Roadwar 2000

Year 1987, it's raining outside, silence from the stereo because I didn't have one yet. I played Roadwar 2000 back then without sound, on a monochrome monitor, and it still glued me to my chair for the whole afternoon. SSI was churning out war simulators and D&D titles like clockwork in those days, but this game was somewhere else entirely.

Apocalyptic United States, year 2000, society has collapsed after a biological attack. You command a band of survivors on wheels — literally. You drive across a map of American cities, recruit fighters, scrounge for food, fuel and weapons, and try to put together a team capable of somehow dealing with the situation. Genre-wise it's a mix of turn-based strategy and RPG, wrapped in a text interface that nowadays half the people would close after thirty seconds.

The core of the game consists of moving across the American map and turn-based battles between vehicle convoys. When you encounter enemies, the game switches to a combat screen where you maneuver cars and shoot. It's not complicated, but it makes sense. You spend far more time on management though: convoy numbers, morale, supplies, vehicle types. Driving from Dallas to Chicago sounds simple until you run out of gas and half the gang leaves because they've been starving for three days. This loop of decision-making and consequences is what keeps the game alive.

What sets Roadwar 2000 apart from contemporary text RPGs like Rogue or Beneath Apple Manor is scale and openness. You don't have one dungeon with one objective. You have a continent in ruins and a checklist of things you need to accomplish before another faction sweeps you away or your own disorganization does. SSI knew back then how to build a system that holds together even without graphics. What hasn't aged well is mainly the interface — menu navigation is tedious and the game explains very little, so the first hour is pure detective work figuring out what you're actually supposed to do.

Today Roadwar 2000 will appeal to people who love games where survival depends on logistics more than reflexes. If you enjoy Oregon Trail or the older Wasteland, there's a good chance this loop will pull you in. You can fire it up in the browser via DOSBox without installation and without hassle — that's possibly more comfort than we had back in 1987.