Yesterday evening to the early minutes of the following day, we played a game of Zombies!!! - yes literally a game. Four of us, Brian, Nigel Wood and Nigel Heathers got together around Nigel W's house for a zombie evening of Zombies!!! and Last Night on Earth. After a quick natter after my late arrival, we set about playing Zombies - everyone was new to the game so we had to go through the rules. Even I hadn't really played the game with all aspects of the rules.
We started a game but we found that we were about half way through the stack of cards and not many shots were fired. In fact, Nigel H pointed out, the zombies were turning out not to be much of a threat as they only moved one space whilst we could move up to 6 using a single D6.
Then Nigel W noticed in the rules the paragraph that if we get a tile with no shops/buildings on, ie just cross roads or L shape, you place two or three zombies on it. Ah. That changed things a bit. So we lived and learned and started again.
This time it was more tough, blasting through zombies and finding a way through to the helicopter. Which appeared but covered in zombies. Then the game went from a semi- co-op game with everyone being nice with their event cards to all out war on the zombies and each other! And this is when things fell apart. We would either be killed by zombies (end up back at the start) or be stopped by the other players from reaching the helicopter with an Event card.
This happened over. And over. And over. We started at 9pm. We finished just after midnight!! 3 hours?! The box said no more that 1hr. Hmm. Something was going wrong. We were knee deep in zombies (we needed the Bag o'Zombies that I bought extra) and each others event cards. The game became something of a slog and we missed out playing a game of Last Night on Earth! I was very disappointed in bringing such a game to the table - disappointed also for the others in that they didn't get much, I felt out of the evening.
I stated the next day I'd be selling the game - Brian had suggested he'd be interested in getting it, so I'll sell it to him - good to start a clear out I think of unused/unplayed games before Christmas!
Sold some games! Zombies!!! went to Brian after the 3 hr fiasco the last time we played it; I didn't really like it and didn't think that the game wasn't amazing. Pandemic although good, didn't really work with us as a family; the couple of or so times we played it we found it frustrating and annoying. The thing we love about Euro games is the not knowing who has won until right at the end, right up to the final count. Even then things can change in some games. But Pandemic you can see the end coming like a brick wall at 60 mph. You can see the fact you are going to loose and nothing can be done about it, but you have to keep playing otherwise why play. And the fact no one wins if the game wins makes it a bit frustrating. So, it's going to a better home where it might be loved more.
