Pandemic

[JiffyPopTart]

I am leaning towards spending some of my hard-earned Christmas-gift monies on picking up Pandemic.

What are its DOWNSIDES?

DS

 

[Thanee]

Well, it's not a very deep strategy game, more the casual kind.

When you play it with players of highly varying tactical skill, one might dominate the play and dictate what the others do (because it makes more sense to do that), which can make the game less fun for some.

Other than that, it's a great coop game with some very unique elements.

The On the Brink expansion is highly recommended, as it offers a lot more variety (not just the new game options, but also the new roles and event cards make things more interesting) than just the basic game.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Crothian]

If you have players that are bossy or like conflict they can have trouble with the co operative nature of the game. If the players don't co operative you will lose.

I've heard people say that the replay ability of the game is low in their opinion, so some people might like to play it over and over. There are not a lot of strategies so I can understand that even if I don't agree with it.

There are lots of pieces so it you are prone to losing things or clumsy and might hit the board and mess the game up that could be bad. Also, many little pieces so if you have many 2 year olds around they would eat the pieces and that would be bad. And some people just don't like games with lots of pieces.

Personally, I love the game but it by no means perfect.

 

[Asmor]

Well, the obvious thing to keep in mind is that it's a co-op game, so if you don't like those...

Actually, though I'm not a huge fan, Pandemic doesn't turn me off as much as most other co-ops do.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

I really have only played one co-op boardgame, BSG. I own and have played Arkham Horror, but I don't really feel it's very co-opy. I am actually interested in picking up another co-op as I think it tends to keep everyone involved in the game even when its not "your turn".

So it came down to either getting Pandemic or Shadows Over Camelot. I feel that Pandemic might be more "different" than BSG than Shadows is so i was leaning that way.

DS

 

[TroyXavier]

Played it for the first time Saturday and had a lot of fun with it. My biggest downside is that no matter how good your strategy is, there's still a lot of luck needed to win.

Mind you if I had to vote between it and Shadows over Camelot, I'd pick SOC.

 

[Thanee]

Like BSG, SoC isn't purely cooperative. Pandemic is (unless you use the Bioterrorist option from the On the Brink Expansion, then you also have one player playing against the rest).

Bye
Thanee

 

[Wycen]

We played a game tonight with the On the Brink expansion. We didn't use the bio terrorist but all decided to try the new roles, except one guy, the dispatcher. I figured we'd die, but thanks to a bit of luck and cooperation, we saved the world just before I would have destroyed it. The funny this was the starting bit of luck was me drawing a mutation card, but it was the first round so nothing happened.

The expansion provides petrie dishes for your cubes, which is nice.

 

[Alex319]

We played a game tonight with the On the Brink expansion. We didn't use the bio terrorist but all decided to try the new roles, except one guy, the dispatcher. I figured we'd die, but thanks to a bit of luck and cooperation, we saved the world just before I would have destroyed it. The funny this was the starting bit of luck was me drawing a mutation card, but it was the first round so nothing happened.

The expansion provides petrie dishes for your cubes, which is nice.

If by "Mutation cards" you mean the mutation cards in the Infection deck, you were probably playing wrong - you put the Mutation cards in the Infection Discard Pile at game setup so they don't go into the Infection Draw Pile until the first epidemic. Thus the only way of drawing a Mutation card first turn is to get an epidemic card first turn. Is this what happened?

 

[Wycen]

I can't remember anymore, but just guessing by our track record playing new games or expansions, it is more likely than not that we did something wrong.

However, in Pandemic any win, unless just plain from cheating, is a good win.