Plague Inc: Evolved Review

A simulation like no other… You are one of numerous lethal pathogens that exist in the world and your job is to eradicate life on earth…

Some key points that this game offer:
1. Very realistic simulator.
2. Numerous disease types to master and play with
3. Numerous scenarios, varying from Black Plague to Swine Flu.
4. Co-Operative mode where you and a friend can take on the world together.
5. Very realistic world to play in, with real time events and data that is used in game.
6. Multiplayer, instead of going up against the world you and a second player go toe to toe against one another.
7. Incredibly accurate data and information available to track, see and learn how these diseases affect different countries and climates.
8. Content creator, the ability to set up and release your own created scenarios.

Gameplay & Controls:

The game itself is mostly controlled with the mouse, you have the function to use the keyboard controls for shortcuts to speed up time, or slow it down, or zoom in and out. There are several keyboard options available for you to make use of.

Pausing the game, saving and exiting, the functions are there, the game itself is a simulator where you make use of the mouse to pop bubbles, and in the upgrade menu to better your disease.

Graphics:

The graphics are very decently put together. The world map is static to a point with the continents staying put, as they get infected and the infections spread. The worse it gets the worse the infection shows in the game. As the game time moves so do the ships and aeroplanes that travel from country to country, the cloud patterns can also be seen moving in different directions as one would see in wind currents. In the upgrade or disease panel where you can see information regarding your current disease, they created breathtakingly beautiful 3D models that takes you much closer than ever before.

As your disease is upgraded via how it spreads, infects or as it becomes more lethal you can see how your disease evolves and gets more intense. This can be properly viewed in the disease screen, then on the world screen you can see details regarding each country. The number of infected people, healthy and dead, along with other key important details.

Sounds:

The sounds for the game are very pleasant and it changes as your gameplay goes. A song most of us grew up hearing or even singing accompanies our game, “Ring around the' Roses” can be heard from time to time in the background as your game time moves forward. The game has numerous sound effects specially attributed to unique scenarios and single player disease matches. Other sounds such as ambulances and police sirens can be heard throughout game play with a few other sounds they have added to make your gaming experience unique.

Replayability:

This game will keep you busy for hundreds of hours, it only stops when you have had enough, and there is plenty to do. Starting off would be the different scenarios themselves each having their own criteria of how to complete, replaying the same mission is almost never the same. There is a very pleasant RNG factor in the game, and that is further developed by how you do things in the game. How you choose to start your disease, how you evolve it in terms of spreading and infecting, they all play a factor to how your current mission will play out.

There are numerous different abilities for the genetic code that can be unlocked by winning scenarios, with each win unlocking a new ability to make use of. The game offers 4 difficulty levels. Casual where it is the easiest to infect people moving to Normal with some increased counters to make infections and detections harder, then to Brutal further increasing those counters and adding some extra parameters to the difficulty mode and finally Mega Brutal bringing those counters to a compulsory level making it even harder to get your virus out and taking down the world.

There will be plenty to do and redo until you master the ways of the Plagues, the game offers various achievements tied to specific combo’s which can be obtained easily enough by evolving specific transmissions.

MGR Gaming’s Conclusions:
Spoilers Ahead:

This is a different type of game and an even different simulator; it is not something we have experienced before. This game offers so much more than just a simulator, it has an impressive strategy element to it. You need to understand your disease, the country you choose to start it in. You then need to understand how the infection will work, what to improve on getting people infected as fast as possible while staying under the WHO radar.

The more deadly you become the faster the world tries to cure you; strategy plays a big element in this game. That is not all; you can also expect a very decent RPG effect. You need to know and carefully choose to spend your DNA points on how to increase your disease’s transmission capabilities, the symptoms and then its base abilities and resistances. There are numerous options to go with, a few will work but they have to be the right combination to see yourself to victory so both strategy and RPG will play a role here.

The game offers a lot of missions for you to complete along with several unique ones that you will love the moment you lay your eyes on them, such as making your own Planet of the Apes scenario. When you have had your fill of single player you can go multiplayer in a nice co-op game destroying the world with a friend, or you can go toe to toe with them destroying them.

Score 9
By: MGRza
Date: 25 February 2016

Additional info:

Platforms: PC: Xbox One: Mac: Linux: PlayStation 4: Nintendo Switch
Genre: Action: Simulation: RPG Elements: Strategy Elements.
Censor Rating: n/a
Age Rating: 10+
Developer: Ndemic Creations
Publisher: Ndemic Creations
Release Date: 18 February 2016

MGR Gaming Steam Curator:
https://store.steampowered.com/curator/32364038/

MGR Gaming:
https://www.mgrgaming.co.za