Extreme Race (Review)

About Extreme Race, from BoardGameGeek:

In Extreme Race, players are rally drivers racing through a treacherous desert track, competing to be the first to visit all checkpoint locations and return to the finish line. The game captures the strategic challenges of real desert racing, where success depends on smart route planning, managing your resources, and capitalizing on opponents' mistakes. On your turn, you'll play cards from your personal row to move across the desert board. Each space requires specific colored cards to enter, and the terrain varies from sticky sand to towering dunes. Your cards "stick together" when adjacent and the same color, forcing you to use them all at once - creating tactical puzzles as you decide which routes to take. The desert holds both dangers and opportunities. Checkpoint tokens award victory points to those who reach them first, with diminishing rewards for later arrivals. Aid tokens scattered across the track provide bonus points, while obstacle tokens block certain paths entirely, forcing you to find alternative routes. Overtaking opponents is cheaper than normal movement, but leaves you vulnerable to being overtaken in return. Strategic depth comes from the card market system. You can spend turns purchasing powerful special cards (costing 3-4 different colored cards) that provide extra movement points or unique abilities like taking multiple actions, swapping card positions, or removing unwanted cards from your hand. Timing these purchases and activations can make the difference between victory and defeat. The game offers two modes: Official Route requires visiting checkpoints in strict order (White → Yellow → Green → Red → Blue), while Free Route lets players choose their own path, adding a layer of route optimization and risk management. Once any player collects tokens from all five checkpoint colors, the finish opens for everyone. The first to cross takes the highest-value finish token, and players count their checkpoint, aid, and finish tokens to determine the winner.