This week we played Rush N’ Crush. I like racing games. I also like racing games where you can shoot at your opponents or ram them into walls. This is just such a game; although I found that most of the time I was the one being shot at or rammed.
First a quick note about the playing pieces. The track and the driver displays are first rate. The tokens and gear shift levers used on the driver display are clear tokens—nothing fancy, but workable. The dice are standard dice. The cars are crap. You get six cars in three different colors. The cars break apart into two pieces so it is possible to get six unique cars. The problem is that the cars break apart into two pieces…a lot…while playing the game. I’m replacing the six cars in the game with some extra cars I have for Formulae De.
Once you figure out how to decipher the driver display it’s pretty easy to play the game from then on. Rush N’ Crush has two playing modes: Arcade and Overdrive. We played the simpler Arcade mode. We also played with the track layout suggested in the Arcade rules.
All of our cars and drivers where tweaked a little differently. Mike made great use of the ramming and bumping options on his car. Owen and I raced around the track firing our machine guns and dropping land mines. Ben ran into things. Unfortunately it was usually not what he intended to hit. Going through a particular tight area of the track Ben tried to bump Mike into the wall. Ben failed and plowed into a wall nearly destroying his car.
Mike was the leader throughout most of the game with Ben and I trying to keep up with him. Owen ran a safer race in the hopes that we would destroy our cars. That strategy nearly worked. Mine and Ben’s cars where pretty beat-up by the time we came around the last turn. Ben had no steering, no brakes, and no armor left. I had no steering left. Steering is important in the game to get you around obstacles. Mike was still in the lead at this point and his car was in great shape. He crossed the finish line in style. The rest of us crossed the finish line as losers.
After the game was over I asked everyone what they thought of it. The all liked it better than Formula De. Maybe because has a good balance between racing/shooting/ramming fun and car/driver record keeping.
Next we had ice cream. Then we played Ivanhoe. You have to win four different tournaments to win the game. Ben came out and won three tournaments in a row. Having drained his hand of good cards, Mike and Owen began to win. I couldn’t win a tournament to save my life. Although honestly Jousting, Pole Axes, Swords, Morning Stars, or Fists(?) are not my best weapons. Owen eventually won and everyone called me an idiot for not playing the action card I had. I put up a stellar defense on my behalf, before diverting their attention and running from the room.
Chaos Steve
