Raid over Moscow

Raid Over Moscow (Raid in some countries and on reissue) is a video game by Access Software published in Europe by U.S. Gold for the Commodore 64 in 1984 and other microcomputers in 1985–1986.

Released during the Cold War era, Raid Over Moscow is an action game in which the player (an American space pilot) has to stop three Soviet nuclear attacks on North America, then fight his way into and destroy a nuclear facility located in Moscow's Kremlin. According to the game's storyline, the United States is unable to respond to the attack directly due to the dismantlement of its nuclear arsenal.

A member of the Finnish parliament made it a parliamentary question about whether it was acceptable to sell the game. The resulting debate and publicity made the game a top seller in the country.

Gameplay

First stage

left|thumb|Screen shot from the [[Commodore 64 version showing early gameplay]]

The game opens with an alert that a nuclear missile has been launched from a Soviet city towards a North American city. The game begins in the hangar where the American spaceplanes are stored. The player has to safely fly the craft out.]]

The pilots become foot soldiers and are placed outside the front facade of the "Defence Centre", depicted as the State Historical Museum. Using a mortar they must blast open the correct door to the facility, randomly chosen from five available. Bonus points can be gained from this section by destroying parts of the building and defeating the troops stationed there. Once the door is open, the soldiers make their way to the nuclear reactor, and the final stage of the game. Upon reissue the game was retitled to Raid.

An Amiga port was in development in the late 1980s but was canceled along with Beach Head and Beach Head II: The Dictator Strikes Back when the developers were unable to secure a deal with the publisher, U.S. Gold. According to the graphical artist Adrian Cummings, the graphics were at that point "99.9% complete". However, the coding was barely started. An Amiga port was finally released in 2020 by Reimagine Games, with programming by Erik Hogan who started from scratch to create this new conversion.

Reception

Raid over Moscow was Access' second best-selling Commodore game as of late 1987, after Beach-Head. The game received generally positive reviews. Computer and Video Games praised the graphics and sound of the Commodore 64 version, while Crash gave the ZX Spectrum version an overall score of 92%. The theme of the game, nuclear war, was subject to questioning, however, with Computer and Video Games publishing several letters from readers arguing for and against its publication.

Unauthorized copies of Raid on Moscow circulated widely in East Germany during the 1980s, despite the Stasi describing it as among those games having "a particularly militaristic and inhumane nature". The West German Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons added the game to its index in 1985, stating that "In older adolescents, playing... can lead to physical tension, anger, aggressiveness, agitated thinking, difficulty concentrating, headaches, etc." The ban automatically ended in 2010.

Political crisis in Finland

The game was shortly presented in YLE's current affairs television program A-studio on 13 February 1985 after being reviewed by the computer magazine MikroBitti. On 20 February 1985 the leftist newspaper Tiedonantaja published an article which criticized the review and called a ban on all similar "anti-USSR" games. Parliament member Ensio Laine (SKDL) left a parliamentary question for the Finnish government on the next day.

thumbnail|right|The [[Soviet embassy at Tehtaankatu, Helsinki was the scene of the discussions concerning the game.]]

The following days included various discussions between the Finnish foreign ministry and Soviet Union representatives. On 7 March 1985, the Soviets sent a petition asking for a ban on various books, articles and other media, including Raid Over Moscow, which it claimed presented a distorted view of the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, on 14 March 1985, the Minister of foreign trade Jermu Laine answered the parliamentary question, claiming that the Finnish legislation only allowed to restrict the importation of products that pose a hazard to health.