I’m a big strategy gamer at heart, with roots tied closely to X-COM and Civilization, so when a game has global ramifications I pretty much always sink my teeth in. Plague Inc. delivers. Here you are the plague, choosing which symptoms appear and how the disease spreads across the world, from coughing and sneezing humanity into a global pandemic to silently riding birds and livestock, with even the air and water supplies at your command. Once the world is infected you unleash your deadly combination of symptoms, tumours and fevers, total organ failure, ruptured lesions, or my personal favourite, combining diarrhoea and insanity so the population runs through the streets crapping their pants off, earning the well-deserved “Brown Streets” achievement. You also get to name your plague and watch the world moan in despair as everyone is infected with “BABIES”.
You might think infecting the world with such powerful contingents sounds simple, but the world fights back. Countries shut down airports, close borders and burn livestock and the dead, and you’re notified how each is trying to stop you at every mutation, while a global effort flies specialists around to work on a cure. The mechanics for developing symptoms, transmissions, resistances to the cure and to climate are very simple: little DNA bubbles pop up on infected countries and when the disease mutates on its own, and you just tap to collect those DNA points and develop your global infection. The catch is brutal, if you don’t kill every last person, you lose. Miss the lone hermit hidden away in Greenland and victory slips through your fingers.
Ndemic Creations have made an incredibly addictive, satisfying strategy game that keeps you coming back as you hunt the best way to spread your latest diabolical creation. On another level, it’s genuinely informative and educational: I learned a lot about how symptoms relate and especially how they spread, including plenty I didn’t want to know. It’s terrifying to realise how quickly a disease can spread if we don’t keep things clean and sterile, and how many people there are in the world, Ndemic has clearly done its homework on accurate population numbers. It’s been almost as entertaining to learn these things as it is to play, and in game design that really doesn’t happen, like, at all.
The only things holding Plague Inc. back are some simple bugs and early design issues. I played version 1.2, and the developer’s site already lists fixes coming: not enough room to tap DNA bubbles in large countries like Russia, a bug where unlimited mode wouldn’t unlock (I had to reinstall to fix it), and several achievements that don’t trigger properly. Graphically it looks great for an iOS strategy game, the UI has weight and just feels right, and the soundtrack is stunning, straight out of a Hollywood plague film, getting under your skin and giving the theme a strong foundation.
Even with its bugs, the game holds up well and I’d recommend it to any strategy fan. It’s got a great tutorial too, so new players will find it easy to grasp. Ndemic says 1.3 is coming soon to address the bugs. And zombies are rumoured.
