Page 17 - OSG Presents Classic Gamer Magazine #6

S S We see lots of games
where one empties
o it's 1980, and
we're all playing
Missile Command, that endless clips of ammo
into evil foes, watching
brutally brilliant game by their pixellated blood
Atari featuring strategy, spill out onto the bit-
sacrifice, death and de- mapped floor. But
struction. You know, ac- why are we afraid to
cording to legend, the make Missile Com-
game was originally go- mand about Soviet
ing to be called Armaged- ICBMs? Are we, per-
don, but the marketing haps, being just a little
folks at Atari were wor- too ultra-politically-
ried that Armageddon correct here?
was an egregiously multi- Or could it be that,
syllabic term synonymous bearing in mind the
with mass-destruction recent destruction of a
(i.e. - they thought the Russian nuclear sub-
word was too big and ob- marine under mysteri-
scure to be a game title). PlayStation version of Missile Command in ous circumstances, along with the
But what was the game about? Of 1999, only to find that, rather than Soviet subsequent refusals of U.S. assis-
that, there was absolutely no doubt. So- ICBMs (hell, even an unspecified Middle tance and other odd behaviors dis-
viet ICBMs raining death from the sky. Eastern country's ICBMs would do), I'm still played by Russia's government, we're
And hey, even though those of us who shooting down alien projectiles. afraid of jinxing perestroika and kick-
grew up with Atari were too young to re- 'Scuse me while I alien projectile-vomit starting a new Cold War?
member the bomb shelter days of the here. This fundamental change to Missile The "alien missile" gag is an
1950s and 60s, we were around to wit- Command has always bothered me. alarming cop-out. Even the Com-
ness Ronald Reagan's verbally-shoot- I had hoped, when buying the newfan- mand & Conquer series of computer
from-the-hip presidency - the days of call- gled update of Atari's Cold War classic, games wasn't afraid - at least initially -
ing the Soviets an "evil empire." The that perhaps enough time had passed that to make its premise that of an alter-
early 1980s were the days of Missile the game's original premise - the very nate history of an all-out U.S.-Soviet
Command, TV and magazine speculative same one that, by all accounts, had given war. But Missile Command existed
articles on nuclear winter, and movies like the programmer of the original arcade during the Cold War, and for the sin
Testament and The Day After. game wake-up-in-a-cold-sweat night- of thrusting incoming nukes and
It was still enough, in other words, to mares - would be restored. Not so. It's still mushroom clouds before the eyes of
scare the piss out of you. a tremendously fun game, the new graph- impressionable kids everywhere - in
And then Atari brought Missile Com- ics are fantastic while maintaining the feel their own living rooms, no less! - it
mand home to the VCS. But this time, of the original, but I think Hasbro/Atari was sentenced to be forever watered
gone were the Russkies' gleaming, copped out on this one. down with a cheesy storyline.
screaming needles of atomic death, re- Why am I so adamant that these mis- My only consolation is that it's still
placed with - get this! - alien projectiles. siles should be from across an ocean fun to shoot down all those missiles
Now, in truth, it was still the same game, rather than from across the vastness of until the inevitable end…
and I didn't play it any less for the change space? Because it makes the game scar-
in its already-paper-thin "storyline." But ier. In this day and age, manufacturers
imagine my disgust when I pick up the don't seem to have a problem with that.

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Classic Gamer Magazine Spring 2001 17