The guys and I tried our hand at the board game Pandemic last week. (sometimes ya just gotta play something not GW related!) This is a cooperative game where you are trying to stave off a series of viral outbreaks throughout the globe. The game is stacked against you and if you don’t seriously plan your moves out you will lose many, many times. We lost all three games we played!
Each player takes on the roll of a disease fighter. I liked being the scientist best, but there was also a medic, researcher, dispatcher. Each turn the virus will pop up in at least two regions of the globe, adding a block to that area. If there are already three blocks on the area it will add a block, instead, to all areas touching the target. Random outbreak cards make you pop up even more and reshuffle the regions that have already appeared back to the top of the deck.
On your turn you can do a few things. Trade cards with folks, move, remove a block, or try to find a cure. To find a cure you need 5 cards of the same color, and you only get to draw two per turn. Since you can only hold 7 cards, its tough to get a cure. If you get a cure you don’t win – it just means you can remove disease tokens faster.
This game is a huge blast and is a lot of fun to play. After so many vs. games, it nice to try to beat a super difficult game together. I recommend this game highly, and it plays in about 45 minutes. Check it out!
Related posts:
- Chaos In The Old World – Review Picked up Chaos in the Old World a few days back at Castle House Games. I walked into the store and there it was. One...
- Review – Warhammer 40k Squad Command for Nintendo DS I am a huge fan of my Nintendo DS. It is perfect for when you need a quick fix of entertainment. I have always enjoyed...
- Review – Planetstrike Found this post over at DakkaDakka - Got my copy in today, and in about 3 minutes I’m going to kick back with a 6...
- Space Hulk Preliminary Review !!! Just got back from checking out one of the advanced copies of Space Hulk! Here’s what I saw! 1. The broodlord is huge! Imagine a...
Pandemic is a lot of fun. The expansion for Pandemic is coming out/should be out already. It adds more roles, a way for a person to play a bio-terrorist, another disease.
If you like this type of co-op game, you might want to look into Arkham Horror. It's another co-op, but based on Lovecraft's Cthulu mythos and much heavier.
If you enjoyed this game, and intend to break it out often, I HIGHLY suggest looking into the expansion, "Pandemic: On the Brink."
The base game by itself, after many plays, becomes very predictable, in that you know exactly how each role should interact with each other role, and you know exactly which special events are coming and what to do with them. The expansion adds MANY new special events, and the ones you get for each game are randomized. Further, it adds a significant number of new roles, all of which combines to make the game generally less set-in-stone, without losing the feel of the original.