Thoughts by Elwood (07 Mar 2005) – PC (Windows)
Iceland, 2002 – the big showdown. The armies of King Elwood are invading from Greenland, Scandinavia and the United Kingdom. Dictator Ray has to admit defeat to the royal Blues Brother. Risk – the classic. Only ONE type of army – a very limited number of areas to conquer and gameplay based on the roll of the dice. It’s simple – no big stats, no training and improving of units, no building, no nothing. And that’s the fascination of Risk. You don’t have to learn it – you can just play it and after a few rounds of this ingenious board game you’re in it.
You know which areas to conquer and how to hold a continent to get the bonus armies. Right, asia and Europe give nice boni when you got them – but it’s almost impossible to hold them against your opponents unless you are already strong. What kind of bonus I am talking about? Oh sorry – at the beginning of each round all players get a number of armies to distribute based on the number of areas they hold – holding a whole continent gives a bonus depending on which one it is.
Right, the bonus for Australia is small… but on the other hand it only has ONE border. It’s extremely easy to defend, it can never hurt to conquer it. South America is also great – only two borders. The others get more difficult – if you already hold South America you should consider getting north America as well unless it already has a lot of enemy armies in it. But if not – get it – it only means one extra border, but LOADS of extra armies. Usually the showdown of the game is somewhere in Asia or Europe. Most likely the latter – it’s almost impossible to conquer and hold Europe anyway, but it’s right in the middle of 3 continents.
Okay – admitted – Risk is best played with a few friends, some bottles of beer and a good supply of peanuts. But if you can’t get hold of that WinRisk might be a good alternative. The computer does not play dumb – give him a good chance to invade and you’re history, always secure your borders. Sometimes it’s a bit hard though to see what is a border and what not. It helps to know the board for that – but you can count on seeing the consequences if you think Africa could not be invaded from Spain. The graphics could really have been a BIT better here they’re a bit unclear and sometimes the background color of the areas will not update unless you force the window to redraw (minimize the window and bring it up again for example – or switch to another window and back). If you get used to that you’ll have a lot of fun though.