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[poppedcollar69]

As far as being the best depiction of nukes in games, Theatre Europe (A.K.A Conflict Europe in the later 16 bit port) is kind of unbeatable, honestly.

It's a strategy game from the late 80s that simulates WW3. Infamously, the game wouldn't allow you to use nuclear weapons unless you had an authorization code that you could only receive by calling an actual phone number.

Calling the number would play a prerecorded message filled with the screams of dying people before saying "If this is what you want... The code is Midnight Sun."

When you actually use nuclear weapons this usually happens.

this one is good

 

[Various Artists]

It is a weapon for breakthroughs, not annihilation. Also surprise nukes.

A very specific tactical niche. Enemy base defended too well? Drop a nuke there to scatter the defenders or wipe them out, or force them to respond otherwise. A mass of enemies approaching? Drop a nuke. It is better against units that buildings really.

Yeah, I know that now but at the time I was expecting complete annihilation!

 

[kyser73]

As far as being the best depiction of nukes in games, Theatre Europe (A.K.A Conflict Europe in the later 16 bit port) is kind of unbeatable, honestly.

It's a strategy game from the late 80s that simulates WW3. Infamously, the game wouldn't allow you to use nuclear weapons unless you had an authorization code that you could only receive by calling an actual phone number.

Calling the number would play a prerecorded message filled with the screams of dying people before saying "If this is what you want... The code is Midnight Sun."

When you actually use nuclear weapons this usually happens.

I was thinking of Theatre Europe when I saw this thread.

Probably the first game I bought on the basis of a magazine review (Zzap!64 Gold Medal).

 

[mrhyderager]

Nukes are the center of the Fallout series, so I think they've got them wrapped up.

Mini-Nukes are awesome (although under-powered, frankly) and any true nuke detonation is pretty epic and carries some significant weight.

Plus the fact that all cars are essentially nukes that you can detonate (accidentally or otherwise) was always a nice touch.

 

[ProgenitorCastle]

lmao, I thought the thread title read Best Dukes in Video Games and was gonna jokingly answer Duke Nukem haha

on-topic: RE3: the thread

 

[MrFrankFontaine]

Nukes in the Civilization series:

https://youtu.be/HXVc050Nank?t=58s

Yup, definitely the most satisfying. You work hard to get that nuke, so the payoff when you get to use it on a Civ that has been pissing you off. Ohhhh....so good.

 

[Tunahead]

the fallout 3 nuke is fucking stupid

Care to explain why?

The Fallout 3 nuke is stupid because it exposes all the weaknesses of the game all by itself.

1) The world building is bad. There's no reason for anyone to live in Megaton. All it has is sheet metal hovels and a nuke that could kill everyone some day, particularly if the protagonist of a Bethesda game came by.

2) The choices you're given are stupid. Defuse the nuke and keep the status quo, or detonate the nuke for the sake of having a big flashy choice. That's all the reason you're given. The old guy asking you to detonate the nuke doesn't have a reason. He just wants nuke to go boom because it would improve the view. His supposedly smart assistant guy doesn't seem to mind that he's working for a fickle moron. No one cares, least of all the people writing these quests.

3) The morality system is stupid. You do Good choices to get Good points and then Good people will see your Good points and think you're a cool guy, and Bad guys will hate you, and vice versa with Bad choices. The choice to burn a populated town off the map in a nuclear holocaust immediately makes this fall apart. Why would slavers think you're a cool guy because you made their living environment more radioactive and removed a source of commodities they trade in? And why would people no longer care that you nuked a town if you get enough Good points for doing Good things?

4) The story is stupid. This one is tangentially related to the nuke. The main quest is about getting a water purifier working. There's several water purifiers already in Megaton. One of them is already working, and another one is fairly easy to fix up, and both of them are safe to use. The plot relevant water purifier required hyper advanced ultra rare miracle technology to even start working and then it still kills people left and right. If you blow up Megaton, no one cares about the loss of apparently vitally important water purification technology, and also one way to get your morality points back to Good is force feeding bottles of purified water to homeless people. No one else cares about purified water. I guess they just have enough. Kind of makes me wonder why I'm jumping through all these hoops for something no one cares about. I had to go through Little Lamplight to complete the main quest. Little Lamplight. No one deserves this.

 

[noonespecial]

The Fallout 3 nuke is stupid because it exposes all the weaknesses of the game all by itself.

1) The world building is bad. There's no reason for anyone to live in Megaton. All it has is sheet metal hovels and a nuke that could kill everyone some day, particularly if the protagonist of a Bethesda game came by.

2) The choices you're given are stupid. Defuse the nuke and keep the status quo, or detonate the nuke for the sake of having a big flashy choice. That's all the reason you're given. The old guy asking you to detonate the nuke doesn't have a reason. He just wants nuke to go boom because it would improve the view. His supposedly smart assistant guy doesn't seem to mind that he's working for a fickle moron. No one cares, least of all the people writing these quests.

3) The morality system is stupid. You do Good choices to get Good points and then Good people will see your Good points and think you're a cool guy, and Bad guys will hate you, and vice versa with Bad choices. The choice to burn a populated town off the map in a nuclear holocaust immediately makes this fall apart. Why would slavers think you're a cool guy because you made their living environment more radioactive and removed a source of commodities they trade in? And why would people no longer care that you nuked a town if you get enough Good points for doing Good things?

4) The story is stupid. This one is tangentially related to the nuke. The main quest is about getting a water purifier working. There's several water purifiers already in Megaton. One of them is already working, and another one is fairly easy to fix up, and both of them are safe to use. The plot relevant water purifier required hyper advanced ultra rare miracle technology to even start working and then it still kills people left and right. If you blow up Megaton, no one cares about the loss of apparently vitally important water purification technology, and also one way to get your morality points back to Good is force feeding bottles of purified water to homeless people. No one else cares about purified water. I guess they just have enough. Kind of makes me wonder why I'm jumping through all these hoops for something no one cares about. I had to go through Little Lamplight to complete the main quest. Little Lamplight. No one deserves this.

citizen_kane_slow_clap.gif

 

[BrhysH]

Empire Earth, one of my favs for sure

 

[Spectone]

Now I'm interested; are there any realistic depictions of nukes out there?

Play DEFCON, also nukes in the civ series often have serious ramifications if they are used.

 

[N30RYU]

the Titan weapon in Forsaken 64

 

[CSJ]

Stop using nukes in fiction like they're OP conventional explosives; it's normalizing the wrong concept.

Who's talking about dying? I suggest you go look at real footage of a nuclear explosion.
It's not just a white flash.

 

[vsMIC]

cod4 mw obviously!

but i also liked the tactical nuke (once per round) in tom clancy endwar, which was not mentioned yet. could not find a gif though.

 

[JBwB]

Probably Call of Duty 4's as that whole scene was quite surprising and intense.

 

[JackAubrey]

As far as being the best depiction of nukes in games, Theatre Europe (A.K.A Conflict Europe in the later 16 bit port) is kind of unbeatable, honestly.

It's a strategy game from the late 80s that simulates WW3. Infamously, the game wouldn't allow you to use nuclear weapons unless you had an authorization code that you could only receive by calling an actual phone number.

Calling the number would play a prerecorded message filled with the screams of dying people before saying "If this is what you want... The code is Midnight Sun."

When you actually use nuclear weapons this usually happens.

Loved that on my Atari ST. Was really powerful and atmospheric. Having to input codes from the manual to launch nukes made it seem all the more daunting.

 

[Shifty]

Not to derail the thread

 

[D4rth Man7iz]

Probably Fallout 3. I don't know if I saw any in 4, so that might look better idk.

There's just a ton of impact. Plus

Spoiler

when you blow up Megaton from Tenpenny Tower, it's beautiful in its own terrible way. Bass goes hard too.

Launching mini nukes is cool as fuck.

Definitely up there. Visually stunning for its time.

 

[RyougaSaotome]

A story related one; Shin Megami Tensei.

After defeating Thor, he launches a nuclear strike on Tokyo and a 30 second timer appears on screen where you're essentially helpless. As it hits, you're teleported to an Abyss-like area until you're ready to return to post nuclear Tokyo—which is 30 years later.

This is the right answer.

Shit comes out of nowhere and when the timer hits you're just like "wait what what???" and have no fucking clue what to do.

You don't see a blast, but dear god is it terrifying.

 

[avengers23]

ICBM Simulator:

 

[Unain]

Fear 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIs1j458jec

or

Fear 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCc8xadq95s

Both pretty good, prefer the first one though.

 

[Mr_Kuschels]

Fear 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIs1j458jec

or

Fear 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCc8xadq95s

Both pretty good, prefer the first one though.

Damn, that does indeed look pretty good!

Edit: Command & Conquer Generals Nuclear Bomb: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhV_n1-gRrM

 

[Woorloog]

Damn, that does indeed look pretty good!

Edit: Command & Conquer Generals Nuclear Bomb: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhV_n1-gRrM

But of course! How can we forget this!

Of course, Generals tops itself. Mass of nuke cannons, nuclear carpet bombing, 20ish nuclear missiles at once...
To this day i dislike the fact the SCUD Storm was a better super because it could do more damage vs GLA while a nuke left GLA holes alive.

 

[SixMachine]

ICBM Simulator:

I played this and even beat the hardest difficulty in person at SXSW(it's either this or dreamhack) like 2 years ago. I gave them my email but they never responded to me, but they gave me a patch they made.

 

[JCHandsom]

The Fallout 3 nuke is stupid because it exposes all the weaknesses of the game all by itself.

1) The world building is bad. There's no reason for anyone to live in Megaton. All it has is sheet metal hovels and a nuke that could kill everyone some day, particularly if the protagonist of a Bethesda game came by.

2) The choices you're given are stupid. Defuse the nuke and keep the status quo, or detonate the nuke for the sake of having a big flashy choice. That's all the reason you're given. The old guy asking you to detonate the nuke doesn't have a reason. He just wants nuke to go boom because it would improve the view. His supposedly smart assistant guy doesn't seem to mind that he's working for a fickle moron. No one cares, least of all the people writing these quests.

3) The morality system is stupid. You do Good choices to get Good points and then Good people will see your Good points and think you're a cool guy, and Bad guys will hate you, and vice versa with Bad choices. The choice to burn a populated town off the map in a nuclear holocaust immediately makes this fall apart. Why would slavers think you're a cool guy because you made their living environment more radioactive and removed a source of commodities they trade in? And why would people no longer care that you nuked a town if you get enough Good points for doing Good things?

4) The story is stupid. This one is tangentially related to the nuke. The main quest is about getting a water purifier working. There's several water purifiers already in Megaton. One of them is already working, and another one is fairly easy to fix up, and both of them are safe to use. The plot relevant water purifier required hyper advanced ultra rare miracle technology to even start working and then it still kills people left and right. If you blow up Megaton, no one cares about the loss of apparently vitally important water purification technology, and also one way to get your morality points back to Good is force feeding bottles of purified water to homeless people. No one else cares about purified water. I guess they just have enough. Kind of makes me wonder why I'm jumping through all these hoops for something no one cares about. I had to go through Little Lamplight to complete the main quest. Little Lamplight. No one deserves this.

Correct

 

[Unknown Soldier]

The Fallout 3 nuke is stupid because it exposes all the weaknesses of the game all by itself.

1) The world building is bad. There's no reason for anyone to live in Megaton. All it has is sheet metal hovels and a nuke that could kill everyone some day, particularly if the protagonist of a Bethesda game came by.

2) The choices you're given are stupid. Defuse the nuke and keep the status quo, or detonate the nuke for the sake of having a big flashy choice. That's all the reason you're given. The old guy asking you to detonate the nuke doesn't have a reason. He just wants nuke to go boom because it would improve the view. His supposedly smart assistant guy doesn't seem to mind that he's working for a fickle moron. No one cares, least of all the people writing these quests.

3) The morality system is stupid. You do Good choices to get Good points and then Good people will see your Good points and think you're a cool guy, and Bad guys will hate you, and vice versa with Bad choices. The choice to burn a populated town off the map in a nuclear holocaust immediately makes this fall apart. Why would slavers think you're a cool guy because you made their living environment more radioactive and removed a source of commodities they trade in? And why would people no longer care that you nuked a town if you get enough Good points for doing Good things?

4) The story is stupid. This one is tangentially related to the nuke. The main quest is about getting a water purifier working. There's several water purifiers already in Megaton. One of them is already working, and another one is fairly easy to fix up, and both of them are safe to use. The plot relevant water purifier required hyper advanced ultra rare miracle technology to even start working and then it still kills people left and right. If you blow up Megaton, no one cares about the loss of apparently vitally important water purification technology, and also one way to get your morality points back to Good is force feeding bottles of purified water to homeless people. No one else cares about purified water. I guess they just have enough. Kind of makes me wonder why I'm jumping through all these hoops for something no one cares about. I had to go through Little Lamplight to complete the main quest. Little Lamplight. No one deserves this.

You just explained everything which sucks about Bethesda games succinctly. Why they bought the Fallout license continues to baffle me. Fallout 4 was completely dogshit.

 

[Ruruja]

Civilization series.

Modern Warfare.

 

[Big Chief Crazy Cone]

Not really nukes per se, but I always loved the sound effects of the nuke-ish guns in Turok:

https://youtu.be/awS6HOPvSz4?t=103

 

[qa_engineer]

Red Alert 2

End thread

 

[DealWithIt]

This early pro Starcraft 2 game starting around 31:00
http://youtu.be/rmxDpccryd4

Spoiler

first I stream new catches a bunch of Vikings, and then the German player beats his Korean opponent by using a nuke to preemptively defend a position where his opponent would want to be, permitting him to destroy his base

 

[Sheroking]

You just explained everything which sucks about Bethesda games succinctly. Why they bought the Fallout license continues to baffle me. Fallout 4 was completely dogshit.

You would not do well with a career in the business side of gaming.

RE: Fallout 3's Nuke. Yeah, it's dumb on a storyline level, but I don't think that's what the thread is really asking. Seeing this and then going to the blast zone was a pretty cool gameplay moment.

 

[Vulcano's assistant]

gameplay nukes > cutscene nukes. That said, Call of Duty 4's is a fantastic moment.

 

[Winterblink]

Supreme Commander had some great nukes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrN9X17YYBI

 

[Bumblebeetuna]

I remember a pretty awesome nuke from World in Conflict.

Yep that's my vote as well.

 

[OmNomKnight]

Empire Earth, one of my favs for sure

I appreciate this reference. Boy, playing this game against AI is always hard because in the later phase of the game they spam nuke the living hell out of you with those bombers. Funnily enough, I love how the image you chose shows like 10 B-52 bombers because that is exactly how the end game always turns out. The game also features a missile base building that you can launch nukes from. It's super OP and it's disabled from normal play type, but can be used in the scenario editor or easily enabled in normal play by slightly modifying the Hex Code.

Back on topic, for me I'd have to say the Cod: MW nuke. Definitely one of my favorite scenes in the series.

 

[ike_]

Mai deploys a nuclear toddler as a special intro against Andy.

Mai seems a little crazy.