The loneliest place in history must be the control room deep in a NORAD bunker. There, a computer terminal tracks a pellet-shaped ICBM tracing an arc over a wireframe map, then swallowing a city in a glowing white nuclear blast—the end of the world, rendered in calm polygons. Introversion's DEFCON steals this iconic war-room look, but combines it with an eerie, ultimately horrifying ambience: As aesthetically awesome as the team's award-winning Darwinia, it can make you feel like a panicked general watching his population vanish while a distant soprano on the soundtrack stands in for the screams.
Yet as chilling as it seems, DEFCON is also a great party game. Introversion gets the appeal of keeping score in "megadeaths"—or millions of dead civilians—which you can earn by sneaking up on Tokyo or London with your nuclear subs, or knocking out your buddy's air defense and pounding Mexico at your leisure. You can practice against the computer, but DEFCON is meant to be played online with other human beings trash-talking each other and forming easily made and easily ditched alliances. It's a high-stakes game where a good sneak attack can completely flip the score, which keeps everyone on edge as they struggle to be the least-smoldering cinder on the globe.