I know how the world is going to end, and it ain’t pretty. It starts with one small bug known as…Hope. And not the Barack Obama kind either. You see, some unlucky schmuck in Indonesia gets infected by it after eating some bad cattle. Other than some mild insomnia and some nausea, the guy doesn’t think much of it. However, the virus is able to spread via insects and tainted livestock, and other people in his village catch it. Of course some tourists from Britain come over, and after mingling with a few ‘working girls’, they inadvertently take the bug with them back to the United Kingdom. Before the summer, the bug has evolved quite a bit, as now that nausea turns to vomiting, those coughs turn to pneumonia, and anemia begins to develop within the blood streams of those effected. This gains the attention of the international community, but the virus continues to develop new strains, making it harder and harder for scientists to keep up with it. Making matters worse, now Hope is being spread through air and water. As infections start showing up in first world countries like the U.S and Japan, it gets increasingly harder to keep a lid on the virus, as even our antibiotics are no longer enough to fight it. Affected citizens degenerate into outright insanity as whole governments are being shutdown to deal with the threat. By the end of the following year, there is no place on Earth that hasn’t been affected by Hope. The lucky ones are already dead. The ones left become living corpses as their bodies slowly degrade. Advanced dysentery shuts down their digestive systems as their stomach immediately reject any thing they try to eat. Humanity is left to die a slow, agonizing death within 2 years after the first infection.

That nightmarish scenario isn’t real thankfully. However, if it happens in Ndemic Creations/Miniclip’s Plague Inc, then you will have won the game. That’s right, your goal is to develop and evolve a super virus so that it will kill off all of humanity.
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Master of Magic can best be described as Civilization with Magic instead of technology. This 1994 4X strategy title had several bugs when it was released, but a patch released later on improved the game significantly, taking it to the top of many strategy fans lists even today. Taking place on a fantasy world, players take control of one of several wizards and enlist in one of several disciplines of magic. Starting with a tribe of settlers, you colonize a randomly generated world. You research spells instead of technologies. There is a much greater focus on combat than in Civilization as you go into a turn-based strategy mode when you encounter an enemy. It’s fantasy-strategy gameplay was an inspiration for the Age of Wonders series, another classic strategy game. This classic title is only $6.00 on GOG.com, so do check it out.

The Mount and Blade series is a different kind of medieval RPG. Note that I said medieval as opposed to fantasy, because unlike games like Skryim and Dragon Age, there aren’t any dragons, wizards, magic, or demons. It’s just you, your army, and thousands of miles of a land torn in strife. Turkish developer TaleWords has developed a true sandbox style game, as you are free to approach it anyway you wish without the experience being structured by a plot. You can gather an army, purchase land for business development, participate in large-scale combat, and even marry into royalty. Warband is the standalone expansion to the original Mount and Blade, meaning that you don’t have to own the original in order to enjoy everything Warband has to offer. Warband improves on the original game with numerous additions, the most significant of which being multiplayer.
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