First Strike: Nuclear Dawn - Blindflug Studios - iOS (2014)

If you’ve ever sat on the bus, mucking about on your phone on your way to work and thought “I’d just like to blow the world up with nuclear warheads” this is the game for you! In all serious though, Blindflug Studios have created a pretty solid nuke-em-up.

First Strike: Nuclear Dawn is a bite-sized portion of the apocalypse. You take control of a nuclear superpower and are given the keys to the “Big Red Button”. Being developed for tablets and phones alike it seems to sit nicely in a market without too many real-time strategy games and uses the touch nature of input to its full advantage.

You can expand into another region with two finger taps. Build a nuke with two finger taps and launch an all-out attack against a rival nation with two finger taps. In fact, there’s not much you can’t do that will take more than two taps. You can pinch and rotate the world, set up your defences and quickly scout to see which regions your neighbouring rivals are invading. The developers have taken full advantage of their simple control method by making this a pretty fast paced title. Stall too long building your defences and expanding into other regions and you’ll quickly be feeling the wrath of your impatient neighbours. Expanding and building your resources is a very easily accomplishable task.

The UI is incredibly well suited to the title, one click on a territory will open a radial menu of up to 8 options and you always know how well equipped that specific region through a small overlay on each region. At all times, you know how well structured you are and you are also aware of how many nuclear warheads your rivals are. The feedback it provides when a nuke lands is satisfying, your screen will shake and that familiar image of a mushroom cloud will expand from the Earth. Couple that with the titles “First Strike” attack: which will launch a nuke, within range, from each of your regions at a designated area. You’ll be treated with a few seconds of admiring your handiwork before the warheads come crashing down on their poor victim. You can also improve your already devastating force with a solid research tree which allows for automatic launches of interception nukes, reduced build speeds and visible nuclear warhead trajectories. All very nice additions to the late game when things can get a little hectic.

It allows for some quick thinking strategic plays, for example, if you play as Europe, you’ll want to create some defensive nuclear warheads facing Russia and Korea, but might want to expand into Africa to launch attacks of your own, or you can take your chances and surprise the Americans. The game will continually keep you on your toes, if you think you’ve got enough fire power to take out a nation to your East you’ll probably soon find that you’re being bombarded from West, North and South. The AI doesn’t cheat, but the overlay will show you how well equipped your neighbours are, and the AI obviously knows how well you are doing. It’s a smooth balance between keeping pressure on your rivals to stop them moving into key locations and ensuring you have enough focus to stop enemies from stopping your own progression.

I wanted to blow my opponents away in quicker circumstances. I played with some of the smaller, more geographically challenged nations and even played through as a nation questioning their current political views. For example, as North America I initiated attack on North Korea. Let’s face it, in a nuclear war the American’s would go after the North Koreans before they’d attack Britain. My point here is that it has a message to provide.

Blindflug are a self-proclaimed politically interested bunch of developers and their views do shine through strongly in the title. The introduction to the title mentions that even in 2014 the world has enough power to bomb itself back to the Stone Age. If you nuke a landmark city an overlay shows you how many people you just killed, it doesn’t add anything to the gameplay or the mechanics but gives you a sense that there is no winners in nuclear war. Its summary screen after a game is complete will even provide you with the message of “You Win?” and will show you how many people you killed, how many nations you destroyed and how many megatons of explosives you dropped. I feel that those statistics are less of a pat on the back and more a demonstration of what could honestly happen if one of these nations decided that today was the day to let fly.

It does lack any multiplayer functionality, it’s not a huge gap when you look at what the game is trying to achieve, but I feel that it may even help to provide its message with an even bigger force than it already does. Picture you are sitting with two friends playing First Strike. You are Western Europe, your opponents are Brazil and The United States. They quickly form an alliance and blow you up quicker than you can say “What the deuce?” and in Nuclear War, that could easily happen, and just as quickly! It may take some doing but a multiplayer option would be a huge thumbs up for me for this title.

In all honesty, First Strike: Nuclear Dawn is one of the most well rounded titles I’ve played on iOS and for it to be used for this genre on the tablet/phone platform is a bold, but well thought move. The music is suited to the environment and the sound effects work well when coupled with the UI elements. All of these well-crafted elements create a very immersive gameplay experience that should keep you coming back for more.

My only real concerns are that I’m not sure exactly how much enjoyment you can generate from a game like this when it has been completed on the hardest difficulty, with no multiplayer support. It wasn’t incredibly stable on my iPad mini and crashed occasionally mid fight, but this can obviously be patched closer to release or afterwards. I’m also concerned about the price point, Blindflug haven’t mentioned it anywhere on their material and with zero microtransactions to purchase I’m worried that they’ll price themselves into the “premium” market and have to go toe-to-toe with games such as Final Fantasy VI. Only time will tell when it is released in March on iOS and Android.

First Strike creates an unsettling view of nuclear power in today’s world. As you play, you can’t help but think that this could honestly happen at any moment and that almost takes the fun out of the title. It does make you take a step back and realise that this is still a huge danger in today’s world. It’s one of those rare games where the developer has set out to provide a clear message and delivers on this without being preachy or obnoxious. I tip my hat to Blindflug, a solid and well developed game with a solid message.

I have an update from Blindflug saying that they will have an update for stability in the launch release. Also they’ll be adding a multiplayer option if the game is received well. Go get this when it comes out guys!