Great Port with One Complaint – Pandemic: The Board Game Review

Full disclosure: I am a super-fan of Pandemic the board game. It will take a super-special game to replace it as my favorite. Unfortunately, I do not get enough opportunities to get together with friends to play it. This app feeds my craving for the game well enough between actual tabletop plays. The add-ons to the experience (music tracks, three cube city “lightshows”, outbreak explosions) as well as the rules implementation are all top-notch. Having the characters from On the Brink is great, as they add a lot of depth to the game. I consider them as an ESSENTIAL add-on. The Virulent Strain challenge is certainly only for the truly seasoned, as it can be brutal sometimes. My main complaint with the app as it stands is its propensity to “rubberband” (a term most racing game players will recognize). For example I have had several games where my first turn was really good - either all three cube cities were treated or two out of three were treated. I could predict 8 out of 10 times that I would get an Epidemic on the first draw, especially when playing with 5 or 6 epidemics. Also, there has seemed to be an inordinate number of times when I got a highly improbable “Epidemic followed by an Outbreak” (due to having a lot of city cards in the Infection discard pile). I prefer not having artificial drama. If I am going to play Virulent Strain with 6 Epidemics, I don’t need the extra challenge of predicting the turn-by-turn “adjusted” randomness. That being said, I am looking forward to the following possible add-ons (in order of most important to me) in the future: 1) Lab challenge (with adjusted and new Role cards related to the challenge) 2) All remaining Roles from In the Lab and State of Emergency (minus Veterinarian and Colonel) 3) Remaining Event cards from In the Lab and State of Emergency 4) Mutation challenge 5) Emergency Events I am not including multiplayer because, for me, multiplayer happens in the real world. To be able to provide an effective communication system to come close to real life would require a major overhaul and possibly limit the game in other aspects.
Review by Arkham Inmate on Pandemic: The Board Game.