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Apparently
it was during the Vietnam War that the people of America
first became thoroughly acquainted with the linguistic
issue-dodging of the government. Euphemisms were used
to make unpalatable things, like the bombing of peasant
farms, sound scientific and inoffensive. Blurring an
issue with long words has since become a hallmark of
American administration, and that's why the anti-missile
satellite defence system is solemnly called the Strategic
Defence Initiative. In any case, a computer game calling
itself 'Star Wars' would probably get into trouble with
George Lucas anyway.
High
Frontier is available on cassette and disk, though
nothing is to be gained by owning the disk version as
the two are identical. The blurb on the jack of the
inlay tries to make it sound like an exciting action-backed
game, but the brief introduction in the tortuous rulebook
gives a more accurate indication of its nature: 'the
player is in charge of the development and actual use
of the SDI system.' This is the only game I've come
across which turns funding and manning scientific research
into an addictive pastime, and despite its slick Activision
packaging and presentation it is very much a strategy
game of the traditional, decision-making sort.
The
icon system for the satelite control menu
The
Strategic Defence Initiative, or Star Wars as the Press
and Mr Gorbachev call it, is basically a good idea.
However, as far as I can gather it doesn't really exist
at the moment and seems to be more of a bargaining tool
at disarmament conferences than anything else. If it
did exist, it would be a system of satellites ranged
around Earth which would, in the event of a Soviet nuclear
attack, attempt to shoot down missiles before they reached
their targets. High Frontier attempts topicality
at the cost of making two large and decidedly dubious
assumptions about the real world; that it is possible
to develop one or even several workable SDI systems,
and that a Soviet missile attack is imminent and inevitable.
Although
the objective of SDI is entirely salutary and definitely
non-aggressive, there is something about the slick reality
of this game that makes me uneasy. I've said several
times now both in ZZAP! and CRASH that the only kind
of war-games I object to on moral grounds are those
that force the player to take sides, and in particular
those that foster the idea that the Soviet Union is
on the brink of attacking us. It's not that I don't
think that people who play strategy games can't tell
the difference between fantasy and reality, it's just
that we absorb cultural assumptions without realising
it and I'm sure that a game which focuses the mind of
a young teenager so sharply on defending the world against
the Big Bad Russians can't be a very peace-provoking
thing.
The
game opens with an options selection screen, which allows
the player to choose between three difficulty levels
and three types of American and Soviet leaders. The
leaders can be hawks, realists or doves. I suspect that
'realist' is another insidious American euphemism, and
'hawk' and 'dove' are self-explanatory. Although I've
tried several different combinations I'm not sure which
makes things easier for the player; if you choose to
have a 'hawk' for an American president you certainly
seem to get more money to spend on developing weapon
systems, and I assume that a Soviet 'dove' staves off
the inevitable bombardment a little longer. There is
little exposure to the mechanism of escalation, apart
from the regular token and unconvincing menace reports,
which tell the player in a random and contrived manner
that the Russians are playing; wargames or deploying
extra units. But one of the major elements in the gameplay
is that nuclear war is inevitable and is coming along
sooner or later, so the player has no power to do anything
about it.
Once
the parameters have been set, the game goes into its
main screen. It's driven by a complicated tree of icons,
which look indecipherable on first loading. Fortunately
all the symbols are explained at length in the rulebook,
with the help of numbered diagrams. The borders of the
main screen show the number and type of satellites in
orbit, while a bank of icons along the bottom allows
access to the various sub-screens.
One
of the icons sets time rolling. A useful feature of
the game's design, and one of its strengths, is that
time is frozen unless the player decides otherwise.
There is none of the frantic absurdity of the real time
strategy game, when manual dexterity becomes almost
as important as it is in an arcade game.
The
most important screen allows the player to build his
own SDI system. There are six types of systems proposed,
all with their own particular strengths and weaknesses.
These are detailed, though not in a very conspicuous
place, in the rulebook. Research projects require funding
and manning, and the player only has so much of each
resource to spend on the system of his choice. System
development is measured in project stages, with each
stage requiring a specified amount of each resource.
The player has to keep up with these demands or the
project will start to founder. Some systems seem to
cost more and take longer to develop than others.
This
procedure is curiously fascinating. Project costs vary,
and completion times vary, and the amount of money which
the President sees fit to grant for each stage is unpredictable;
there is a great sense of satisfaction in seeing a lengthy
and costly project get off the ground. It's difficult
to develop and launch more than three systems in the
time available, and the hope of spreading my resources
more economically the next time encouraged me to press
the fire button for another game.
Once
the system is underway, you can start to launch it in
stages of ten satellites at a time. Another icon controls
this and the arming and disarming of systems. Launches
can fail, which seems to leave you with fewer units
in the air, and neglecting to pay a completed system's
maintenance costs causes it to start falling out of
the sky.
The
game closes with a detailed evaluation of the damage
done by each system, so that the player can assess their
effectiveness in future attempts.
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