TransAmerica
Players: 2 to 6
Age: 8 and up
Playing Time: 30 minutes
Publisher: Rio Grande Games
Price: $24.95
Rating: 7 of 10

Review by Brutilus

The Real Scoop:
With the words family game written on the back, I began to worry. Would this really be a game that adults could play? Yes. It's fun for adults as well as kids and has excellent replay value.

I opened the box and was very pleasantly surprised. All of the game pieces were made of finished wood. The board was nicely printed and felt very sturdy even though it was folded in 6 sections. The cards included as part of the game were made of good stock and will hold up to shuffling pretty well.

The rules were a little foggy at first, but with their help we made it through the first round of play and didn't need them afterward. There are some minor changes for 2 to 3 players. When playing with such a limited number of players, you take 10 city cards out of the deck.

During the first play session, I played a 2 player game. We played 2 games in about 40 minutes. Drew would like me to make sure that all of our wonderful readers know that he kicked my ass in BOTH games we played.

You are trying to connect 5 cities that are randomly drawn at the beginning of each round. During their turn, each player lays either one or two pieces of "track". Tracks can be lay 2 per turn across flat land or 1 per turn across mountains or rivers. Each round only takes a few minutes.

After playing this with 2 more of my gaming buddies, we came up with a consensus: this game is an awesome time waster with excellent production values and obvious pride in craftsmanship. It doesn't require too much thinking or strategy and could even be played while drunk. This will definitely be a regular game in our rotation because it is just plain fun.

You can pick up this game at FunAgain Games

TransAmerica is copyright Rio Grande Games. Article and all images are copyrighted 2003 MillionairePlayboy.com.