Nice article. Missile command was very unique not just because of the game design but the rollerball control (rather than joystick). I remember feverishly whipping that ball around while trying to blast all the missiles.
The creation of Missile Command and the haunting of its creator, Dave Theurer
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Re: The creation of Missile Command and the haunting of its creator, Dave Theurer
#22There was a documentary about a guy who tries to break the high score for Missile Command. Unlike a lot of modern games, there is no ending so you can keep playing the game until you inevitably lose
One quarter. Two days. No pause button.
http://www.highscoremovie.com/
The 30-year old record for Missile Command was just broken recently:
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/03/55-hours-81m-points-an...
It's theoretically possible to build up so many extra cities that you can actually take a 30 minute break in the game.
Re: The creation of Missile Command and the haunting of its creator, Dave Theurer
#23Re: The creation of Missile Command and the haunting of its creator, Dave Theurer
#24For anybody looking for another nuclear-apocalypse-based low-graphics game, DEFCON (http://www.introversion.co.uk/defcon/) did a really good job of expanding into an RTS.
Re: The creation of Missile Command and the haunting of its creator, Dave Theurer
#25Growing up during the cold war, it was dogma that a Soviet "bolt from the blue" could occur at any moment and end everything, everywhere. That gave the game deep relevance.
That threat was far less contrived than our current "war on terror" (two superpowers really did have a gazillion mega weapons) but history tells us that the most likely trigger for it happening would've been human or machine error, not some attempt at empire expansion.
Quite possibly the fall of the Soviet Union was a surprise to the powers that be, since it took ten years to develop a replacement war. Ten years during which we enjoyed one of the most prosperous and fiscally positive eras in modern US history.
Re: The creation of Missile Command and the haunting of its creator, Dave Theurer
#26I asked a coworker who was from Russia about what their experience was during the Cold War, and whether or not people were afraid of nuclear war. He said that everyone in Russia just laughed it off, and they knew that nothing would ever happen.
This is in stark contrast to everyone in the US that I knew. We were bombarded with propaganda about how nuclear war could occur at any second. Movies like "The Day After" (which I was too scared to watch), "Red Dawn", etc, just made things worse. It's funny when you look back how suckered in Americans were vs Russians. It was basically like the 1950s Red-Scare all over again, or as some would say, today's war against terrorism.
Re: The creation of Missile Command and the haunting of its creator, Dave Theurer
#27Growing up during the cold war, it was dogma that a Soviet "bolt from the blue" could occur at any moment and end everything, everywhere. That gave the game deep relevance. That threat was far less contrived than our current "war on terror" (two superpowers really did have a gazillion mega weapons) but history tells us that the most likely trigger for it happening would've been human or machine error, not some attemp…
Ten years during which we enjoyed one of the most
prosperous and fiscally positive eras in modern US history.
Re: The creation of Missile Command and the haunting of its creator, Dave Theurer
#28Just a warning, flickering light near the bottom. No idea how epilepsy works but best to be safe...
That would definitely be an epilepsy trigger. Hell, I don't even have epilepsy and I had to cover the image with my hand just to be able to finish reading the article.
Re: The creation of Missile Command and the haunting of its creator, Dave Theurer
#29I asked a coworker who was from Russia about what their experience was during the Cold War, and whether or not people were afraid of nuclear war. He said that everyone in Russia just laughed it off, and they knew that nothing would ever happen. This is in stark contrast to everyone in the US that I knew. We were bombarded with propaganda about how nuclear war could occur at any second. Movies like "The Day After" (wh…
Doesn't this say more about the morals of America vs Russia than anything else?
Russians knew Americans would never do that to them, but Americans did not. (It doesn't matter if Russians would or would not, that's how they were viewed.)
Re: The creation of Missile Command and the haunting of its creator, Dave Theurer
#30Great read. But I honestly had to read it while awkwardly covering up parts of my browser window. Some of those large animated GIFs are super distracting.
Try Readability - http://www.readability.com/
I press a hotkey and my browser loads a page with just the relevant text, no distractions.