Heat: Heavy Rain Board Game Expansion - New Japan & Mexico Tracks! Intense Car Racing Strategy Game, Fun Family Game for Kids & Adults, Ages 10+, 1-7 Players, 60 Min Playtime, Made by Days of Wonder

Speed. Reaction. Competition. Strategy. Adrenaline.As a race car driver three generations deep in motorsports in the last 20 years, I feel as if I know a little something about the sport. As an avid table top gamer who is, right this second, looking at a shelf in my gaming unit with 13 different racing games on it, I also feel qualified to review this one. And let me state... It does NOT disappoint.Let's start with the obvious... It's pricey, I get it. It's more than my internet bill. But hear me out... you'll find some things are simply worth the price of admission and HEAT is one of those things.Firstly, my initial thoughts as I saw the box art and slid the lid off the first time. The box art is superb. Colorful, racey, appropriate and stylish. Slide it off, and the top tier quality continues to shine throughout the components. The cards, driver dashboards, tracks, cars, shifters... everything... feels and looks like money.The rule set. Ahhhh, the rule set. The core factor in determining if a game is fun, exciting and worth our time. HEAT... Easy to follow? Check. Easy to grasp? Check. Easy to learn and retain? Check. Polished and play tested to reduce potential issues? Check. The core rules can be learned in literal minutes. Everything you need to go through a game turn in, quite literally, right under your nose. I mean.. it's printed right on the game dashboard in front of you as you play. Everything you need to know is quickly referenced with a list of graphics as instructions on every players dashboard. The rules are easy to concept, fun to play and replicate the excitement and stress of racing wheel to wheel and door-to-door lap after lap.Beyond the basic rules, the game also comes with a secondary rule book for the modules and advanced rule set. The modules are a wonderful addition to the base game and include custom car building, weather and track conditions, Championship mode with sponsorship bonuses, and even a solo play mode with an extremely intuitive AI system that creates extremely competitive racing when you use them to fill out your field.This has quickly become my favorite game to play both with people and as a solo game. There is an expansion that expands your field to seven cars and adds severe weather to the game to create more adversity on track. There are also slots in the game insert for an eighth car and eighth gear shifter so we can only imagine a second expansion will be released.My only complaint is really a personal preference and that is there needs to be some sort of collision system to implement the dangers of crashing and damaging your car. I have solved this with a house rule that states landing on the same space as another car results in a die roll. That resolves possible collisions on a collision chart. So with a little imagination, this small oversight is easily corrected making HEAT the perfect racing game.In my opinion HEAT is well worth the pretty substantial asking price. I already feel as though I have gotten way more than my money's worth out of the game and will continue to see returns in fun and excitement for years to come.

OVERVIEW: Heat: Pedal to the Metal is a one to six player racing game, which takes about sixty minutes to play. This 2022 release relies upon a simple hand management system to propel the action across four different tracks. Unlike games in which players gamble on the winners, Heat places each player into the driver's seat of a Formula One racecar, looking for any sleight advantage over the other drivers. This core game includes several modular expansions that can be incorporated to increase the game variability, impacting weather and road conditions, garage upgrades, sponsorships, tournament mode, and championship mode. The Legends module introduces an easy to manage A.I. system for the other one to five vehicles, allowing for streamlined solo game play. Heat: Pedal to the Metal is a light easy to learn family game with the capacity to scale and expand to suit the needs of more experienced gamers.ACCESSIBILITY: The racing theme is universally relatable, even if the Formula One circuit in particular may be less familiar. Set up and tear down are quick, and the table presence of the components bring out the theme. The mechanics are a bit awkward toteach and learn, requiring a brief YouTube explanation or a dry run to accommodate new players. Once players overcome this minor comprehension hurdle, the game offers a thrilling and strategic experience for anyone able to understand simple math.SCALABILITY: In Heat: Pedal to the Metal, turns are relatively quick, so higher player counts don't impact the pacing as much as it does in most games. The real scalability comes in the additional modules that can be incorporated into the basic game. The user friendly Legends deck easily controls any number of A.I. opponents available, while other modules add variability and impact the complexity involved. Heat: Pedal to the Metal scales very effectively at every player count, and most difficulty preferences.COMPONENTS: The components are generally acceptable as average, with room to upgrade if desired. The box insert provides a great deal of extra space for sleeved cards and other upgrades, with extra room for the Heavy Rain expansion. Two thick fold out game boards depict the four distinct tracks from Italy, France, Great Britain, and the United States, while the player dashboards are much thinner. The tokens are cardboard and the plastic gear shift markers are serviceable, but the cars themselves are especially unimpressive considering the theme. However, when everything is brought together this game has a stimulating visual table presence.GEAR SHIFTING MECHANIC: Each player receives a dashboard and a gear shift token, which indicates how many cards that player must use each round (between one and four). Players may only shift up or down by one gear per turn, or add one Heat card to their deck. Players may discard Heat cards from their hands if they downshift to first or second gear.HEAT CARDS: The core of this game is deck management. Every player has the same set of cards, but shifting an extra gear, boosting your speed, or taking a corner too fast penalizes players with Heat cards which can't be discarded or played. Heat cards represent stress on your car which do nothing but clog up your deck and limit your options. The only way to get rid of Heat cards is to downshift.STRESS CARDS: Stress cards represent a momentary lapse of focus, and can be identified by a plus sign instead of a number. They cannot be discarded, but can be played. The number the Stress card represents is determined randomly by drawing from the player's deck. This makes stress cards very dangerous to play before curves.SLIPSTREAM MECHANIC: Slipstreaming is when a player ends his or her turn directly behind or beside another player, they can use the velocity of the car in front to pull them ahead two spaces. Slipstreaming never counts against taking corners too fast. It makes for dynamic races as the person in front is always at a disadvantage, in danger of those behind slipping past.LAST PLAYER BONUS: Being last is never fun, but in this game you rarely stay in last place long. Not only do you have the opportunity to slipstream past every car in front of you, but being last gives added bonuses in the form of a token. First, you have the option to move one extra space to set up that perfect slipstream. Second, you have the option to discard one Heat card from your hand no matter what gear you are in. The last place token tends to change hands frequently from turn to turn, and at higher player counts a second token is introduced.LEGENDS MECHANIC: Although the Legends mechanic is optional, this is what makes games with lower player counts work. Legends are simply automated cars operated by a special deck of cards, which never wipe out on corners.More cars means more slipstreaming, and the solo game is impossible to play without automated Legends opponents. It is very easy to determine how far every Legend car goes each turn from looking at one card. My only personal issue is the speeds that Legends can go on the straightaways. They can reach speeds exceeding the best possible four card combination any player can achieve without an additional boost. I easily remedied this by subtracting five from their speed on the straightaways, but not their corner speeds.MODULAR MECHANICS: On top of all of this simple streamlined gameplay across four international maps, this game pours on a load of modular variations that impacts the standard game in various different ways. There is a weather module that introduces rules that simulates driving under different conditions. There is a garage module which includes a deck of new cards that add improvements and upgrades to the vehicles. There is a sponsorship module which includes cameramen stationed at pivotal corners, waiting for footage of the vehicle making the cleanest turn. There is a tournament module that takes players across a multi-race championship circuit for players seeking a larger campaign. For depth and replayability, Heat: Pedal to the Metal delivers.PROS: Heat: Pedal to the Metal is a fast, exciting, easy to learn game that accommodates a lot of players very well. The theme shines through heavily with the Heat, Stress, gear shifting, boosting, and slipstream mechanics, alongside fast paced gameplay. Automated Legends cars can quickly simulate more players to accommodate smaller player counts looking for the excitement of big races. The variety of having four different tracks, plus the weather, garage, sponsorship, and tournament modules pack a massive amount of game into a single box which is incredibly well organized to house all these components.CONS: This game is a little more expensive than your average game. Sure it comes with all of these extra modular additions, but are you going to use them all? Probably not. All the extras also make the box much larger than other games, if space is a consideration. The player dashboards are very thin, and the cars themselves are pretty mediocre. One would think that the designers would put a little more consideration in making the stars of the game shine a little more, but discerning gamers always have the option to upgrade the cars through alternative sources.CONCLUSION: Heat: Pedal to the Metal is an exciting and easy to learn family game that is widely relatable and a strong addition to any game collection. It is the perfect choice for five or six players, but easily scales down to a single player. The existing box insert makes setup and tear down quick, and the races tend to take less than an hour. I am not a Formula One racing fan by any stretch of the imagination, but the mechanics in this game deliver the excitement of a race that I have never experienced watching Formula One on television. Split second decisions to change gears, risking tight corners, or stressing the engine to boost a little further separates the winners from the losers. If you have only one racing game in your collection, this is it. So, are you a winner or a loser?

Fun board game for all ages recommended. High quality boards (graphics), nice cards and pieces, and well explained instructions. Comes with different board tracks so every game is different. Great value for the money.

Great racing game. Fun theme and art make it easy to get to the table. Good push your luck mechanics with some rubberbanding to keep races tight, but without too much luck to take away from the strategy. Lots of variety in boards to play on to keep it fresh over multiple plays. Easy recommendation.

This has quickly become a favorite board game in our household. The pacing is excellent, keeping everyone engaged, and there's plenty to explore right out of the box—including expansions—so even after multiple plays, we still haven't experienced everything it has to offer.One of the things we love most is that our kids (ages 4-8) can join in since there’s no reading required. However, they are experienced board game players, so I wouldn’t expect every 4-year-old to be able to pick it up easily.Overall, it’s a fantastic game that provides fun for all ages with plenty of replayability!

This is a great addition to any collection! Game play is easy to learn and the overall concept stays true to the theme of the game. Not only does it come with multiple extensions packs but it also comes with 4 different boards/tracks to play on. Great value for the price.Make sure not to go too fast around those corners!

I don't usually enjoy expansions but this one was a nice addition to the base game. This expansion introduces adding a 7th player to the game, adding 2 new maps and new mechanisms. This doesn't change the core of the game and doesn't over complicate an elegant base game. Would recommend.