Missile Command and the Cold War

[CygnusZ]

I'm 20, a little too young to remember the cold war with any sense of fear. However, I have been playing been video games since I was five, and one of the games I used to love in my youth was "Missile Command". Recently I played a silly webgame that operated on the same principle and realized that Missile Command was just as much about the fear of nuclear holocaust as it was a silly little twitch game. After all, it's a game where nuclear weapons (probably ICBM's) rain down on the player and he has to keep on shooting them down. They just keep on coming and coming, there is no such thing as saving your cities, the destruction of your people is totally inevitable.

Doing a little web search on google for "missile command cold war" I found a website which interestingly enough concurred with my opinion. It was rather surprising to read that: "For this reason, [the inevitability of Nuclear Holocaust, no matter how well you do in the game] the game was known to sometimes have a powerful effect on its players with frequent reports of having nightmares of nuclear holocaust after extended playing." That's quite surprising, although it makes sense in light of recent evidence. Recent studies have shown that people whom have played Tetris have dreams that involve spinning blocks!

Has anybody else here thought of Missile Command in this way? Can they perhaps point to any other games that also provide clever metaphores for other things?

[vovan]

Nope, never thought about it that way. Very interesting perspective though. Off to ponder it some more.

[Carolus Rex]

Re: Missile Command and the Cold War

Originally posted by CygnusZ
Has anybody else here thought of Missile Command in this way? Can they perhaps point to any other games that also provide clever metaphores for other things?

Hello,

I'm 33. Too young to have a grasp of real cold war fear (like during the Cuba crisis), but old enough to remember the movie War Games (featuring a young Matthew Broderick), which combines technophobia and the Soviet threat...

I think many games play on our fears. Fear of the unknown, fear of the dark, fear of the future, and (obviously!) fear of various dangerous creatures and monsters. This is not exactly what you asked for, but one obvious metaphor in many, many games is the struggle between good and evil.

I liked Missile Command a lot. In fact, it's available from Hasbro Interactive in an updated PC version (yes, they call it 3D-rendered, sigh...). The original still rules!

Carolus

[CygnusZ]

I actually can recall another game that fits this pattern... Sid Meier's Civilization! Your civilization goes from a kernel to greatness, continually expanding. Here's the key: if you examine the gameplay mechanics there is one form of government which becomes superior than the rest... Democracy! If you think about Civilization games, Democracy is almost always the only reasonable way to go. Most people switch to it as soon as it becomes viable. Civilization isn't just an empire builder, it's also about the inherent superiority of Democracy over all other forms of government!

[vovan]

Originally posted by CygnusZ
I actually can recall another game that fits this pattern... Sid Meier's Civilization! Your civilization goes from a kernel to greatness, continually expanding. Here's the key: if you examine the gameplay mechanics there is one form of government which becomes superior than the rest... Democracy! If you think about Civilization games, Democracy is almost always the only reasonable way to go. Most people switch to it as soon as it becomes viable. Civilization isn't just an empire builder, it's also about the inherent superiority of Democracy over all other forms of government!

Interesting! And I think as the cold war has worn off, the latter installments of Civilization don't necessarily carry the same message any more. I know in Civ3, at least, many people choose Communism over Democracy, especially during the times of war. Well, that may actually still go along the same lines as you are saying: portraying Communism as this war-mongering form of government. Now, what I am wondering is: is this a conscious design decision, or more of an inherent pattern that stems from the fact that the game was developed in the US? I mean, it certainly does carry a strong American influence, but I'd guess it results mostly from who developed the game rather than some conscious design decisions.

And that makes sense. When you design a game of such proportions and political implications, I imagine it would be hard to change your mentality to incorporate a variety of views, and it is more or less automatic that you try to portray the world the way you see it.

[Nubclear]

SMAC, luckily, was able to transcend such steriotypes.

[DrSpike]

I'm way too young for cold war memories, but Missile Command was a staple in the arcades. A classic.

[FlameFlash]

Re: Re: Missile Command and the Cold War

Originally posted by Carolus Rex


Hello,

I'm 33. Too young to have a grasp of real cold war fear (like during the Cuba crisis), but old enough to remember the movie War Games (featuring a young Matthew Broderick), which combines technophobia and the Soviet threat...

Great movie, great movie!

I think many games play on our fears. Fear of the unknown, fear of the dark, fear of the future, and (obviously!) fear of various dangerous creatures and monsters. This is not exactly what you asked for, but one obvious metaphor in many, many games is the struggle between good and evil.

And the fear that evil might win.

I liked Missile Command a lot. In fact, it's available from Hasbro Interactive in an updated PC version (yes, they call it 3D-rendered, sigh...). The original still rules!

Carolus

I have a version on my PDA that I play from time to time when I'm bored before classes...

I actually can recall another game that fits this pattern... Sid Meier's Civilization! Your civilization goes from a kernel to greatness, continually expanding. Here's the key: if you examine the gameplay mechanics there is one form of government which becomes superior than the rest... Democracy! If you think about Civilization games, Democracy is almost always the only reasonable way to go. Most people switch to it as soon as it becomes viable. Civilization isn't just an empire builder, it's also about the inherent superiority of Democracy over all other forms of government!

I was thinking about that just the other day. Just thinking, "gee, isn't that biased."

It would also explain why in CivIII that Fanatic religious government isn't available anymore, because in some instances it was better than Democracy.

SMAC, luckily, was able to transcend such steriotypes.

True Tass, and a lot of us know which way you lean.

[Carolus Rex]

Re: Re: Re: Missile Command and the Cold War

Originally posted by FlameFlash

I have a version on my PDA that I play from time to time when I'm bored before classes...

Ok, just confirming my old age here , but what's a PDA?

Carolus

[FlameFlash]

Personal Digital Assistant (I think...)

[geeslaka]

Partially Dismantled Actor

When I played Civ2 I always favored Communism.

[CygnusZ]

I always thought that Fundamentalism was removed as a response to the 9/11 attacks. Firaxis might have been afraid if that ideology was shown to be capable of taking over the world they'd recieve negative press. Just like how the terrorist functions (Poison Water and one other which I forget) of the diplomat were ripped out of the game. As far as the Civilization games go I believe that Civ 2 was the most liberal in permitting alternate ideologies to prevail although we seem to have a few Civ 3er's that favor communism. I always thought it was unfair that fascim is depicted as being a poor government type.

Alpha Centauri was able to have such an open concept of government because none of the options were prone to "hitting home". At least, Sister Miraim's close minded society winning isn't as outright as offensive as watching Fundamentalists rip apart the United States

[Nubclear]

Re: Re: Re: Missile Command and the Cold War

Originally posted by FlameFlash
True Tass, and a lot of us know which way you lean.

Hey! It's not my fault capitalist pigdogs like Sid Meier cannot step above the American steriotype that communism/socialism is some warmongering, evil government!

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by CygnusZ
I actually can recall another game that fits this pattern... Sid Meier's Civilization! Your civilization goes from a kernel to greatness, continually expanding. Here's the key: if you examine the gameplay mechanics there is one form of government which becomes superior than the rest... Democracy! If you think about Civilization games, Democracy is almost always the only reasonable way to go. Most people switch to it as soon as it becomes viable. Civilization isn't just an empire builder, it's also about the inherent superiority of Democracy over all other forms of government!

yeah but thats more than just cold war propaganda - its part of the general Hegelian approach of Civ2. (and original civ?) Read Fukiyama's "the end of history and the last man" and then read my 'poly column "civ2's Hegelian tech tree". and i think you'll see that Civ2 is really a more serious historical game than most give it credit for.

Yeah in Smac brian tried to do something different. He's loaded a LOT of different philisophical ideas in. Maybe i just havent played it enough, but it seems to me that its less coherent philosophically than Civ2, and less interesting for that.

as for civ3, i havnt played it, but its my impression that they made it less historically serious than civ2 - the move to unique civs represented a move to "history on rails" and away from the tabula rasa start that would illustrate broad historical concepts.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by vovansim


Interesting! And I think as the cold war has worn off, the latter installments of Civilization don't necessarily carry the same message any more. I know in Civ3, at least, many people choose Communism over Democracy, especially during the times of war. Well, that may actually still go along the same lines as you are saying: portraying Communism as this war-mongering form of government. Now, what I am wondering is: is this a conscious design decision, or more of an inherent pattern that stems from the fact that the game was developed in the US? I mean, it certainly does carry a strong American influence, but I'd guess it results mostly from who developed the game rather than some conscious design decisions.

And that makes sense. When you design a game of such proportions and political implications, I imagine it would be hard to change your mentality to incorporate a variety of views, and it is more or less automatic that you try to portray the world the way you see it.

but once you have the UN and womens suffrage, and strong production (esp Hoovers) and lots of happiness improvements, Demo can be great for war.

The notion is that early demo (think 1850 to 1930) has economic and technological advantages, but its far from an obvious choice, and a nation likely to conquer may switch to fundie (really fascism) ie Germany in 1933. OTOH a country with a sprawling empire may switch to Commie - IE USSR in 1917. Ultimately late capitalist demo proves capable of war, as well as research and economy, and so is the logical type for everyone. (note that capitalist in this context can include european style social democracy as well as US style free market capitalism)

Civ was designed in the wake of the fall of the Berlin wall, the collapse of the USSR and Leninism, and the spread of democracy in east asia and Latin America. Remaining non-democracies, like China, lacked ideoligical elan. The orientation represents not simply an American bias, but a genuine (if debatable) reading of the post cold war world.

The game is not so much biased, as it represents a very strong and interesting vision of world history. You want a different vision, design a different game. Better i think than games that either ignore such issues.