GameTech: It’s a fine excuse to play games
GAMERS have been battling viruses for years now – more on our machines thanon our person. Still, the best anti-virus protection right now is to stay home and stay safe— just use the time to play more games! Here’s our list of questionable games to play while in quarantine.
Listen, we don’t have time to think about Coronavirus. Instead, we need to handle cases of Bloaty Head, Alien DNA and King Complex. The first two are self-explanatory, but the last might need some explaining — it makes patients impersonate Elvis Presley.
Theme Hospital is a classic simulator, where you have to turn a hospital into a successful business, which means keeping both patients and staff happy, finding the right balance between charging people and working staff. You have to build GP rooms, pharmacies, operating surgeries, you can place benches and fire extinguishers, employ handymen to fix machines. The list goes on. It will keep you occupied well into your own quarantine.
What better way to learn about a pandemic than to create one yourself? Now 12 years old, Pandemic 2 is a free flash game that can be found at Addicting Games. In December 2019, it had been played 3,000 times that year. So far in 2020, it has been played 140,000 times. The goal of the game is to develop a pandemic that spreads around the world and destroys the population. You choose how your disease is transmitted (by animal, water, air, etc), its symptoms and so on. Some people may consider Pandemic 2 bad taste in the current climate, but instead think of it like watching a zombie movie — a reflection of the real situation through the lens of entertainment.
A comedy health game that will bring a smile to your face. Just don’t touch the smile. Or at least wash your hands first.
Actually, it’s probably best you don’t try to wash your hands in Surgeon Simulator — that might take a while. The whole premise of the game is that your hands are extremely difficult to control, which makes attempted surgeries hilarious, slapstick events. Think of it like trying to play Twister while under the influence, or dancing while you are dizzy.Your patient has a health meter that quickly depletes as you flail about with knives, drills and other implements used for surgery, desperately trying to perform the basic task required without murdering your unwitting patient. Wonderful.
Thankfully, you won’t be trapped in a dungeon throughout Irish pandemic measures — unfortunately, you will be trapped with your family. Darkest Dungeon is a game about exploring the depths of the unknown, and managing the stress levels that result.
While this is a typical role-playing game that involves exploring a dungeon and fighting baddies, the key feature is that your party members start to gather stress as they get hungry, see their friends get hurt and go deeper into the dungeon. This results in heightened fear that you have to manage. Most of the time that stress causes problems, but sometimes it can result in greater resolve or determination.
Mario! been a kart-racer, an Olympian and a party animal, but somehow we wouldn’t trust him to treat an irregular heartbeat or lyme disease in his doctor incarnation. “Eat-a-mushroom!”. Great, thanks Mario! Thankfully, Dr Mario is only a puzzle game, t in the style of Tetris and Candy Crush Saga, where the goal is to match three colours to kill viruses. You can play the modern version on mobile, or you could hunt down the 1990 original for Gameboy. Save us, Dr Mario!
