In a word?  Definitely.  For starters, this was our second Co-Op game we had picked up, and we had been craving another Co-Op game.  I’ll be the first to admit that beating each other senseless in a round of Munchkin is worth every second, but sometimes it’s a good change to play as a group towards a single common goal.

First and foremost however was the unboxing – some games make this easy with boxes that the lids are no where near a snug fit.  Pandemic is not one of those games – it’s an absolutely perfect box, which is only a minor pain (if I happen to drop it, it won’t fly open at least), but one drawback to it is it’s also not quite big enough to seal 100% once you’ve bought the expansion.  It’s still a better fit than any other game box I’ve had (which isn’t many), but it’s a note to make.  For Pandemic’s unboxing, the first thing I noticed was the quality of the game board, and the instruction manual.  I’m used to seeing manuals printed in one color on toilet-paper thin paper folded over to make pages – Pandemic’s is full color, stapled, on nice glossy paper; +1 for you!  The board itself is also thicker than I would have expected – the game just screams durability, which isn’t a bad thing either as the board is nicely colored as well – the rendering of Earth is done in a bit of an artistic not-100%-detailed style, which helps prevent from getting distracted by the art.  +1 again!  For the small pieces (pawns, and the virus markers for the board), the game also had them pre-packaged in small resealable bags.  A bonus, but I won’t add +1 because of P:OTB.

Pandemic:OTB adds its own uniqueness to the game, adding in a few extra cards which are nice, but more importantly for me it came with plastic Petri-Dishes for storing all the game parts in.  It also came with replacements for the base-game’s pawns, which are decidedly huge – this ends up being a good thing as now I have a complete set of equal-sized pawns.  One drawback though is there’s an orange pawn, and a red pawn – in my copy, the two were barely indistinguishable.  This was easily fixed with a white cross on the top of the red pawn, which was the Medic’s pawn.  Bonus points for having replacement pawns for the base game though!

Finally, we get to the meat of the game.  We’ve unboxed it, we’ve read the rules (which are deceptively simple to understand), we’re set up, and we’re off like a rabid cheetah.  Our first game didn’t end so well – the game has a rule we didn’t personally agree with where when the player deck runs out, the game is over.  Yes, you read that right.  If you run out of player cards to draw, the game is over. The reasoning behind this makes some sense – the world only has a limited number of resources with which to fight four separate viral infections, and when the deck runs out, the world is out of resources and cannot afford to fight the virus anymore.  We’ve made some house rules to fix this particular loophole, but even with this rule in effect, one thing becomes perfectly clear: discard management is key.  If you throw out too many cards, you cannot win.  That’s a tall order to play by when the viruses start coming out onto the game board and spreading wildly, but it is possible as we discovered last weekend, beating the game legitimately with no house-rules needed (we were going to reshuffle the player deck when it ran out, but it never did).  Is that saying the game is easy?

Hell no.  Bear in mind the start of the review – I picked this game up a few months ago, and we just beat it legitimately last weekend.  With our house rule for the player deck?  We lost our first six games.  This game is not easy to beat, and is decidedly unpredictable for the first few turns, which makes it extremely difficult to manage.  This might scare away some groups, but ours took it in stride – despite losing the first game, we immediately reset the board to try again.  This is the first game we’ve owned and played that kicked our collective buttocks that badly for our first game, but left us wanting to play again.  That alone made this game worthwhile in my book.

The Numbers – I don’t normally give numbered ratings, but for the sake of organization I’ll break it down for you.

• The Board and Pieces: If you’re playing with just Pandemic, the pawns are oversized, but manageable.  The game pieces themselves are also not particularly unique – wooden houses and cubes only, which is both good and bad.  Good: if you lose a piece, it’s easy to replace – stop off at any garage sale and pick up a used game missing pieces, and cannibalize it for the replacements.  It’s also nice as it’s not so overly distracting on the eye that you lose track of what’s getting close to causing major problems for you in the game.  The bad?  I personally don’t see a bad with it being basic pieces, but if you prefer your games to be slightly more easy on the eye, then the mish-mash of colored cubes all over the board will leave you wanting.
• The Rules: Deceptively simple.  Expect to get your tail whipped more than once before putting the strategy together – don’t let it scare you away.  The game is beatable, but it really does take a team effort to complete.
• The Players: I’ve seen reports online that this can be played with anyone from age 2 to 90; I’m not willing to say that age 2 is old enough due to small pieces and a lack of ability to grasp the greater strategy, but it’s definitely accessible enough that non-gamers can pick it up and understand the basic premise.  Whether those non-gamers will take the being beat in stride or storm off in anger is the question.
• The Verdict: If your gaming group or family is in need of a non-competitive game, this is a darn good choice.  Am I biased?  Not in the slightest – I’m just surprised at how many plays this single game has gotten in our group from an impulse-buy on Amazon!

If you’re too lazy to read that and you want a numbered rating, 89.7 acorns out of America because I love NASCAR.  Make of that what you will.

On the up shot, at least it didn’t get hacked while I was away this time!

But in all seriousness, all that’s new is I ordered up Pandemic and Pandemic: On The Brink. Looks to be an interesting board game with easy to understand rules, but while simultaneously being the first game I’ve had the pleasure of saying “God that was a fun way to get my ass kicked in my first game.”

Here’s hoping I figure out my funk and get on with making something USEFUL for a change.

Addictions, addictions…Hand me some of that Jolt Caffeinated Bubblegum, I’m gunna be up all night.

Other than that, discovered I like Daft Punk, cant wait for Tron Legacy to NOT require me to wear 3d glasses (I don’t get this 3d crap), and my xmas shopping is -done!-

Anyhoo, other than that, not much else worth mentioning happened.