Maglev Metro

Board Game Geek Reviews

1. ajewo

   Maglev Metro by Ted Alspach (Suburbia, Castles of Mad King Ludwig) is the ultimate pick up and delivery experience with network building in Manhattan or Berlin. There are many ways to victory depending on how you upgrade your actions. You constantly tweak your engine (actions) with picked up passengers (robots). You can even instantly reprogram to adjust for end-game scoring. [b]What makes it special?[/b] * Combines pick up and delivery and engine building. * You can quickly rebuild your engine. [b]Pros:[/b] + Components: triple(!) layer boards, transparent line tiles in each player color so that lines can overlap (clever). + Hexagonal board (network and station building). + Secret objectives to score extra victory points. + Easy to teach. [b]Neutral:[/b] # Artwork: clear, functional. # Little baby-steps each turn (quick turns). [b]Cons:[/b] - Copper and gold meeples are hard to distinguish.

2. 8 out of 10

   Bazmondo123

   Played this about ten times now and it's been creeping up and up in my estimations. Vicki keeps requesting it. She's not a train buff and not really a futurist either, so not sure why. It's a bit of an odd one both good and bad at the same time. For instance, the components are wonderful and chunky. Chunky station tiles, cool plastic acrylic track tiles (that so far are showing no signs of wear and tear), cool trains, triple-layered board, and dual-layered player boards. Beautiful box and styling throughout. But... There's no insert for one, a few of the station hex tiles are a millimeter or so out so they snag and almost feel like they are tearing. Both the player boards and the mainboard have warping issues. You will have to paint the gold and copper robots, are mark them so you can differentiate between them. These irregularities stand out more because the game is so cool and many of them can be fixed. We enjoyed painting the robots and can get an aftermarket insert, a bit of glue, and shaving here and there and we are as good as new. The gameplay is as fiddly as hell which would normally annoy us as we like simple stuff. That said, it kind of fitted the theme. I'm sure Vick enjoys beaurocracy of telling me my track is illegal and needs to be fixed. It feels like the fiddliness plays into the theme of being a regulatory train operator. It's fun grabbing passengers out of the bag. Planning your routes on the board is tactical goodness and optimising your board to squeeze out every drop of efficiency is wonderful.

3. 9 out of 10

   b0ardgamer

   Excellent game. The track tiles are really clever, and each turn moves very swiftly. Optimal use of robots is critical, but very difficult to get right (they're always in the wrong place, and you put them there....).