Ticket to Ride (Europe Expansion) Review

I think I must be a true blue American because I definitely like Ticket to Ride USA better than the European version.  Europe is smaller and somehow the routes are more complicated and less interesting. 

Overall the game is similar but there are a few changes to the USA version.  Firstly, you can “buy” up to 3 stations.  To do that you must select a city and claim it with 1 train (second station requires 2 trains of the same color, 3rd station requires 3 trains of the same color) and at the end of the game you are allowed to pick a route that uses that station no matter who has claimed that route during the game (this is so that if you opponent blocked your route during the game that you can claim it for the final point tally).  Also some routes you must have a rainbow (wild) card to complete the route and it would have been great to know that before I began the game but there is no help section for the Europe map, so I just had to figure it out as I played. 

The graphics are the same, but the music changes to present a more European sound which is nice and fun.  Overall the game is enjoyable but I much prefer the USA version to the European one.

The one thing that bugged me about this game, and I forgot to mention it in my review of the USA version was that you have to constantly zoom in on the map. There was no option to keep things zoomed in on exactly what you wanted to see, or so that you could actually make out the colors (red vs. orange). One other mechanic that was thrown in the European version that wasn’t in the USA version was certain routes that had slightly different looking colored blocks. When trying to take these routes there was a chance that you’d have to use more cards than the actual amount required. To determine the amount the game would draw 3 random cards, any cards that either matched your color choice or were rainbow caused you to have to play that many more of that color. If you were unable to supply the additional cards needed your turn ended and you had your cards returned to you.

Overall this game could be interesting if you put a lot of time in it, but it definitely would have been 10 times better if there were rules that came with the game. Unfortunately frustration is going to ultimately make you yearn to go back to the original game and leave this expansion of the game collecting dust. For 600 Microsoft Points, this game is not worth it.

Rating 5.6 out of 10

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