Risk

[Wizardscharter]

My uncles taught me how to get by butt kicked in this classic game at an early age. The board game is good enough if you have the time, but why bother. Now, of course, there is a video version of this game for the old PS/PS2. The graphics are not stunning, but that isn't the point of the game. With up to 5 other computer players(7 on Utimate mode), 5 different maps (4 with many more countries), 3 levels of difficulty, endless rules options, and a new version called "Ultimate Risk" this game does not get old, stale, or finished. The best part about the video version is the ability to make a 5 hour game take less time, mere minutes if you are in a bad position early! You can pick it up now for $9 new - if you can find it, or less used. Well worth $10 in any case.

Has there even been a more appropriately named game? There are few things in gaming as frustrating as carefully and methodically building up a defense of an area only to go and forget one small detail and subsequently have 5 computer opponents pirranah your butt back to oblivion.

Don't get me wrong, Risk isn't GTA-Vice City by any stretch. If you want to engage your brain in something closer to chess than hack-n-slash, I would suggest this title; especially so if you are around more than one other highly competitve person.

[Ictar]

Me and my self-proclaimed nerd friends in high school got this. I loved it to death, and so did they. They all refused to play me after 3 weeks, though, after they realized I had won every game.

Hey, it's not my fault two of the four people we play against are easily manipulated.

I don't think I've ever had that much fun playing a board game.

[Wizardscharter]

Originally posted by Ictar
Me and my self-proclaimed nerd friends in high school got this. I loved it to death, and so did they. They all refused to play me after 3 weeks, though, after they realized I had won every game.

Hey, it's not my fault two of the four people we play against are easily manipulated.

I don't think I've ever had that much fun playing a board game. If you own a PSX or PS2, find a way to scour the pawn shops and used game stores for a copy of "Risk". It will be well worth your time, if only for the facts that you don't need anyone to be willing to play you or 3 hours. The game features 5 different maps with various strategies and all with up to 250 countries.

[kerpow]

I'm ashamed to say it but I'm a Risk expert. Played it alot with the original board game when I was at college. Easy way to kill several hours and hurl abuse at your so-called friends. So funny to completely betray an ally and give him a good spanking when he least expects it.

However, I've never been a big fan of playing against AI. Too predicatble really and so they become easy to beat. The best place to play is actually on a free website. Thats right, just go to:

http://www.dominategame.com

and register and you can play against real people all day long for free. It requires very little bandwidth so a dial-up connection should be ok. It can either be run in a browser window or they have a downloadable client to run that will connect quicker.

It also uses a rating system which awards points for each position you finish in. Its fiercly competitive and I'd recommend you watch a game or 2 b4 playing as the games often use quite restrictive timers. 1 min per go is the norm and if you time-out you're kicked from the game and your rating will suffer. Its run by a dutch guy and many players are dutch but on the whole everyone is very friendly to noobies.

[Goodsport]

&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp Has anyone here played The Lord of the Rings version (http://kumquat.com/cgi-kumquat/funagain/13672?FmkiuYya)? :)

&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp It seems that there's also going to be an expansion to the game later this year as the third movie approaches. That actually makes sense, since the map in the current game pretty much covers Middle-earth up to the end of the second movie (i.e. the map board doesn't cover most of Gondor or Mordor, although it's pretty obvious that an expansion map board would fit with the current map board quite nicely).

&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp I'm sure that the additional cards in the expansion will have images from the third movie just as the cards in the current game have images from the first two movies.

&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp And although the current game can play up to 4 players, the expansion may expand the maximum number of players. :cool:


-G