Free Ride USA
- Paul Moorshead
- Apr 16
- 3 min read
Friedemann Friese's Free Ride USA is a standalone game using very similar mechanics to the original 2020 game Free Ride (2F-Spiele), which was based on a map of Europe. In this game, players are building railway networks to enable them to take tourists on trips to attractions across the USA. The game takes 2-5 players with the box indicating under an hour to play, but your first few games will definitely take longer.
The main mechanic, and scoring mechanism, is to collect route cards which include a starting city (that can only be picked up if your train is in that city) and a destination city; both cards score only once the destination has been reached. Initially your train can only work on one route at a time but a third of the way through the game your train extends to work on two routes simultaneously and with a third of the game to go your train speeds up by 50%.
So far so solo you say but there are some neat mechanics which ensure competition and devious tactics. Firstly, routes are available on a first-come first-served basis so you need to be aware of your competition, particularly as routes are displayed in columns of three cards, of which you take only two, so there are two different starting/destination combinations available. Secondly, you score much higher for visiting new cities than revisiting those you've been to before, so you are encouraged to spread out and interact rather than just sticking in your corner of the map. Thirdly, track laid by you is available to other players for a one-time fee of 1 coin, which then makes that track public for all players for the rest of the game. You can also add track to any city to which you are connected regardless of who owns the track; so if you know someone is heading for Miami then covering Florida in your track can be both lucrative and frustrating to your opponents. Lastly you can part-build a track which your opponent needs which forces them to waste a move finishing off your route and then also have to pay you a coin to use it – delicious! Note that you can’t build further track until you finish off part-built track so it’s only a temporary measure but nice to do when the opportunity arises and you are setting off on a long journey.
The game does reward people who know US geography – who knew Bangor was next to New York? – although there is a colour coding system which helps you to quickly identify proximate routes. Taking East-West and West-East routes gains you 3 precious coins which can be a great strategy late game when you have a fast engine.
I have found the game plays better with certain players than others. It seems easy but I found a game with relative newbies was quite slow and felt quite solo. A three-player game against experienced gamers was a joy, with the rules absorbed in seconds and players jumping into blocking and sabotaging almost from turn 1! I have yet to try the game with five players but I imagine this will be a complete bun fight with possibly too much randomness for my liking. So I prefer three- or four-player as the optimum, with the two-player game being at risk of becoming too solo.
Coins are hard to come by in the game: you can spend them to increase your tempo (by buying additional track rather than using a turn to get it for free) but coins are worth a lot in end-game scoring so you have to be sure that your purchases are worthwhile. Note that according to the rules there’s a single specific time when you can buy rails but almost implicitly people playing it just bought rails when they wanted them rather than at that precise moment so, personally, I would house rule that change.
End-game scoring is purely 5 points for first visited cities, 2 points for subsequent visits to the same city and 3 points for each coin. Nice and simple, tho' it means your hard fought-over track is worthless!
(Review by Paul Moorshead)
