Flashback Friday - Pandemic
Love it or hate it? Do you still play it?
Pandemic, Matt Leacock's smash hit co-operative game that "launched a thousand flabby imitators," is 10 years.
Michael Barnes describe it thusly, "In Z-Man Games blockbuster smash hit Pandemic, players are trying to stop wooden cubes from spreading over a map of the world. The players must band together to end four different strains of the most virulent, insidious infectious disease ever known to mankind- CUBE CONFUSION. Symptoms include a generalized inability to experience fun, an allergy to dice, increased weight gain, and sexual arousal caused by the scent of painted wooden cubes. Generally spread by exposure to internet board game discussions and chiefly affecting middle-aged men, Cube Confusion was first discovered by Dr. Steven Weeks and has yet to be recognized by the CDC as the major public health threat it represents."
Matt Thrower declared "It’s possibly the ultimate family game, easy to get into, difficult to beat and free from the acrimony that unfortunately creeps in to competitive gaming even in the most loving families."
What camp do you fall in? Love it? Hate it? Give it a weak 7?
You can find all our reviews and articles about Pandemic in its listing in our Board Game Directory (click here)
On repeat plays, I came to dislike the sense of predestination. If the deck shuffle is against you, you're screwed. It doesn't matter how well you play, what decisions you make. It's a game that exists, lost, before you've even taken a turn.
And nowadays it has better competitors. The D&D adventure system games are just as easy to get into and much more fun to play.
Pandemic Legacy was a lot of fun, although the act of playing very elaborate Pandemic did drag it down for me.
It's pretty much saturation that keeps us from playing it. There's only so many times you can play anything, even a deterministic puzzle game.
My most recent loan went to non-gamer-gamers, people that love board games but have never been to a board game store and haven't seen what's available on the Internet. They are blissfully happy in their less-informed state, and my recommendation of Pandemic to them was the kind of discovery that would happen pre-Internet when you learned of such things word-of-mouth. Every discovery is more magical when it's rare knowledge.
They very much enjoyed Pandemic and were really struck by how hard it was. They had played forbidden Desert and Forbidden Island, which are about a 50-50 shot on any particular play. Pandemic is HARD for your first few plays. It sets a higher bar. They kept it for weeks, beat it exactly once.
I still enjoy the game but it doesn't come out much. I think all my buddies are done with it. As co-ops go, it's about the best in the euro end of the genre.
It’s possibly the ultimate family game, easy to get into, difficult to beat and free from the acrimony that unfortunately creeps in to competitive gaming even in the most loving families.
We are not one of those families. I played it when it first came out and hated it. Although I do like Defenders of the Realm, and just played that recently. I have Forbidden Island on iOS, which I sometimes play to kill time.
I still keep my copy around to break out with family or anyone else who casually like to play boardgames.
Shellhead wrote: The friends that I was playing with coached each player on their turn, and all fun was murdered.
Pandemic has a reputation for one person taking over and bossing every one around each turn. I don't see that person as being bossy. I see them as simply being the first person to state the obvious. In a tactical game, when there is only one optimal choice, you really have no choice; you merely have the illusion of choice.
Puzzles are solved.
Games are played.
Much like solitaire, this puzzle can be absolutely not solved if the deck is against you.
And the entire enterprise is further ruined by the alpha gamer dictating to everyone else how to solve this puzzle.
Nope. Not a game.
ubarose wrote: In a
tactical gamePUZZLE, when there is only one optimal choice, you really have no choice; you merely have the illusion of choice.
FTFY
I also can’t really overlook what it inspired, that “Stuff Happens Across the Board and You Deal With It” genre. There’s a couple of good games in there, but most of it is garbage.
I do like Ghostfightin’ Treasure Hunters/Ghostbusters Protect the Barrier, the new Buffy (which is dry, but a rock solid design that I adore) and Defenders of the Realm.
TL;DR - I’d rather read Comic Sans than play Pandemic.
Those elements are in service of a game that is ultimately simplistic and predictable, but that just means this game exists best as a casual experience. It remains one of the big gaming hits of the past decade, and I do think it deserved that mainstream success.
I have to agree with Matt’s original assessment in his first review. It’s a solid family game.
I just personally don’t care for it.
I do like Defenders of the Realm which I hear tell is the same mechanics but then I'm more drawn to dragons and orcs and flying griffons that you can ride as opposed to "Crotch Rot Blue" or "Lingering Painful Death Orange".
The only Pandemic game I still own is Pandemic Iberia. I would rather play it and Pandemic Rising Tide over original Pandemic these days. I think they are both good games for people who still want an experience similar to original Pandemic but feel like they are done with the original game. Iberia and Rising Tide both have some variants/mini expansions you can choose to use that add a little more flavor to both games.
I would also rather play Defenders of the Realm over Pandemic but have not played it in a couple years. My wife likes the art style and a couple we game with sometimes really like the game so I have kept my copy.