Apple: Ticket to Ride Review
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Days of Wonder decided that the iPad would be a perfect platform to have their game ported to, and I couldn't agree with them more. I've spent way too much time playing the game, when I probably could have been writing this review, but this game is just too good to stop playing, especially given the high scoreboard. In this game you will be taking on at least one opponent as you try to claim the railways across the map. There are several different maps that you can purchase, but the one that comes with the game is the US. If you can connect the most routes, you might just find yourself coming out on top.
Graphically this game doesn't require much, but what it does give you is elegance in simplicity. You'll be able to see the board, the cards you can draw from, your routes highlighted, and your hand. Each piece of the game has a good clear spot on the screen and won't leave you guessing about anything.
The sounds of the game are on the simple side.
The controls of the game just have you tapping on the screen, or dragging and dropping. You'll be tapping to gain cards to your hand, and you'll be dragging and dropping to lay down tracks in the game.
As stated before your job is to try complete routes that are on cards that you'll be drawing throughout the game. You're going to have 3 different actions you can take during your turn. You can draw 2 cards, or one face up wild card, you can lay down tracks between two points (if you have the correct number of cards), or you can draw three route cards, but you have to choose one. You'll have 45 trains to work with, and once a route is taken by an opponent you will not be able to use it during the course of the game. The beautiful thing about this game is it takes strategy, and the ability to change at the drop of a hat. You'll also have to hope that the cards fall just right for you as well. You'll see on the board that there are colored routes, which you'll have to have the right cards for, and there are the grey routes where you can use all of any color to complete the route. Oh and one more thing, once a player gets under 3 trains left to play the game goes into the final turn.
So if you're looking for a great board game on the iPad that is a different than your average board game you're going to want to pick this up, and you'll also find that once you get the hang of it you might not want to stop playing, or perhaps you'll want to get more maps to see if your skills can translate to those maps as well. This game gets a 9.2 out of 10.
Reader Comments (2)
I've played Ticket to Ride on the "real" board game, and I approve of the game- it is one of my favorite board games ever. One of the main reasons is that while the rules are incredibly simplistic, there is also an immeasurable of strategy involved.
The other aspect I love is that in a lot of board games (and card games for that matter), it seems that a potential winner is quickly evident as early turns can dictate the rest of the game. However, in T2R, you can pull a victory out in the last few turns with that huge 6-train connection to get a big-point route from NYC to LA finishes.
I think that right there is the reason why this game is so addictive, you can pull out victories in the last second, I've won a couple times thanks to the longest continuous track. There's also a ton of risk you have to take when you're playing against people who know what they are doing, if you can make it happen, holy crap its awesome, but if you can't oh the pain one can suffer.