Post by Gilvan Blight on Jan 8, 2009 19:03:38 GMT -5
Quickly: one of the best co-op games out there, easy to learn hard to win.
[glow=Blue,2,300]Summary:[/glow]This one kind of popped onto the board game market and immediately jumped up to one of the top 10 games on Boardgamegeek. It's since dropped quite a bit but is currently still sitting at number 21, a very impressive rating. This one is the most popular offering from relative boardgaming newcomers Zman Games.
It's a co-operative game where 1-4 players attempt to cure 4 rampaging viruses from spreading across the world. The players win by finding the cure for all 4 viruses but can loose multiple ways including running out of time (represented by exhausting the player draw deck), having too many outbreaks and having a virus spread out of control (represented by running out of cubes to represent that virus).
Each turn consists of a player round and then an infection round. During the player round, the player gets 4 actions and then draws 2 cards. The actions are chosen from among: Move to an Adjacent City (no cards needed), Direct Flight to a city (play the card of the city you want to move to), Chartered Flight to any City (play the card of the city you are in). Remove disease counters (1 at a time from the city you are in, unless the cure has been found, then remove all from the city you are in), Build a research center (requires the card of the city you are in), find a cure (discard 5 of the same coloured cards while standing in a city with a research center), move between research centers (no cards required), Trade Cards (requires the card of the city the players trading are in). The 4 actions can be split among these options in any way the players want.
After a player has completed their four actions the viruses spread. At the start of the game two more cities are infected from a draw pile. As the game moves forward and outbreak cards are drawn this increases to a max of 4 cities. When adding an infection to a city you add a coloured cube in the appropriate viral colour (denoted on the city card). If at any time you are required to place a 4th cube of a colour on a city, instead an outbreak occurs. This causes you to put one cube in every adjacent city and can cause further outbreaks. Having too many outbreaks is one of the ways to loose the game.
Players also are dealt a character card at the beginning of the game that gives each of them a special ability. These range from being able to cure a decease with less cards, to the ability to move other players. In addition to city cards (used for moving and curing diseases) there are also 5 special cards in the player draw pile that allow for some special moves, like moving anywhere on the board and removing a city card from the game (meaning no more viruses can be drawn there). With these there are a set number of Epidemic cards added to the player draw pile and distributed evenly throughout. The number depends on how difficult the players want the game. When these are drawn all kinds of bad stuff happens. The rate at which viruses spread may increase. One new city gets drawn from the bottom of the pile and gets three virus cubes and the worst of all the city discard pile is shuffled and put back on top of the city pile. This means that all of the cities that have been infected so far are only going to get worse.
Four levels of difficulty are included in the game all based on the number of Epidemic cards placed in the player deck and whether you play open handed or not. Even when playing closed hand players can still discuss their hands freely (unlike say Shadows Over Camelot).
[glow=green,2,300]The Good:[/glow] Except for the board (see the ugly) I was impressed by all the components. Nice graphics, nice easy to read full size cards, nice wooden cubes. Very easy to understand instructions, which was a nice change vs. the other games I got for Xmas that had horrible instructions. Nice and simple to learn and just as easy to explain. This definitely one of the best, if not the best co-op games I have played. You wont' find a Traitor or anything like that here (as seen in Shadows Over Camelot), and you also won't find players arguing over what to do (as we have always seen in the Lord of the Rings co-op games). The game is nice and quick as well, allowing for multiple plays in one night. It's also not easy, and you will come frustratingly close to winning only to loose at the last moment, which we have found is the biggest driver for playing 'just one more round'. The addition of multiple difficulty levels is great, and not something I expected.
[glow=yellow,2,300]The Bad:[/glow]This one isn't easy. Don't expect to win it your first try. There are enough people out there on forums that still haven't even won a single game. This seems to be the major complaint about the game. Now personally we were able to beat the game on Easy on the third try. If it wasn't for that maybe I would have been frustrated too, but since I now know it's possible it makes it all the more fun trying to repeat the performance. Because the main engine is card based, there is a random factor, this random factor will influence your odds of winning. Supposedly there are some card combinations where it is impossible to win the game. To me this is all part of the fun, but that could annoy some people.
[glow=red,2,300]The Ugly:[/glow] My one major complaint about this game is the board. First off it's very thin and flimsy. It's not the thinnest board I have seen but compared to the nice thick boards that come with say a Fantasy Flight Game, I was disappointed by the durability of the map in Pandemic. Even more disappointing though was the size. It's just too small, or at least the icons on it for representing cities are just too small. 1 player pawn takes up pretty much all the space they give you. When adding viruses, a research center and 3 more players it's impossible to actually fit everything. I realize the board was probably scaled to fit on an average card table, but I for one would have preferred something significantly larger.
[glow=purple,2,300]Overall:[/glow]This is definitely one of the best if not the best co-op games I have played. It's simple to learn and easy to explain yet rather hard to win. According to the Internet buzz the games too hard to win, but I didn't find that as we won on easy on our third game. I plan on bringing this one to future WGR gatherings and have a feeling this one will get quite a bit of use.
[glow=Blue,2,300]Summary:[/glow]This one kind of popped onto the board game market and immediately jumped up to one of the top 10 games on Boardgamegeek. It's since dropped quite a bit but is currently still sitting at number 21, a very impressive rating. This one is the most popular offering from relative boardgaming newcomers Zman Games.
It's a co-operative game where 1-4 players attempt to cure 4 rampaging viruses from spreading across the world. The players win by finding the cure for all 4 viruses but can loose multiple ways including running out of time (represented by exhausting the player draw deck), having too many outbreaks and having a virus spread out of control (represented by running out of cubes to represent that virus).
Each turn consists of a player round and then an infection round. During the player round, the player gets 4 actions and then draws 2 cards. The actions are chosen from among: Move to an Adjacent City (no cards needed), Direct Flight to a city (play the card of the city you want to move to), Chartered Flight to any City (play the card of the city you are in). Remove disease counters (1 at a time from the city you are in, unless the cure has been found, then remove all from the city you are in), Build a research center (requires the card of the city you are in), find a cure (discard 5 of the same coloured cards while standing in a city with a research center), move between research centers (no cards required), Trade Cards (requires the card of the city the players trading are in). The 4 actions can be split among these options in any way the players want.
After a player has completed their four actions the viruses spread. At the start of the game two more cities are infected from a draw pile. As the game moves forward and outbreak cards are drawn this increases to a max of 4 cities. When adding an infection to a city you add a coloured cube in the appropriate viral colour (denoted on the city card). If at any time you are required to place a 4th cube of a colour on a city, instead an outbreak occurs. This causes you to put one cube in every adjacent city and can cause further outbreaks. Having too many outbreaks is one of the ways to loose the game.
Players also are dealt a character card at the beginning of the game that gives each of them a special ability. These range from being able to cure a decease with less cards, to the ability to move other players. In addition to city cards (used for moving and curing diseases) there are also 5 special cards in the player draw pile that allow for some special moves, like moving anywhere on the board and removing a city card from the game (meaning no more viruses can be drawn there). With these there are a set number of Epidemic cards added to the player draw pile and distributed evenly throughout. The number depends on how difficult the players want the game. When these are drawn all kinds of bad stuff happens. The rate at which viruses spread may increase. One new city gets drawn from the bottom of the pile and gets three virus cubes and the worst of all the city discard pile is shuffled and put back on top of the city pile. This means that all of the cities that have been infected so far are only going to get worse.
Four levels of difficulty are included in the game all based on the number of Epidemic cards placed in the player deck and whether you play open handed or not. Even when playing closed hand players can still discuss their hands freely (unlike say Shadows Over Camelot).
[glow=green,2,300]The Good:[/glow] Except for the board (see the ugly) I was impressed by all the components. Nice graphics, nice easy to read full size cards, nice wooden cubes. Very easy to understand instructions, which was a nice change vs. the other games I got for Xmas that had horrible instructions. Nice and simple to learn and just as easy to explain. This definitely one of the best, if not the best co-op games I have played. You wont' find a Traitor or anything like that here (as seen in Shadows Over Camelot), and you also won't find players arguing over what to do (as we have always seen in the Lord of the Rings co-op games). The game is nice and quick as well, allowing for multiple plays in one night. It's also not easy, and you will come frustratingly close to winning only to loose at the last moment, which we have found is the biggest driver for playing 'just one more round'. The addition of multiple difficulty levels is great, and not something I expected.
[glow=yellow,2,300]The Bad:[/glow]This one isn't easy. Don't expect to win it your first try. There are enough people out there on forums that still haven't even won a single game. This seems to be the major complaint about the game. Now personally we were able to beat the game on Easy on the third try. If it wasn't for that maybe I would have been frustrated too, but since I now know it's possible it makes it all the more fun trying to repeat the performance. Because the main engine is card based, there is a random factor, this random factor will influence your odds of winning. Supposedly there are some card combinations where it is impossible to win the game. To me this is all part of the fun, but that could annoy some people.
[glow=red,2,300]The Ugly:[/glow] My one major complaint about this game is the board. First off it's very thin and flimsy. It's not the thinnest board I have seen but compared to the nice thick boards that come with say a Fantasy Flight Game, I was disappointed by the durability of the map in Pandemic. Even more disappointing though was the size. It's just too small, or at least the icons on it for representing cities are just too small. 1 player pawn takes up pretty much all the space they give you. When adding viruses, a research center and 3 more players it's impossible to actually fit everything. I realize the board was probably scaled to fit on an average card table, but I for one would have preferred something significantly larger.
[glow=purple,2,300]Overall:[/glow]This is definitely one of the best if not the best co-op games I have played. It's simple to learn and easy to explain yet rather hard to win. According to the Internet buzz the games too hard to win, but I didn't find that as we won on easy on our third game. I plan on bringing this one to future WGR gatherings and have a feeling this one will get quite a bit of use.