Raceway 57
- Details
- Category: Game Reviews
- Published: Saturday, 06 January 2018 19:09
- Written by Brent Rosencrans
- Hits: 2406
Raceway 57 is an asphalt auto racing game for up to 4 players. The object is pretty simple, win the race! However, the game is not nearly that simple. You must manage tire wear, suspension wear, fuel usage, chassis damage and more to come out on top. This game features pit stops and utilizes both cards and dice to get around the board. Wear and tear are determined by the board based on racing physics.
How to Win: Be the first racer to complete the designated number of laps. Note: Once a racer completes the last lap, anyone else who would go after that competitor does get their final turn. Should more than one racer complete the race, the one that gets the furthest past the finish line wins.
My Review: I would qualify this by saying I'm a long time dirt racing fan, announcer, blogger, columnist, etc. As such, I bring a degree of bias into this review that may create more of a niche appeal for me than for the general gaming public. This said, it is hard to find a good quality racing game that isn't just about dice rolling. This game has a lot of strategy from when to pit to which resource I want to run low on first. Managing this is crucial to winning the game. If you are too conservative, you'll never catch up after a pit stop. Too aggressive and you may break down or run out of fuel (forcing you to run slowly until you get to the pits).
I find Raceway 57 to be a great game for managing this. I feel the excitement playing this game. It seems everyone makes a run at one point or another (even if because of pit stops). That being said, the game is too short if you follow the rules. When we play, we usually utilize a house rule to increase the number of laps, making pit strategy even more important.
Overall, this game really does create the feel of excitement I get at the race track. My only wish is that it had some kind of real race cars like another old NASCAR game I have.
Overall Ratings
Instructions: 10/10 The instructions seem pretty self-explanatory. I don't believe my racing bias plays into this, but maybe it does.
Ease of Play: 7/10 This may be kind of confusing the first few plays, especially if you are not a race fan. There is a lot to remember as far as what the colors mean and how much wear and tear you get from the dice rolls. The game does provide some cheat cards though to help manage this.
Components: 6/10 There are multiple versions of this, but I'm going with the cheap one for this. The rubber cars are ok and the plastic gauges are decent. One drawback is the typo on the pit stall that has two "2"s making that part a little difficult to use. The cards are pretty thin as well.
Replay Value: 5/10 Unless you are a big racing fan like me, there is not much variety in this game. It is pretty much a typical dice rolling/card playing game where most of the variety comes from luck.
Overall Rating: 7/10 For race fans looking for their winter fix, this might run closer to an 8, but for the general gamer, probably not so much!
