Pocket Gamer's board game retrospective - Pandemic: The Board Game
Feeling a bit sick?
Pandemic: The Board Game is a really impressive adaptation of a really popular board game. And, perhaps most interestingly, it plays brilliantly whether you're on your own or you're having a crack with some other people.
Essentially it's a game about saving the world. Horrible diseases are springing up around the globe, and you need to use your team of specialists to try and stop them before they wipe out the entire population.
You don't do this through medical tests and research though, you do it by rolling dice and turning over cards.
You can play the game all on your lonesome, or you can join up with other people to play cooperatively. That's right, you're all on the same team trying to save the same world.
You're saving the world by travelling from city to city to combat outbreaks of viruses. But these viruses are travelling around as well, and while there are seven different specialties in the game, you can only take four of them with you in a play through.
That makes the game about balance. You'll need medics, dispatchers, and other influential team members. But who are you going to leave behind?
And what's going to be the consequence when the diseases hit the fan and start spreading like wild fire?
If you've not got many board gaming friends, or you just want something to play on your own with a dice and cards heart, then Pandemic is definitely going to be right up your street.
It's slick, it's smart, and if you fail you've condemned the whole planet to a really nasty coughing fit.
