the usual forum suspects at Penny Arcade had a Game On thread, where they arranged games and discussed them afterwards, and generally exchanged stories. This thread died down after only two or perhaps three days, which confounded some members of the forumes who had only picked up the game a few days later, and come looking for people to play it with.

Everyone in the thread agreed that the game was beautiful in its simplicity, that the graphics were compelling and unique, that the gameplay was polished although some felt that Europe's position on the map gave it an unfair advantage. Apparently, the real world's geography was not created with game balance sufficiently in mind.

But the overwhelming response on the part of the thread's participants was that, while they had enjoyed the game, in some instances immensely, for its gameplay and opportunities for treachery and backstabbing, they felt that they had experienced everything it had to offer, and were comfortable moving on. And there was something eerie about experiencing nuclear cataclysm through such a stark and uncompromising lens.

The game's tagline, after all is Everyone Dies. Scrolling information in the background of the main menu discusses likelihood of surviving various levels of radiation exposure, and the halflives of radioactive subtances and isotopes, or the kiloton yield of the first nuclear weapon tested by each nation in the world. This is not a happy game about achieving your dreams and saving the world. There are no Pokemon here, nor any invading alien menace.

I find it intensely compelling nontheless. I always play with the score set to Survivors mode: you get no points for killing, only for keeping your own citizens alive. Of course, you can still reduce other player's scores by destroying their populations, and I do this, although usually only near the end of the game. In the beginning, I focus on destroying their offensive capabilities as quickly as possible, while maintaining my defense at all costs. Every time, I am hoping that maybe this time I'll make it through without losing a single city. Maybe this time, I'll find some cause for hope.

You see, I began playing this game while taking a 400-level Political Science course, Nuclear Deterrence Theory and Defense. While I know the game is in no way an accurate simulation of real world technologies--for one thing, the defensive missile emplacements I rely upon have no basis is reality--it feels significant somehow, even if it is just the toy soldiers version. I like to think that even though right now in the real world there are half a dozen nations with nuclear weapons ready to launch at any moment, maybe everything will be all right.

Of course, if things have gotten to the point that this game loosely simulates, we're all probably all doomed anyway. Unless we aren't.

Last night, I was sitting on a couch at my ex-girlfriend's, watching a movie, when we heard explosions outside. We'd been hearing fireworks all night, but these were way louder and closer, and a lot of them close together.

We convinced ourselves, briefly, that it was nothing. Just earlier that day, an entire string of firecrackers had been set off just down the street. She'd remarked that it sounded like a machine-gun going off.

When people started to gather outside, and discuss loudly, we decided otherwise. We heard "nine millimeter", "shotgun", "body" and "ambulance". A quick glance out the window did, indeed, show an ambulance going past, and a car whose windows were full of bullet holes.

The next couple hours were... highly unpleasant, as we tried to come to terms with the fact that someone had just been killed outside, and to get in touch with her room-mate, who had gone out to walk her partner home about half an hour before this happened.

When we finally calmed down, decided to go to my place for the night, and went outside, we talked to the cops, and asked what had actually happened.

We remembered eight, or maybe twelve gunshots. They told us it had been fifteen. Two men, one in a car, one on the street, had gotten into a gunfight, and exchanged shots at length. End result?

One man uninjured. The other lost a toe. He was the one in the ambulance.

Sometimes, mutual destruction isn't quite so assured after all. But don't bank on it.