7 videojuegos donde la infección se hizo cargo
Es seguro decir que estamos viviendo en un momento bastante oscuro en este momento. Nos han indicado que nos aislemos unos de otros y que el “distanciamiento social”, una actividad en la que suelo participar independientemente de la enfermedad que se propague por todo el mundo, ahora es algo obligatorio. A pesar del peligro y los horrores de lo que nos está pasando, este es nuestro momento de brillar como jugadores. Podemos escapar a mundos de fantasía donde podemos ser quien y lo que queramos ser, y explorar mundos de la ficción más descabellada donde un pequeño organismo cambia fundamentalmente la forma en que vivimos como sociedad y nos impacta a nivel personal y social. Oh, espera, esa es la vida real ahora.
Por aterradoras que parezcan las cosas en este momento, podrían ser mucho peores, como nos han demostrado estos siete juegos. Entre algunos de los escenarios más extravagantes que parecen dar lugar siempre a zombis sedientos de sangre, a visiones más precisas o históricas de la enfermedad que nos recuerdan que este es solo otro domingo en el gran esquema de las cosas, aquí hay algunas fantasías escapistas que se acercan demasiado. a la realidad ahora mismo.
Mención de honor – World of Warcraft : Corrupted Blood
Este es un poco oscuro, pero interesante, no obstante. El 13 de septiembre de 2005, Blizzard introdujo una nueva incursión llamada Zul’Gurub, cuyo jefe final, Hakkar the Soulflayer, tenía la molesta costumbre de drenar la sangre de un jugador para reponer su salud. Algunos inteligentes se dieron cuenta de que se podía abusar de esta habilidad al aplicar intencionalmente la desventaja de Sangre Corrupta y, por extensión, infectar al jefe con la misma desventaja para matarlo más fácilmente.
Algo… malo… pasó aquí.
El problema surgió cuando los jugadores comenzaron a infectarse con sangre corrupta solo por proximidad, y pronto todo el juego entró en pánico, ya que incluso los NPC y las mascotas se convirtieron en portadores de la enfermedad. Ciudades enteras fueron abandonadas en el caos mientras los jugadores intentaban evitar una infección accidental que provocaría la muerte de su personaje, y no fue hasta el 8 de octubre, casi un mes después, que Blizzard finalmente pudo detenerlo.
En una nota ligeramente morbosa, hubo jugadores que intentaron activamente infectar a otros con la desventaja de Corrupted Blood, haciendo todo lo posible para asegurarse de que las calles estuvieran llenas de los cuerpos de los héroes caídos. Es oficial: los humanos son horribles.
1. El último de nosotros : hongos Cordyceps
No te muevas, no pueden verte si no te mueves.
Nunca había estado más aterrorizado por un chasquido que cuando jugaba a este maldito juego. The Last of Us adopta un enfoque diferente y ligeramente aterrador para los zombis al basar su infección en una criatura del mundo real. El hongo cordyceps, la fuente del brote en The Last of Us , es una espora parásita arrancada directamente de las peores pesadillas de un insecto y hecha realidad para nuestra diversión. Infecta el cerebro del huésped, desorientándolo para que busque la seguridad de sus nidos, luego crece lentamente fuera del cuerpo del insecto para que pueda liberar sus esporas e infectar a los otros insectos. Gracias a Dios que a esta cosa no le gustan los animales con cuerpos blandos, al menos en el mundo real.
The Last of Us es un juego de supervivencia sigiloso que adopta la idea de que “tu vida es más importante que lo increíble que hubiera sido esa muerte” de todo corazón, y la mayoría de las veces (al menos cuando lo jugué) estarás escondido detrás cubierta, esperando que ese clicker se aleje de la salida.
2. Luz moribunda : Virus Harran
El reloj gigante cubre la marca de su mordedura bastante bien.
Infecciones de zombis con hardcore-parkour, ¿qué es no amar? Bueno, aparte del ciclo día-noche absolutamente aterrador y esos gritos no tan lejanos que te hielan la sangre. En Dying Light juegas como Kyle Crane, el macho-hombre y agente secreto GRE lanzado desde el aire en la ciudad en cuarentena de Harran, quien es inmediatamente mordido e infectado por uno de sus ciudadanos, llamado Volátil. Buen trabajo, Kyle; manera de ganar ese cheque de pago.
Dying Light es un juego extraño entre los juegos de zombis modernos, ya que te dice activamente que no debes meterte con los zombis, especialmente de noche, en lugar de tratar de motivarte para que reduzcas la población local a una mísera docena de personas (yo no escuchó e inmediatamente se arrepintió). La mecánica de ejecución libre se suma a eso espectacularmente, ya que la mayor parte del tiempo estás trepando por el costado de una casa de chabolas y pateando a los Volátiles espartanos de los tejados, aunque hay algún incentivo para aplastar la cara de un pobre tonto con una palanca. que encontraste en la parte trasera de una ambulancia. No sé por qué eso estaba allí tampoco, simplemente fui con eso.
3. La División : Viruela
No sería una pandemia sin una “Zona Oscura” designada.
Finally, an infection that doesn’t make zombies. This strain of smallpox went by a couple of other names: Green Poison and The Dollar Flu, as the disease was passed by people exchanging money.
The Division is a third-person, online looter-shooter, which is appropriate for a game made by Ubisoft, a company who has perfected the art of making tedious busywork in a game actually enjoyable (that’s not sarcasm, I’m actually impressed).
You play as an agent of the Strategic Homeland Division who is trying to maintain order among the chaos of the outbreak. As yet another macho secret agent, you’ll be fighting against the likes of the Rioters, common thugs who take advantage of the quarantine, the Rikers, prisoner escaped from Rikers Island and the Cleaners, nutjob employees of the New York Department of Sanitation who wield flamethrowers and believe everyone left in Washington is infected. I’m sure the people at Ubisoft had a blast coming up with that one.
4. A Plague Tale: Innocence – Bubonic Plague
This is so much worse than scarabs.
A Plague Tale takes place during the Hundred Year War and a massive outbreak of the plague, then makes a complete left turn in the story and draws some eerie inspiration from Willard with a dash of magical royal bloodlines. It’s a weird combination that somehow works.
In this stealth adventure game you play as Amicia, a young woman of noble lineage who must escort her sick brother away from the grasp of the Inquisition while trying to find a cure for whatever has stricken her sibling. As you progress through the game you find that the swarms of rats aren’t just infecting the population with the plague, but are recreating the scarab scenes from The Mummy and devouring everything they come across in this disgusting sea of teeth and red eyes. Luckily for Amicia, the rats aren’t too fond of fire and light (are they zombie rats?), and many of the puzzle elements surrounding the rats involve using torches and fire to scatter the swarm.
A Plague Tale is disgusting and gorgeous, and I’m so glad we don’t live in 14th century Europe right now.
5. Prototype: Blacklight Virus
So dark, so brooding.
Yet another outbreak game set in New York City (do we have a secret vendetta against them?), you play as the “superhero” Alex Mercer, who wakes up mid-autopsy to find he has gained shapeshifting powers and a complete indifference towards killing as many people as he can get his clawed hands on. The best part? He’s the idiot who unleashed the virus in the first place, and he doesn’t even remember doing it.
Prototype is a sandbox action game where you use your shapeshifting powers, also known as eating people so you can look like them, to hide from the military and find out what happened to you and the rest of the city. As you progress through the game you gain new abilities like gooey, black armour, gliding through the air by shooting blood from your butt and cosplaying as Edward Scissorhands. You know, the normal superpowers.
The Blacklight Virus plays out a lot like your typical zombie infection, though the creatures it bears are more like monsters than slow shuffling zombies, and the Hunters are basically angry, pink gorilla men. There’s a whole government conspiracy going on in the story too, and pretty soon after you pull the scalpel from your chest and make a run for it, you’re slapped with the most over-the-top martial law reaction I’ve seen to date. Seriously, who starts by bringing in tanks? That’s at least step three in the “How To Implement Martial Law” manual.
6. Resident Evil: T-virus
That’s going to leave a mark.
Arguably survival horror at its best, and probably the game on this list I want to be a part of the least, possibly tied with The Last of Us. Over the course of the series you play a variety of different characters, with the likes of Chris and Claire Redfield, Leon Kennedy, Ada Wong and Jill Valentine, who all show up in multiple titles either as playable or side characters. For the most part, these characters are trying to stop the spread of a vicious and deadly disease, and I am now questioning their qualifications since they never seem to get the job finished.
You know a virus is resilient when it lasts two dozen games and a series of movies, and it seems like Umbrella Corp never learns their lesson and leaves the T-Virus well enough alone. It’s a derivative of the Progenitor Virus mixed with leech DNA, which sounds terrifying in itself, but the effects of the T-virus are arguably worse than just killing you. If you’re unlucky enough to be dead when infected, you come back to life as a cannibalistic and mindless zombie. Then there are the “willing” participants who are turned into a B.O.W. (Bio Organic Weapon) by the mutagenic properties of the virus and horribly deformed beyond recognition. This isn’t Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, although apparently being mutated always turns you into a living weapon no matter if you’re an anthropomorphic reptile or horribly disfigured human.
While there are a few other viruses and infections throughout the Resident Evil series, the T-virus is arguably the most well known and impactful among them.
7. Plague Inc. – Everything
I’m so glad this isn’t a real thing.
Plague Inc. may be the most morbid game on this list, as the end goal is to wipe out every human on Earth with your chosen disease. Jack Thompson would have had a field day with this “murder simulator”.
A real-time strategy title, the gameplay is fairly simple but difficult to execute. Throughout your playthroughs you’ll be fighting against the clock to infect as many people as you can, while mutating your disease enough to prevent the humans from creating a cure. If even one human survives when the clock runs out, you lose (I’m not sure the developers know how population growth works) and you’ll have to start from the beginning. To keep the game from feeling too real, there are also some wackier infections the player gets to use, like the Simian Flu from Planet of the Apes as well as a zombie-inducing plague, because what kind of game would this be if you couldn’t make zombies?.
There’s been a lot of noise around Plague Inc. lately for fairly obvious reasons, with China even banning the game outright for including “illegal content”, though the CDC has praised it for its ability to make people think about how diseases can spread so easily.
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The world is a scary place right now, and while some of our escape methods are hitting a little too close to reality, we need to remember the lessons we have learned from these games. If you’re sick, don’t be a workplace hero and infect your entire office. Stay at home, self-isolate and don’t horde toilet paper. It won’t help you ward off that dry cough and high fever, and you’ll just make life miserable for those in need. And for the love of God, wash your hands.
