When I was a kid, my grandfather would take my older brother out to go train watching. My brother’s obsession with trains grew as he got older, his train sets getting every more intricate. While I never thought I was a huge train buff myself, developer Next Level Games seems determined to bring out the inner conductor that apparently was lying dormant inside me. Published by Playful Entertainment “Ticket to Ride” is the latest board game entry to hit XBLA. The game remains faithful to its board game roots while providing easy matchmaking over Live Arcade.

Gameplay:

Ticket to Ride places 5 players (or any combination and number of real players and AI) in charge of building a network of railways across North America. Players build their railways by drawing coloured card. Each railway route has a set amount of train cards required to add that route to the players network. Railway routes are colour-coded meaning the player can only use train cards the same colour to build a line. The longer the length of the route, the more points the player scores. Adding to the complexity of the game, players are given one to three “destination tickets” at the start hidden from other players. Destination tickets consist of two cities, and are worth a certain amount of points depending on how far away the cities are from each other. Completing a destination can wrack up big points; however, if the game ends before a player has completed a destination ticket the points on the ticket are deducted from the players score instead of added. This can be the difference between winning and losing the game. This leads to other players trying to block routes leading to your destination if they deduct where you are trying to connect. While all of this may sound simple, the game is very complex, as players choose to draw new destination tickets, or simply try to build across high scoring routes.

Graphics:

While I wasn’t expecting graphics on par with GTAIV or Gears of War, even for a board game I found the graphics to be really plain. Perhaps even worse, orange and red routes are very hard to tell the difference between which has lead to bouts of cursing in more than one match. I felt that more effort could have been put into sprucing things up, perhaps more detailed trains, or watching tracks being build as you lay down your routes. Don’t get me wrong, the game board is serviceable, but they really missed out on the graphical opportunities being a “video game” could have provided. Everything about the game graphically feels “barebones” which is a shame considering how great the gameplay is.

Sound:

There really isn’t much to speak of here. There are a few endlessly looping music tracks with an “old west” feel. Sound effects consist of a toot of the horn when you lay down tracks. Like the graphics department this felt “barebones” making me think that maybe 800 MS points was a little much to ask for the title.

Longevity:

In terms of the actual game itself, it offers endless replay-ability, given that no two games will ever be alike. This is part of the attraction of the game, while the game mechanics are easy to learn, every game is different due to the multitude of rail routes and combination of Destination Tickets the player can draw. Adding to the replay-ability factor downloadable content, is also very likely in the works as well as the online instructions for the game make mention of several expansion packs. Ticket to Ride will live and die by how well received the game remains over Live. My experience so far has been that it takes between 3 – 5 minutes to get a (random) ranked match going, which isn’t too bad. I worry though that as time marches by the online community will disappear. While using one’s friends list is always going to be an option, random games are great for those late nights when nobody you know is online. I look towards Catan as inspiration, the game has been out for months and the online community is still going strong. Only time will tell if Ticket to Ride can also sustain such a loyal fan base.

Overall:

Ticket to Ride should have scored higher but lost points because of the lack of graphical and audio polish. Despite this, I highly recommend the title to anyone who is a fan of the board game, or those folks that are looking for a deeply strategic “thinking man’s” game. What the game lacks in graphics and audio it more than makes up for in superb gameplay. If strategic board games like Catan and Carcassonne are your thing, by all means grab Ticket to Ride, it’s definitely a worthy addition to any self respecting board gamers library of Xbox Live Arcade games.