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.
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