Pandemic (Board Game Review)

     As url of this page mentions board games, I suppose, I should chime in on those as well. Like any American kid, I grew up on Life, Monopoly, Sorry and Risk. All of those games have their merits, but there is another genre of board games that is quickly taking over the American market, the "European Style Board Game". While in graduate school I was introduced to the Settlers of Catan and my world changed. My roommates and I permanently set up Settlers of Catan with the Seafarers expansion on our front porch. This provided a perfect atmosphere for porch drinking and board gaming. We were fortunate those cardboard pieces were fairly sturdy, as that set up survived a Shih Tzu attack, several severe thunderstorms and countless spilled beers!
     Since the Catan days, my friends and I have purchased and played many other "European Style Board Games". This is where Pandemic fits into the spectrum. Pandemic is a game in which the world is afflicted by several civilization destroying viruses and the human players act as different specialists, working as a team to save the world. While it was not the first team based game I have played (that honor goes to Arkham Horror, which I will write about someday), it was interesting and refreshing to not be in direct competition with the other players. When my friends and I played, we won on the first try. We may have been doing something wrong, gotten lucky or just be geniuses (ok, ok, so we can safely throw out the last possible explanation) either way it was still a lot of fun, after all who does not like saving the world? (Jersey shore people and Jared from Subway are two possibilities...) Of course, there are ways to make the game considerably more difficult and expansions are available, one particularly interesting expansion adds a human player that acts as a terrorist. If you have an hour or so and $40 I would certainly recommend the game, it is not my favorite but does add some variety to your board game library.

If you are curious about what exactly constitutes a "European Style Board Game" this article may help explain the difference. http://gamesandprejudice.wordpress.com/2009/10/29/european-vs-american-style-board-games/

I am also very much waiting for someone to create a CharDee McDennis game!