A Tense November 1983
November 1983. Relations between the United States and the Soviet Union are at one of their worst moments. NATO decides to carry out the military exercise Able Archer 83, and Soviet commanders have no better idea than to misinterpret it. ICBM is a game that places you in the skin of a lieutenant in command of 50 nuclear missiles. In other words, you are the man with the thumb on the red button…
… if there really were one. As we already know well, the deployment of nuclear weapons requires multiple confirmations at different stages, with the aim of avoiding any system error or false alarm. However, the world was a completely different place in 1983. During the month of September, Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov saved the world by recognizing a supposed American attack as a failure in the detection system…
But a few days earlier, the Soviet Union had committed the terrible error of shooting down a Korean commercial airliner, believing it was a spy plane. The Reagan administration called the incident “a crime against humanity” and “an act of barbarism, of inhuman brutality”. Needless to say, the high commands of both countries were the equivalent of exposed nerves.
The Game: ICBM
That's when we get to ICBM, a game developed by the folks at Repvblic Software. Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to take command of 50 nuclear missiles and stay on alert for eight hours, ready to respond to the slightest provocation from Soviet forces. The game counts 2.5 minutes per second, but even so, the missions are loaded with barely tolerable tension.
ICBM recommends playing with headphones, and we join that recommendation. Each sound of the equipment and each strange noise increases the alert level. The screens display multiple data at once, and to this are added the DEFCON state lights, always vigilant.
Historical Accuracy
The historical accuracy of ICBM is absolute, and we can say this without fear of being wrong because… well, everyone who decides to download the game can verify it directly. The pixel art, the advertisements of the era, and the political propaganda turn ICBM into a wonderful experience, with a very particular sense of humor.
https://old.neoteo.com/simulacion-de-guerra-nuclear-a-gran-escala/
