Friday, March 25, 2016

Research, gaming, viral apocalypse, 25 March, 2016

I don't like to play video games, but I have yet to meet a disaster film that I didn't love.  That includes everything from the 70s flicks like The Towering Inferno and The Poseidon Adventure to The Walking Dead.  LOVE THEM.  And the more B actors they contain meeting gruesome ends, the happier I am.  Because, hey, I KNOW that guy from somewhere...

So I'm very excited to play Collapse online and see how long it takes me, as Patient Zero, to infect the rest of humanity.

First off, the aerial "camera" hovers over a map of Wellington.  How did it know I was in New Zealand?  That's creepy.  Starting from Invercargill, I get sent to Dunedin's Mercy Hospital.  In the end, it only takes 26 days to bring about the collapse of world governments, infecting billions and killing millions.  25 days and 18 hours if I start from my old home on Parliament St. in Auckland's CBD.  That's surprising- you'd think somebody, lots of somebodies, would get on a plane out and spread the infection sooner than I did in this simulator.  Still- very good scenario as it points out how quickly the collapse of food, militaries and people going to work will bring it all to a crashing halt.  This is game is to promote Ubisoft's video game "Tom Clancy's The Division" which follows survivors in NYC as they try to pick their way through the rubble and survive.  I tried playing a third time, this time from my parent's home in Virginia.  Game over in weeks, I thought, with Washington DC being a two hour drive from there.  Still 26 days.  This is the flaw in this simulator- everything runs at roughly the same pace, no matter the start point, and the shock value diminishes the more you play it.  But, as I said, it's a promo piece for the video game.  Now I need to go and fight my way out of the rubble.  Because they never said I was DEAD, only that I'd caused everybody else to bite it.

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