Matthew Bailey“Thunder Road Vendetta” has been a popular game in our household for quite a while, and as such, the boys were looking for something with a similar feel that could potentially be played in a slightly shorter time frame. Enter “Joyride: Survival of the Fastest,” a stock car racing game that lets you travel around an arena with elements of combat thrown in.
Generally speaking, I’m not a massive fan of racing games. I never really got into “Flamme Rouge” and as such, never really got into “Heat” either. But “Thunder Road Vendetta” has given us quite a bit of fun time in the house, so I was quite interested to give “Joyride” a go, given its similarities.
The game comes with a lot of scenarios, and you set out the track according to one of those scenarios, with well-placed markers showing a general route that the cars need to take and the specific markers they need to cross in order to complete a lap. In addition, markers act as a way of getting power-ups such as missiles, mines, and air strikes, all of which can be used to hinder your opponent or help you boost your chances of victory.
Everything is played on a hex grid, which allows you to move and turn with relative ease.
The main core of the gameplay comes from the gear mechanic in the game. You start in second gear, which means essentially that you have two dice at the beginning of your turn. You can choose to lock in one of your dice and then move that first, and then roll the remaining dice. You spend the majority of the game in this gear largely because you need to have control over being able to move around all of the various obstacles and not overdo it, thus avoiding colliding with a wall. If you end up with a large flat arrow in front of you, you can boost up to higher gears, all the way up to five, which gives you more dice to play with. While this is extremely fast, it does mean that sometimes you find yourself losing control as you slam into a wall or another player, as turning becomes restricted to once per turn at these higher gears.
As you progress and your car inevitably ends up getting damaged, things start to get locked out. These can include things like the number of dice you can lock in to begin with or the power-ups you can obtain.
One important element of strategy, however, is how collisions with other cars work. Unlike in “Thunder Road Vendetta,” where collisions can literally cause the game to end, “Joyride” is a little more forgiving. Essentially, the way the game works is that when you hit a car, you can spin it, and unlike in “Thunder Road,” where this causes a chain reaction, in “Joyride” both cars stop. This can force your opponent to reverse, which takes ages and wastes a decent chunk of their turn. You can also use a push to slow yourself down in a more advantageous spot than being up against the wall. When two vehicles collide, both cars are forced down to the lowest gear, which can lead to some kamikaze-style moments and last-ditch attempts to win the game.
This is the retail version. There is also a deluxe version with lots of extra bits and extra tracks. We were quite happy playing with this version and might look at the deluxe version at some point in the future if the boys continue to find it enjoyable.
The components are of really high quality. All of the cars are really nice wooden tokens, and everything else is really good quality card stock. The artwork is great, and I really like the art on the box.
I do, however, have one issue, and that’s generally the colouring used for the cars. The cars are quite strong, vibrant colours, yet the boards that go with them don’t necessarily make a great deal of sense. For instance, the board that is very pink actually belongs to the green car. If you look closely at the green car, you’ll see that the windscreen is pink, meaning all the pink lighting inside the car. This is a bit weird, and so much so that they have done an alternative colour board on the back, which we always start with, even though none of us have any accessibility needs. This is because the regular boards are a bit confusing colour-wise.
We had a really good time with “Joyride: Survival of the Fastest,” although I must say my boys still generally prefer “Thunder Road Vendetta,” which fits a very similar niche. I think they are quite different in a weird niche sort of way—doesn’t make much sense, but there you go. “Thunder Road” is a lot more about combat and trying to destroy your opponents, whereas “Joyride” is much more of a racing game with some combat thrown in if needed. But, to be honest, you’ll probably realise pretty quickly that just trying to stay out of the way, racing as quickly as possible and not getting involved in combat, is probably the best strategy.
One benefit of “Joyride” is that it can be picked up for a relatively decent price, and if you do see this and fancy a combat-based racing game, you could definitely do a lot worse. If you’re looking for something that’s a bit more “Mad Max”-style, a little bit more combative, I would still recommend “Thunder Road Vendetta” over this, but they do have slight differences. If you really like the theme, both could definitely have a place in your collection.
