Risk 2

DEVELOPER : Deep Red
PUBLISHER : Hasbro 

 

System Requirements Pentium 166 Mhz, 32 MB RAM

Recommended Pentium II 233+, 64+ meg RAM, 8X CD-ROM, 8+ megs video card

Ratings
Code Issues Graphics: 8  Simple, but colorful and attractive. Audio: 7 The explosions sound very satisfying, and the voice work is generally good. Interface: 9 Very intuitive.  Fans of the boardgame will be able to jump right in before reading the manual.	Play Issues Solo Gameplay: 7  The solo-game contains a campaign, as well as the ability to set up a game to your liking and play with the computer opponents. Replayability: 6 There is only one map, which can start to feel a little old.  Some territories on the map can be turned on or off, but it still has the same basic structure. Multiplayer:  8  The game can be played on a LAN or the MSN Gaming Zone.  There is also a Hot Seat mode. Learning Curve: 9.0 This game is very simple to learn, especially classic mode.
Other/Notes Documentation: 9.0 The basics of gameplay are described well. There are also some reference tables for the different dice rolls. Pros: An excellent adaptation of the Risk boardgame with an extra “same time” turn mode included.  Very polished and stable. Cons:  Only one map (although it is tweakable). Overall: 8.3

Risk was one of those games that sat around in my basement collecting dust for the longest time before my friend and I decided to give it a try.  We used to play a ton of chess together, but soon got sick of that and needed something new.  Enter Risk.  Within hours we were hooked.  Pushing around those little colored cubes (and we always used the cubes for psychological effect, and not those triangular 10-piece markers) was our new obsession.  Now, several years after I kicked my Risk habit,  Deep Red and Hasbro have given us a faithful computer version with Risk II.

For those unfamiliar with this classic game, let me explain the basics.  Gameplay takes place on a map of the world, which is divided into territories.  Before the game starts, players are assigned (or take turns choosing) territories and then reinforce them with starting units.  After this, the game begins and players take turns attacking each other’s territories.  A player with 2 or more units in a territory can attack an adjacent area.  Attacking and defending is done with dice, and players can use between 1 and 3 dice depending on how many units they have in an area and if they are attacking or defending.  When a roll is completed, the highest numbers for the attacker pair off with the highest numbers for the defender, and the side with the higher value wins (ties go to the defender in Classic mode).  A player can stop attacking whenever they want and end their turn.  If they conquered a territory during their turn, they will get a Risk card.  Combinations of Risk cards can be turned in to get more units.  Extra units are also gained by owning entire continents and occupying lots of territories.

Along with “classic” Risk, Risk II offers a Same Time mode.  Simultaneously, players issue orders to their battalions.  When everyone has decided what to do, the action begins and you actually watch the battles unfold in front of you.  Same Time mode is especially interesting since multiple territories can attack each other at once.  Additionally, the dice are twelve sided and are biased.  The stronger your army, the more the die is biased towards higher numbers.  Of course, if you are losing a battle and your units are dropping like flies, your die will slowly get weaker and weaker.     

Risk’s gameplay was always very simple, and the interface for Risk II does a good job of keeping things this way.  Placing units and choosing attacks is as easy as pointing, clicking, and adjusting a little bar for how many units you are moving.  There are also several ways to view the map, each which shows the territories in a certain color depending on your parameters.  For example, viewing the map by ownership will color all the territories the same color as their owner, while viewing the map by unit strength will color strong territories red colors and weak territories blue.  These options aren’t crucial for winning, but they are a nice side detail.  It’s fun to watch a portion of the map turn blood red as two players build up a huge army of soldiers at their borders.

Risk II can be played over a LAN or in Hot Seat mode, but I did most of my multiplayer gaming on the MSN Gaming Zone.  The MSN Gaming Zone is still the same mess it always was, but once you actually get into a game things go pretty well.  How much fun you have is largely a function of the people you are playing against.  If everyone is quiet, you might as well be playing against the computer.  But when people are pleading for you not to kill them, or trying to make you a deal, things get really fun.  Unfortunately, if you are on the losing end of things, the game can get tiring quick.  In one session I played with 3 other people, I was obviously losing.  What bothered me was that a game round was taking about 10 minutes and my turn usually lasted about 10 seconds.  That’s not very fun and it’s one of the perils of turn-based online gaming.  Losing a boardgame while playing on your kitchen table isn’t that bad because you are presumably amongst friends and are in a social atmosphere.  Playing online and waiting on people you don’t know is another story.

I found the single-player game to be a perfectly good substitute for playing online.  Along with a Tournament ladder game, which is a gauntlet of increasingly difficult map settings, players can customize their own options and play them with the selected computer opponents.  The AI for the computer players is good enough to make games a challenge.  Some are pushovers, while others put up a mean fight (there are 16 personalities, each of which is described in the manual).  Alliances can be struck with the computer players, but don’t expect them to last long.  The computer is in for the win, too.  I’m no expert when it comes to AI, but I can tell you that the computer frequently attacked me in the exact places I didn’t want it to attack.

Risk II is a very solid game, but there was one thing that I thought could have been improved upon: there should have been more maps.  Currently, there is one map that can be changed in a few ways (a few territories can be turned on or off and continent values can be adjusted).  Now, I know the map covers the whole world, but the developers still could have created another map for us.  Jeez, even the boardgame of Risk I played with my friend had an alternate map on the other side (it was Castle Risk).  If the developers really wanted to make this a truly great package, they could have also included a map creator.  Solid gameplay combined with the ability for player customization is what gives games longevity these days.

There are a lot of tweakable settings for Risk II, and that’s a good thing, because players may find some of the default rules to be very frustrating.  One example is the previously mentioned Risk cards.  In the initial setting, a player that turns in a set of Risk cards get 5 more battalions that the guy who turned in the last set (so if Player X gets 15 battalions, Player Y gets 20 and Player Z gets 25).  Things start to feel a little ridiculous when the map is nice and balanced and suddenly one player turns in a set of Risk cards and plops down 50 units, easily winning.  Thankfully, there is an option to change the increment value to 1.   

The graphics in Risk II are crisp and clear.  The different player colors are easily distinguishable, and the text on the map is easy to read (if you find that it isn’t, the action is constantly being summarized in a text window at the bottom of the screen).  Big arrows clearly show who is attacking who, and little explosions convey the result.  When you are involved in a battle, the view zooms in to show your actual guys fighting and firing their weapons.  The battles are complimented by the satisfying sound of gunshots and death screams.  The tutorials are narrated and the voice work is good.

Risk II is very stable.  It only froze-up once, and that was during a time when I had been playing it for about 4 hours straight.  I never experienced any other bugs before or after that incident.  The documentation is thorough and I found the answers to most of my questions easily.  There most useful aspects of the manual are the charts for the biased dice (from Same Time mode).

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Reviewed by Trent Lucier