10 Awesome Board Games You Need To Play

3. Pandemic

Global outbreaks of life-threatening diseases and board games. Who'd have thunk that those two things would go together so well? The creators of Pandemic, apparently.

This game sets itself apart from all the others on this list because it's not competitive but collaborative; all of the players must band together on a world map (not unlike Risk's) in order to visit cities and stem the tide of infection while simultaneously trying to develop a cure. It's fairly high stakes, then, and there's no joy to be found in watching the other players suffer because if they lose then so do you.

It's an intense, time-critical experience, and certainly not what you would normally expect from a game played with plastic pieces on a cardboard mat. Which is exactly why it's such a great example of the kind of fun you can have with board games.