Steam: Rails to Riches

Customer Reviews

Excellent, deep, medium-heavy game Review by David

Value
Quality
Price

Steam is excellent. I love this game. The basic idea is this: you take out loans to build railway lines, connecting cities. You build the lines by laying tiles on a board. Each city has a bundle of goods that need to be delivered to another city. You need to choose between delivering goods and upgrading your ability to deliver goods. Each good has specific cities it can and can't go to. Delivering goods makes you money, which you can spend on paying off your loans, developing income streams, or victory points. That's the game, more or less.

So, who'll like this game? If you like train games, you're more likely to enjoy this game. The components are good quality, and you can really feel the theme. Heavy gamers will like this game. There are tough decisions to make every turn, and there's a lot of tension throughout, but especially in the second half of the game. You will use your brain. A lot. If any of this doesn't sound like fun, I'd advise you not to get Steam. If it does sound like fun though, buy it!

The only thing I don't like about the game is the turn order. Although I like the mechanics, and I think they're part of the reason I love the game, they can be unintuitive sometimes. That because players can purchase the opportunity to take their turns first, and it's not reflected by the turn order markers on the board. Still, that's a minor quibble, and certainly not one that would prevent me from playing or enjoying Steam. (Posted on 4/13/12)