Big Pharma is one of those games that is difficult to describe, tricky to understand, and an absolute gem when you give it a proper chance. This is one of those games that seems to garner bad reviews largely because people failed to read the description and understand what the game was setting out to do. "It's a business sim!" "It's a factory game!" "It's _______!" where the blank is justBig Pharma is one of those games that is difficult to describe, tricky to understand, and an absolute gem when you give it a proper chance. This is one of those games that seems to garner bad reviews largely because people failed to read the description and understand what the game was setting out to do. "It's a business sim!" "It's a factory game!" "It's _______!" where the blank is just about anything that it seems at first glance it might be. And then people get mad because they didn't get their assumption.
Okay, great, so what *is* it? Well, Big Pharma is a mid-detail business sim welded to a very clever process puzzle game. These aren't puzzles in the sense of someone set up a mess for you to untangle, not at all. If there's a mess, it's pretty much your fault, and therein lies the fun.
Your job is to produce medications to cure diseases and illnesses. From things like cold symptoms and acne to true calamities like Alzheimer's and cancer, you have the opportunity to cure - or at a minimum successfully treat - all of them. All medications start off as ingredients. Each ingredient has a set of attributes: cures, side effects, and boosters. You then run these ingredients through processing machinery to alter concentration, transform an ingredient to cure a different disease, eliminate side effects, and optimize effectiveness. The tricky bit, though, is that while you can change the orientation of machines, their input and output ports won't always be convenient for what you're doing at that time (the machines don't change, but your situation will), meaning you're going to need to be both creative and smart in how you run conveyor belts and fit your machines together. In this game, efficiency of space and distance are your goals, and man...is it a good teacher.
This probably sounds complex and dry, which isn't fair. Yes, the game is complex - very, at times - but it's not dry or dull. If you're the sort of gamer who wants or needs to be told what the objectives are, there's a lengthy list of missions for you to sink your teeth into. For the freestylers (like me), there's a full sandbox mode. You might not expect it, but it really is satisfying to figure out how to make a production line fit into as small a space as possible, or build a fully efficient line that wastes no time.
There are parts of the game that are very complicated, and not all machines lend themselves to easy understanding. Documentation in game is pretty thin, although there is a pretty robust, re-runnable tutorial. For a manual, though, you'll be turning to the wiki to learn how to make those machines dance, and that can be a bit of a pain. As a bonus, though, the developer remains very active on Steam's forums and the forum itself sees good traffic, so if you loft a question, it's sure to be answered pretty quickly.
So, yes, bit of a learning curve. You can and will master the mechanics of running a successful factory, along with the fun (and pain) of managing the business side: patenting your new drugs, marketing them...maybe engaging in a little subterfuge to snag more market share. Hey, all's fair in love and pharmaceuticals. Not being a business sim (I still can't believe one critic compared it to CapII), it doesn't offer full depth of business models and massive market dynamics, but what it does have is more than adequate to the game's purpose.
So, in short, ignore the complaining "professional" critics. "It's not Theme Hospital?" No, games.cz, it isn't; the title you're looking for is Theme Hospital. Big Pharma is its own creature, and when you go into it knowing what the game is about, you'll find that it delivers handsomely on its promise.… Expand
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