Pandemic Board Game First Impressions

Yay, finally got to play Pandemic…

Even if we let the world suffer a horribly painful death.

In Pandemic, several virulent diseases have broken out simultaneously all over the world! The players are disease-fighting specialists whose mission is to treat disease hotspots while researching cures for each of four plagues before they get out of hand.

So this is a co-op game about saving the world from virus outbreaks.

I’m pretty sure most of you have played this already so if you want a bit of a walkthrough, Wil Wheaton and co play it on Tabletop.

So what did I like about it?

It’s pretty. We played the new-ish reprint so it had upgraded components compared to the original which looked nice.

I like roles in games. This game has role cards like Forbidden Desert so everyone has something to focus on. I was a Quarantine Specialist so I would run to places that were in trouble to slow down any spread of a virus.

It’s HARD and it should be. Co-op games that you win EVERY TIME are dull and won’t get played. You need to feel you can lose, you need to feel you’re behind and you need to play hard to win. The way the viruses spreads and how movement is quite restrictive forces teamwork, as a good co-op should.

I’m still not a fan of co-op games as they generally require a group of the right people but I can see why this game gets a lot of positive attention.

Pandemic Update 28/05/2018

Well, I enjoyed the iPad version a bit. I don’t play it much but it looks pretty and represents the game very well.

I also played a bit of Pandemic Legacy which I didn’t finish, but I made it up to September and enjoyed what I played.

Pandemic: Reign of Cthulhu is my favourite of the Pandemics but still, I rarely want to play it.

I just think there are so many co-ops around, some better than others.

A real-time game like FUSE and Flatline remove the alpha player, other co-ops are just more fun.

Jesta ThaRogue