Chicago Express

Customer Reviews

Chicago Express is a quick auction and train game where players attempt to own and build up rail companies. It's an interseting and highly involved gae of negotiation and discussion whose gameplay changes depending on the number of players involved. Review by TR

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In Chicago Express, players purchase shares of 4 rail companies in a series of auctions to enable them to develop these companies. Since the winner is the player with the most money at the end of the game, and the only way to gain additional funds is to increase the value of the company and thus the dividend payout, players must own companies to win but cannot afford to buy into them too highly.

Chicago Express is an interesting combination of both business and uction mechanics as well as a rail game, where the rail aspect is based around the development of the companies value. Since this is an auction game, with a fixed amount of assets available, the bidding on shares and the final gameplay will vary depending on the number of players.

It's an interesting train game, which has a level of cold blooded calculation and auction mechanics, with the ability to block players both on the map and through auctions. While the rules are relatively simple, and gampelay can go pretty fast, it's still quite deep in strategic complexity.

Overall, Chicago Express should scratch quite a few itches and is quite fun to play, though it feels sometimes that the game ends too soon. (Posted on 3/28/09)