'…if there was ever a Nuclear War you will never win…so that's why there's no end.' - Dave Theurer (creator).
This leaves very little guesswork of how Missile Command comes about. It's obviously a product of the Cold War between USA / USSR however the original formula was the player to attack another country using intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and multiple warhead ICMBs (MIRVs). Thankfully, this wasn't a good idea for a game (as the cold war was very real) so the released product is more of a defensive game than offensive; and thus Missile Command was born.
As stated before, it's mainly a defensive game where the player launches antiballistic missiles (ABMs) into incoming ICBMs / MIRVs. So it's a matter of just aim the cursor to your target, launch the ABMs and explode the incoming missiles. As simple it may sound, the game is technically challenging as later on, smart missiles are able to dodge your attacks and killer satellites are capable launching more ICBMs / MIRVs. To make matters worse, you need to protect your six cities with only 30 ABMs – other words, once all your cities dissimilates, game over; or as the game cleverly displays, The End.
So your main tactic is not to aim directly and launch your ABMs however to aim near enough to utilise the explosion, as the explosion can also destroy incoming ICBMs. So if you play it right, you can launch just one ABM to knock off maybe two or three ICBMs (or more if you manage to grab the MIRVs just as it's forming). And if you can think you can launch heaps of ABMs, think again as the maximum amount of explosions at any one time is eight or six launched ABMs (as it takes a small amount of time to 'recharge' the ABMs).
Because your goal is to protect the six cities dotted on the bottom of your screen, the first couple of waves are easy enough to defend all of them as the game is quite slow and each wave can last around thirty to forty five seconds. At the end of each wave, you will be rewarded with extra points for each city saved and unused ABMs. And if you allow it, every ten thousand points gives you an extra city.
However, the further you progress in the game, each wave will be considerably faster and those dreaded smart missiles / killer satellites will arrive. Smart missiles are capable to dodge your ABMs (however it's more of moving up then down again as opposed to strafe) and the satellites tend to start roughly half way down the screen. Satellites are quite easy to kill though however you need to do this quickly otherwise they will launch MIRVs like there's no tomorrow (in addition to the many ICBMs scattered around the screen). So as you can imagine, it's can be total chaos.
The manual provides excellent strategies to survive the higher waves and one of my favourite is the 'umbrella' approach. What this does is to create a line of explosions across the screen so there's a high probability that you destroy all incoming attacks...for a brief period of time (remember that the wave will last between thirty to forty five seconds). Also, if three cities are destroyed during the same wave, that wave will end. Yet during the latter levels, unless you are some kind of genius, you need to sacrifice cities as it's too difficult to defend so naturally defend the cities closer to your base (i.e. the bottom middle part of the screen) as they are a lot easier to protect.
Sometimes, luck will be on your side that if every city is destroyed and you managed to score in increment of ten thousand points, a new city will arrive. However, the computer will randomly place it in one of the six 'vacant' slots. I have seen cases where I feel the computer is teasing me and placed the new city furthest away from my base. Of course the next round, it was blasted away as it was too damn hard to defend. And if you think your base cannot be destroyed, think again.
The length of the game stems from how good you are. Some can play literally hours or days and some, like me, only a couple of hours max. My personal best is wave twenty seven and that took me about an hour or so as fatigue got the better of me. I think the game 'resets' itself after wave 255 (typical 8 bit stuff) and I believe there's a bug at around 800k points where the player scores an extra 150 cities.
On the surface Missile Command looks like a simplistic game however it's deceptively hard. Especially after wave six when those smart missiles / satellites arrive, it will test your skills. You do need good hand / eye coordination however snap decisions / forward planning is a must. Fail to do so will end your game very soon; and cleverly enough the screen will say 'The End' (and not 'game over').