Our Mass Transit review, what we have to say about the light cooperative transportation game. It’s rush hour and your team of urban planners must work together to lay transit routes to the Suburbs and keep the buses, ferries and trains moving – all while limited in your communication. Get the six commuters home to their families before time runs out and you all succeed at Mass Transit. This is very light, easy to get to the table and unique enough that any co-op fan should check it out.
We took a look across fun, replayability, player interaction, quality and art & style to come up with the overall score for our Mass Transit review. See the breakdown by category below.
FOR MORE: Mass Transit Page | How To Play Mass Transit | Games Like Mass Transit | Best Mass Transit Prices on BGA
– CATEGORY BREAKDOWN –
Fun (7 out of 10)
For the fun section of the Mass Transit review, we award a very good 7 out of 10. The pool of playable light cooperative cards games that aren’t about completing a story is very small so it is nice to see this title, which makes it bigger. The game is a very interesting mix of two different games that overlap and weighing which one to push forward at what times.
Like being in a foot race with a ton of people including teammates, you need to stay ahead of the people behind you while not being so close to the people ahead that you are stepping on their heels. That is the metaphor for this game, you all need to run in unison together or everything is going to collide and it will all far apart. A fun experience.
Replayability (7 out of 10)
For the replayability section of the Mass Transit review, we award a high 7 out of 10. The top thing this game has going for it is how easy it is to get to the table and playing. The rules are incredibly easy and setup is a snap. You really don’t have rules, you just have ways to get rid of cards and if you can’t you are done.
Paths can be all sorts of different combinations but at the end of the day, you need to move the Commuters smartly along the path home and if you make things too congested or don’t move right, you goals are not going to accomplish your team goal. Every game is different, so this is an easy one to play over an over. It does have that win scale, telling you how well you won, but it is enough of a challenge it will take you a bit to crack and you will want to do it a few times.
Player Interaction (8 out of 10)
For the player interaction section of the Mass Transit review, we award a great 8 out of 10. For the genre this category is everything and it gets good marks because it is a nice little portable experience and it is a successful game that give you a cooperative experience unlike anything else you have ever seen.
There are other games where you need to shed cards enough to stay alive against restraints, but here those restraints are the balance of two different joint objectives – building transportation routes and moving commuters. With the six different paths, the group is juggling different balls in the air at a time and how everyone hops in and grabs their respective metaphorical balls is a direct result of how the game is going to play out.
Quality (7 out of 10)
For the quality section of the Mass Transit review, we award a very good 7 out of 10. Really solid points for the originality of the experience and balance of the game. It knows exactly what it is and it delivers on it.
Components are fine but nothing out of this word. Some cards and pieces on par with anything else, though the Commuter meeple figures are top notch. For a small box game, there is tons of gameplay here is which is always going to be a good thing when it is time to take a look at the price tag.
Art & Style (6 out of 10)
For the art & style section of the Mass Transit review, we award a great 7 out of 10. The game is very on theme and has that transportation map style made famous by Harry Beck that favors information hierarchy over scale. The colors could have been bolder to really capture it but the execution is still very smooth and aesthetically pleasing in its design and iconography.
Sorry to Calliope Games, but their game covers are just never on par with some of the other high-end game boxes on the market. This title is no different. It would be great if they kicked these up a notch because these are the window in. Nothing has a chance to grab someone like eye-catching box art. They have some really solid titles that don’t get the credit they deserve because so many people probably passed them over.
– IN CLOSING –
Mass Transit Review | Board Game Halv
Mass Transit is a great cooperative card game that crams a ton of gameplay into a small box and delivers a light experience that is unlike anything else. Working together players are trying to build transportation routes, as well as, move commuters along them. The balance of these two, as a team, where you can't communicate plans is a very interesting and strategic experience. Only recently have lighter co-op games really been popping up and this is another great example. This has been our Mass Transit review, we hope you enjoyed it!
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See the full explanation of the judging criteria here.
