Because of Plague Inc. close relations to the like-minded game Pandemic 2, it makes sense to look at how Ndemic Creations have handled some of the flaws of the original game.
As stated above once islands like Madagascar close their borders you’re pretty much screwed. While there was no way around it in Pandemic 2 the increased transmission possibilities make it more manageable in Plague Inc. If your disease is transmitted through birds there is a possibility that you could infect these countries. Perhaps because of this possibility, Plague Inc. has added even more countries that are hard to reach. New Guinea and New Zealand are some of the hardest countries to reach. Not only are these islands often only reached through ship, but also it is only certain countries that dock in these harbors. For example, in order to infect Greenland you must first infect the Balkan States as they are one of the only countries that send ships to Greenland. It’s a great feature but at some points it simply irritates the player more than it should. There should be a function that can allow players to reach closed down countries.
Another issue with the game is the winning mechanism. In order to win you must infect every single human being on the planet – circa 7 billion, and kill them all. In far to many games I have experienced losing because there are 50 survivors stuck somewhere in Greenland while the other 7 billion people of the earth are coughing their guts up and dying. Sure, you didn’t actually manage to infect every human being. But what are the chances of 50 people actually managing to survive such a global disease? And furthermore, the survivors will most likely die of starvation or extinction since the rest of the world has burned down. There should be a larger margin of winning instead of just losing overall.
One positive side of a new mechanic is the development of a cure. While this feature existed in Pandemic 2 it didn’t seem to have a real function. Often it would just say that the cure didn’t work as hoped and that the world was doomed. In Plague Inc. it serves as a sort of time limit. You fight against the development of the cure in order to infect and kill everybody before the cure is found. Evolving skills that affect the development can slow the cure down. The time limit forces players to work faster, harder and more strategically, it’s a great feature that Pandemic 2 could have used.
One of the biggest issues of Pandemic 2 was that the entire world would freak out over a disease that only caused the infected to cough. And even though Plague Inc. has tried to deal with this they haven’t quite succeeded. If your disease has no symptoms it is possible to infect 7 billion people and no one reacts. After infecting everybody you can just use all your DNA points on making your disease lethal and then win this way. This seems to be the main tactic of most players, as it seems to be the most effective.
Expanding the range of disease types is a nice touch. Especially because the tactic discussed above doesn’t always work. For example the Nano-Virus plague type causes the world to work on a cure right away and the player must work even faster than before.
It seems that Plague Inc. has greatly benefited from using the game mechanics of an already functional game and then just adding on to that with better art and improved features. It seems odd that Ndemic Creations deny the close relation to Dark Realm Studios and Pandemic 2 when it so clearly has a strong connection. Despite that Plague Inc. is the better game out of the two.
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