You may be saying to yourself “hey I’ve seen this game before” and you would be correct in that assumption. Plague Inc was originally an iOS and android game and has now come to PC via Steam early access. Now you no doubt know what the game is all about so the purpose of this video and article is to inform you whether it’s worth your hard-earned cash.
Created by one-man developer Ndemic Creations and released originally for mobile devices in 2012. Plague Inc went on to be the 15th most downloaded paid iPhone game of 2012 in the U.S. In March 2013, the game went on to win multiple categories of the Pocket Gamer Awards, including Overall Game of the Year.
The game itself is a plague simulator, the object of the game being to infect and kill the entire world’s population. Once you have selected what type of plague your going to use, be it bacteria, parasite or a myriad of other options. You then go on to select where your plague will start by selecting a country of your choice. Throughout the lifespan of your plague you can evolve it, not only increasing its infectiousness but also lethality. You accomplish this by purchasing various so called evolutions with DNA points. DNA points are earned naturally by the plague spreading but also by clicking the DNA and infection bubbles that pop up on the world map as the plague spreads.
The object of the game being to infect and kill the entire world’s population.
As your plague spreads and starts causing fatalities, authorities will start to take notice. At a certain point scientists will begin to research a cure for your plague and then the race begins to see if you can kill the populace before a cure is developed. You can hamper the cure research progress by popping the research bubbles on the main map and by also purchasing evolutions that hamper research development.
I really enjoying Plague inc on my iOS device last year, I thought it was a fun little title that had some replayablity but it certainly was not a core game. So it begs the question is this title worth $15 of your hard earned cash? And before the complainers out there say, well you can’t critique an early access title, I’ll say this, if your asking money for a product, I’m damn well going to find out if it’s worth the money for people or not.
In its current state on early access it is not worth your money, especially since only the main game (which I might add is the same version as the mobile game) is available. Why spend $15 on something that you can pick up for less the $3 on your mobile device. That being said there are some new features coming to the game like multiplayer, speed run mode and scenarios but even then will it be worth it?
Why spend $15 on something that you can pick up for less the $3 on your mobile device.
For me personally, to make the $15 really worth it, this game will have to produce a great multiplayer experience. The multiplayer needs to add what the single player experience lacks, replayability. While the cooperative and competitive multiplayer modes do sound like fun, I do doubt it will hold people for long. I think the single player could have done will some rework too, if it was me, I would have added some micro gameplay elements in there to add to the experience.
Everything in the game is on the macro level, I would have added in some new levels. For example like in the game Spore where you start of as a cell and as you grow the level gets bigger, what you could have done here is start of in a town of a country, the aim would be first to spread your plague across the country, then the game would go onto the world level.
In its current state on early access it is not worth your money.
I really feel that small changes like the addition of levels would have really added to the game and make spending $15 for what is essentially a mobile game, a more justifiable purchase. I’m not saying that Plague inc is a bad game, on the contrary its a very fun, if not superficial simulator. I simply feel that in its current state it is not worth $15 of your money, once the additional features are added (especially the multiplayer) it may be worth another look. But for the time being, I’d wait either until full release or if your just interested in the single player, pick it up on your mobile device.
