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Beings of ancient evil, known as Old Ones, are threatening to break out of their cosmic prison and awake into the world. Everything you know and love could be destroyed by chaos and madness. Can you and your fellow investigators manage to find and seal every portal in time? Hurry before you lose yourself to insanity.
Attika
Unlike prior Pandemics -- which were exercises in evaluating probabilities and pressing your luck -- this game is simply a luck-fest. Yes, it has nice/decent components, and yes it has thematic art and gameplay, but these simply can't offset the enormous swingy-ness of the player card draws and bosses. Bleh. I won't turn down a game if someone else suggests it, but I won't be the one suggesting to play it. And I LOVE Pandemic.
ArkhamSign
Pandemic Reign of Cthulhu has cool components and has the same easy, simple rules as standard Pandemic. However, the ways in which this game can turn on you are far too much. In Pandemic, outbreaks can chain but unless you let it get totally out of control they cannot tear through the board and cause your defeat. Because there is only one way for the outbreaks to occur. But in Reign of Cthulhu there are so many things that can happen to cause the game to just rip into you. Like disease cubes , cultists can overrun which causes an Awakening of an Elder God. But that Elder God can put more cultists out, which can in turn cause another Awakening. Plus you have shuggoths moving through gates and once a shuggoth goes through a gate that causes an Awakening. Then there are the Evil Stirs which are the equivalent of Epidemic cards. Those cause an Awakening. And these things can easily chain together. In one game we had four Awakenings occur in one player's turn. You only have to have seven to lose. So we were half way to losing in one turn! One! Yes. we know that coop games are meant to be challenging. But when you can be brought that close to defeat in one turn (did I mention that was the first turn in the game?) it is too hard.
andrewrothfuss
A bit of a contradiction. It wants to be all serious and weighty with the Cthulhu theming and madness mechanics, but it's actually the quickest and lightest version of the traditional Pandemic games. Not that it's a bad, it's just unexpected. In fact that lightness actually sets it apart from all the other versions.