Survival is an obscure post-apocalyptic strategy game from InterActive Vision that I would consider an hidden gem among PC games. It is set in a bleak post-nuclear war world and your job is to take a band of survivors out from the bunkers and forge a living from the desolate landscape, while dealing with other survivors and dangerous mutants. Sound like Fallout ? Well it came out one year before fallout came out and shares pretty much the same settings and story but the similarities end there. This game focuses on survival with interesting twist on the Civilization-style conquer-the-world formula.
You begin the game with a group of between one and two hundred people. While your daily objective is simply to survive, the ultimate objective is to guarantee the survival of your people. To do this, you must have completely explored the landscape, destroyed all your enemies, and built a stable civilization. You play the game by making choices from action screens and maps; the maps are used to control armies, building, exploration, and to see the overall picture, while the action screens are used to make decisions regarding production, R&D, and education of your populace. You will need to decide on your strategies from the beginning of the game. For example, do you want to educate most of your citizens quickly - which will give you a boost in production and building - or keep your citizens in a "breeding" environment to increase population? Will you use scarce resources to expand your modern empire, fund hi-tech development, or equip you armies?
Survival starts out slowly, but gets much more interesting as you gain access to more features and technologies with the passing of time. This gentle learning curve makes Survival a good introductory-level game. With plenty of gameplay options, decent graphics, and an interesting premise, Survival is well worth a look for all fans of "realistic" strategy games, or post-apocalyptic games in general.
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