Pan Am Flies High - Review

One of the most brilliant things about Sid Sackson’s Acquire...

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Presumably Pan Am is at its peak at the end of the game? It had a pretty ugly fall from grace in its later years.

Getting mentioned in the same breath with Acquire is high praise (I'm trying to avoid altitude double-entendres and having a devil of a time) and Acquire's rules are dead simple. It could sell to a wider audience. Regarding complexity, where would you put Pan Am?

Oh yeah, everything after the zenith is politely ignored!

Rules complexity is pretty light, especially for a hobby crowd. For a mainstream audience, it’s somewhat more complex than TTR, but I the think the concepts are concrete and well-explained enough that it can play broad. There is one slightly over-complicated bit- securing landing rights means either having airports or pairs of cards keyed to destination or region. It’s kind of a “check the rulebook” thing for the first game.

The rulebook is really, really good though.

Thanks for the write up. I saw this on the shelves while grabbing my copy of JotL. It looks fab.

Still, my prediction: MB will be selling this before the winter holidays.

This game's the real deal. One thing it manages to accomplish that really impressed me is how it avoids dumping math onto the players. A lot of economic games force you to calculate a lot, but Pan Am never overwhelms with numbers. It's incredibly well designed in that regard.

Only $34 at Target. Now I have to decide between this and repurchasing a cheap first edition of Pax Pamir.