Kennedy, Castro, The Cold War, Bay of Pigs, fear, paranoia, Armageddon. While I may not have been anyone near conception to remember the hysteria surrounding the Cuban missile crisis that transpired during the height of the Cold War, it doesn’t take a Mensa candidate to see why a few dozen mobile ICBM platforms parked in Cuba would have fathers and sons digging out bomb shelters in the backyards and basements of every home in North America. To the citizens of the United States, it was a time of abject fear and paranoia. To the rest of the world it looked as though arrogant madmen were about to cover the planet in a nuclear winter. But in a matter of days the citizens of earth were united in a singular unpuckering of sphincters that has never occurred before, nor since. The missiles were removed, the threat neutralized and both sides were able to claim victory. It was a defining moment in the history of our planet. A time when the fate of all was literally hanging in the balance. One wrong move, one misstep, one too many cups of coffee, and the roaches would be using us for charcoal briquettes.
Things could have gone very differently and that is the premise for Cuban Missile Crisis: The Aftermath, a post-apocalyptic real time strategy from Strategy First and developed by G5 Software. Using the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 as the backdrop for a game title is an interesting choice. Not only does it create a solid dramatic theme for the storyline, but it provides a wealth of historical documentation and references that make for a deep and richly textured platform.
And, since it was more than forty years ago, you’d be hard pressed to find a gamer who can actually remember the tension of the time. So, let’s see if we can’t boil down the brink of Armageddon into a simple paragraph. While the roots of the conflict go back to post World War II when a nation was left in disarray, had little food, fewer material, had suffered staggering losses and was financially broken, somehow managed to create its own atomic weapon hot on the heels (and practically identical) to the ones developed but the United States, we’re actually going to start a decade later. In 1958, the PTB’s of the United States government and military decided it would be a fine idea to park a bunch of missiles with their friends in the United Kingdom, Turkey, Italy. Not to be outdone, the Red Army managed to back a coupe in Cuba that put dear Fidel in the drivers seat and by 1962 had managed to sneak a series of their own warheads onto this island paradise located just over one hundred and fifty kilometers from U.S. soil. What followed was nothing more than a the most extraordinary bout of penis measuring the world had ever known. Under an extreme amount of pressure from the military and National Security Council, President John F. Kennedy resisted all attempts to force, bribe or blackmail him into launching a bomber attack on the missile batteries spread throughout the Cuban landscape.
Cuban Missile Crisis: The Aftermath picks up the tension right there by stating the Kennedy did order the assault on Cuba. The attack plan had little better than a 70% chance of knocking out the missiles before they could launch and as the new story goes, they did launch. Missiles fly, troops storm military bases all over the world. By the time Christmas rolls around the planet earth is little more than a frigid crust of blasted glass with half the population of the world gone, basic services destroyed and the remnants of humanity stuggling desperately to piece together the remnants of civilization in order to…keep shooting each other. Sounds like humanity to me.
Despite the destruction, the nations are still at war with whatever is left of their respective arsenals. The strategy is presented on two fronts, a turn based tactical map and a real time, fully rendered, isometric map. The turn based piece is really plain. The interface is terribly awkward and far from intuitive. G5 would have been reaped a great deal more benefit from simply ripping off any other two dimensional map control system, but thankfully this is a small portion of the whole title and you don’t seem to spend much time in map mode.
Once you enter the real time combat mode, the heart of Cuban Missile Crisis: The Aftermath is exposed. Unfortunately it is more like the heart of a 47 year old pasta slurping, three pack a day couch potato than the pumper of a 28 year old triathlete. It works, and works well, but it certainly isn’t all it could be. The animations are smooth, from the rolling motions of the tanks to the jittery creep of a prone soldier. Explosions, disintegrating buildings, molten wrecks of previous adversaries, all of the graphics, terrain and textures are quite good. Problem is, I’ve been here before. The gameplay is nothing special. There must be a dozen games of similar design and feel. This particular title certainly hones and refines this style, but there is nothing to shout from the rooftops.
Strategy First has a reputation for releasing solid titles and this is no exception. It’s too bad the game doesn’t have more to offer.
