Pandemic: The Board Game Review (Steam)
As skilled members of a disease-fighting team, you must keep four deadly diseases at bay while discovering their cures. Travel the world, treat infections, and find cures. You must work as a team to succeed. The clock is ticking as outbreaks and epidemics fuel the spreading plagues.Pandemic: The Board Game Review Pros:
- Nice artwork.
- Rulebook- The Exact one that comes in the physical version.
- Optional tutorial.
- 720MB Download size.
- Steam achievements.
- Three difficulties- Introductory, Standard and Heroic.
- Seven characters (roles): Dispatcher, Operations, Scientists, Quarantine, medic, researcher and contingency planner.
- Can rename your character.
- All played using just the mouse.
- 1-4 local MP.
- Undo move button.
- Animations on/off.
- Fast loading times.
- Can freely move the map and zoom in and out.
- Goal- Cure all 4 diseases before you have too many breakouts.
- Epidemic card- Once drawn, it increases the threat level and infects more cities and reshuffles the discarded cards, meaning the chance of another outbreak is high.
- Event cards- Give random abilities or powers like fast travel, build a research centre anywhere for free, etc.
- To cure a disease, you need 5 of the same colour cards and then cash them in at a research centre.
- If a city has 3 disease cubes on a location, then that location comes up again. It causes an outbreak that spreads even more disease.
- Seven-card hand limit.
- Draw two cards every round.
- Clear on-screen markers for disease rate level.
- Infinite replayability.
- Excellent way to learn the game.
- Hot seat multiplayer.
- The game is a co-op game.
Pandemic: The Board Game Review Cons:
- No graphics options.
- Player names have randomly changed, even my own character.
- Achievements seem buggy and don’t unlock properly.
- The flat atmosphere, Little music to set the tone.
- Doesn’t include any expansions.
- The rulebook is just a flat-out scan of the physical book on a webpage.
- Have to move around the board one by one.
- RNG determines so much.
- Picking your own role feels like cheating.
- No online play.
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The Numbers:
Summary
Jumping from a physical board game to a digital one is no easy feat, Pandemic being one of the most popular board games of all time only elevates the task at hand and for a large chunk of it, Asmodee does a really good job of transitioning the gameplay. Sure it is easy to pick up and play, Doesn’t take ages to set up or put away afterward but does it still have the same excitement and atmosphere as the physical version? Well, it does in certain cases, It does allow new players to jump in and learn the rules quickly, It does have big bright icons and cards so you know what’s what and it does maintain the “feel”. What it does lack in however is atmosphere, There is next to no music to complement the current stages of the game, Epidemic cards which cause destruction to anyone’s gameplay passes without a whimper, The lack of physical cards in front of you means the game really needs to work harder to make you care, To engross you in the survival of it all and it just doesn’t. I would say this is a game that you can happily play and spend many many hours playing it but all you are really doing is paying to not set up and put away the physical version. The digital version could have done with more digital interactions.
