Tom Vasel and Jason Levine take a look at the classic racing game, Formula D! 00:00 - Introduction 01:42 - Game overview 06:40 - Final thoughts Buy great games at www.gamenerdz.... Find more reviews and videos at www.dicetower.com
Something we always do is give each player 2 cars, unless there's like 6+ players. In that case we do teams of two. Then it's no longer about who finishes in 1st place. Each position gives gives points and the team with the most points wins.
I like this way the best. It also let's people do some strategies with their tire choises which is always fun. The first game with everyone seems to be good for learning. The dice give it a little randomization, but in general the player with the best strategy will win. And of course the players with more experience know better what kind of strategies to use.
I really enjoyed playing this game with my daughter (7yrs old). When I play with friends I usually house rule the turn rule. To keep it simple I simply have the player do this simple formula (# of spaces past turn zone x 2 = # of spaces to move backwards). For example, if a player over shoots by 2 spaces, then they would move backwards 4 spaces (2x2=4) and it still counts as a stop. I found this simple formula keep the game from lagging and is still enough to motivate players from over shooting the turn.
3 laps to me is essential for this game it allows real strategy, for example I rolled a bad qualifying roll and ended up in 8th to start then stalled first turn so I decided to take the lap conservative and save my car to skip the pits and make up ground.
The Board has numbers marked around the board not just in corners so the AP problem is minor in my opinion as you can read the numbers and apply some basic Math to quickly work out your numbers. The problems with someone running away is a lot less if you play 3 laps.
So I just watched Jason's top 10 (from his own top 100 series) and this game was there. That video happened before this one, Tom was sitting at the table with him, but yet Tom acted surprised both times how much Jason like this game. Kinda funny.
I NEVER play this with 10! I've tried it once and the down time between each turn was huge. I say maximum 5, but each person controls 2 cars/a team. Team slipstreams for the win!
Tom, you know the line in My Fair Lady? "By George, I think you've done it." Yes, you've created a star. I see a great team shaping up here. But like Dr. Frankenstein, let's hope you haven't created a boardgame monster.
I played the game once at a "medium" level and was not a fan. I however, was highly looking forward to it. It just disappointed me. It doesn't make my top 100, and probably sits around 150 or so. I do keep an extra 10 past 100 in case replays change my mind. But Formula D and one other game, I am keeping even past 110, this game I am keeping at "112", because I have the sneaky suspicion I will actually like playing the basic version. And if so, might make it back into the top 100.
Imagine playing 24 Heures du Mans at Formula D speed. In Formula D, if playing pretty efficiently, probably takes an hour per lap for a handful of cars for a lap that takes 2 mins in real time. So roughly it's 30 times slower. So at least 720 hours :) I figure quite a lot worse, because if you are not playing with more than one division of racing, there's no point. Maybe you play 4 LMP cars (two teams, Lotus and Ferrari :) and 4 sports cars ( Chevy and Ford :)
My only problem with it and its a very minor problem, is that the weight of the cars are so light that they can easily move about if someone knocks the table, rolls a die poorly etc. Like I said minor gripe that's all.
ive had this game on my radar. the AP is what turns me off most. if one was to get a timer (such as a sand timer) would that completly take away that negative, tom? say you go over the time limit you must shift down a gear and roll?
I am car enthusiast and my gaming group has even racing drivers (low level, but still) . And this game doesn't interest them. I cant explain why :( I like this game, but I had just few opportunities to play it.
I have a few questions. Tom said there are street cars, are these like stock cars? The maps/tracks all fictional or is there some of actual tracks? In the rules, is there ways to make custom drivers, cars and tracks?
I have wondered for awhile: when you enter a turn and stop dies that count as one stop for the turn? ex: a turn marked as 2, I roll from outside the turn, land in the turn, is that my first stop? or do I still need to stop 2 more times?
+vigovelito only exception is if You with this roll missed stop in previous corner and ended up in next. Then this stop counts towards previous corner and dont count toward this corner.
nice. only I cannot agree with you that is almost the same as Formula De. I understand that you in US do not care so much about it cause you do not care about F1 so much but the the best part of old version were the "real" tracks so you can like run your owen F1 championship.
+Roman Buček I agree about the real tracks, but with the popularity of racing growing (even a little) I am sure the amount of money needed to use the track name and design was probably prohibitive (copyright being what it is).... Sony and MS pay a small fortune just for access to the cars in their games.
I have Formula D with 2 expansions on it. 4 out of the 6 maps are real tracks. So I wouldn't say that these tracks are any way less real than in Formula Dé.
I don't understand this game, unfortunately. It plays best with more people, but then drags on forever. At its heart, it's a push-your-luck game, but it becomes convoluted at the advanced level and doesn't really mask the push-your-luck element significantly (and the base game is purely a push-your-luck game with little in terms of strategy or tactics). It's like a game that wants to be playable in like 30 minutes, but takes closer to 2 hours with a decent sized group. I don't understand why anyone would enjoy a roll and move. It just baffles me. Yet I have friends who love this. To each their own, I suppose. :P
I really don't like this game, it is long, boring and just feels like a waste of time every time my friends force me to play it. The street racing variant is marginally better than the Formula 1 base game. But not much. This is basically Advanced Parcheesi or Chutes and Ladders.
