Pyramid Pick
Pandemic
Published by Z-Man Games
Designed by Matt Leacock
Graphic design & layout by Joshua Cappel
Art by Régis Moulun
Full-color boxed set with mounted map board, five pawns, five Role cards, four Reference cards, six Research Stations, six markers (Cure markers, Outbreak marker, Infection Rate marker), 96 disease cubes in four colors, 59 Player cards, 48 Infection cards, and rulebook; $34.99
Is there simply no market for cooperative games? The success of things like Shadows Over Camelot suggests, done right, there's mileage to be had. Maybe gamers just can't get behind a title unless it has them staring daggers at each other across a table, but Pandemic from Z-Man Games falls into that "done right" category. Diseases are running rampant throughout the population and humanity hangs in the balance.
The object of the game is to cure all four diseases before Earth succumbs.
Two to four players work together to eliminate outbreaks across the globe, and everybody has a role to play -- literally. Role cards give a player a job with a special ability that skirts the rules in some way. The Operations Expert builds Research Stations more freely, for example, and the Scientist discovers cures quicker. Action takes place on a world map of 48 major cities (including Essen -- zing). As the game begins diseases have broken out in several cities, and the heroes are dispatched from Atlanta's Centers for Disease Control.
A player uses his actions . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: April 4, 2008
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