Risk
by Hasbro Games
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Toys and Games Reviews of Risk
Customer Review: Not The Original Risk Game
Summary: 1 Stars
If you buy this game thinking it is like the Risk game you used to play years ago, you will be very disappointed. For example, you used to be able to turn in sets of country cards based upon the infantry, cavalry and cannon symbols on the cards and the additional two cards with all three symbols on them. But not in this version. And whoever created the army pieces never played the original Risk with the wooden pieces or the version with the plastic soldiers, cavalry and cannons. The game pieces in this set are tiny and guaranteed to be lost quickly. Its horrible. They could have made it compatible easily, but chose not to.Customer Review: Tons of fun
Summary: 5 Stars
You need at least 3 people to play, but 4 makes it that much better. My son and his cousins spent 4 hours playing and had a great time!Customer Review: A classic
Summary: 5 Stars
Simply said, I have always love this classic game. Like chesss, it teaches strategy and critical thinking. It is not for everyone, but for those who like strategy games, it is fairly simple to learn and never gets old. On top of everything else, it teaches some basic geography. Give it a try. Customer Review: great to have the short play option
Summary: 5 Stars
Having a range of game players, and parent's endurance level, the short play option is great!!!
We can play long for some, and short for others. Perfect match for different age ranges and patience levels.
Customer Review: Some good rule changes, many bad ones
Summary: 3 Stars
This review is mainly for fans of the original game who are wondering what the rule changes are. If you've never played Risk before, by all means go ahead and buy this version, it's certainly not a bad game.
Firstly, I feel a little cheated that this was never labeled as a Risk variant. I ended up calling it "Four-Star Risk" to my friends due to the box design even though that's not its official title. I would have preferred "Risk: Revised Edition" a la "Axis and Allies: Revised Ed"
The map is the same with the exception of minor changes (ie Ukraine is now Russia, and Eastern Africa and the Middle East are definitely connected now). The general mechanics are the same as well: attacker rolls three dice, defender rolls two, defender wins in a tie.
Anyway, the rule changes:
The Good:
Cities: Some territories now have cities, which essentially make the terroritory worth 2 instead of 1 when you count up how many territories you have. This makes Western Europe worth more than Siberia, and makes Europe in general a lot more desireable to conquer. The only strange thing is that instead of printing the cities on the map, the players are given city tokens to place on the territories. This is odd since the rules state that cities cannot move and the game gives you the territories to place the cities on.
Card Trade-In: The troubling thing about classic risk was that late game was basically a race to get a card set to gain 40+ troops and wipe out your opponent. The infantry-cavalry-cannon system is gone; instead different cards are worth either 1 or 2 stars, and how many stars you turn in decides how many troops you get according to a chart. Some fans of classic Risk may find this new feature disappointing, but personally I think it's a good revision to a huge flaw in the orginal game.
The meh:
No More Infantry: Instead of men, horses and cannons, we are given arrows to represent units. Short arrows represent one unit, long arrows represent three. This was strange at first, but after I got used to it, it wasn't a hinderence to gameplay. I still prefer actual military units though.
Optional Missions: There is an optional system where players can complete objectives (ie be the first to conquer two continents) and get rewards (ie rolling an extra attack die for the rest of the game). It's an interesting variant, but you run the problem that the rewards make a player who is already ahead even more powerful than the other players.
Capitals: Each player begins with a capital. Capitals can be conquered. For each capital you own, you get one extra reinforcement. Like cities, they give no value to attacking or defending.
The bad:
No More Choosing Territories: Who doesn't remember the classic Risk opening where players took turns choosing territories? Well, that's gone now, instead the game lists a set-up map for 3, 4, and 5 player games. It doesn't just tell you which territories each player owns, but also how many units are on those territories. One player in my dorm put it aptly when he said, "This is like Axis and Allies now." Of course, you can still play with territory choosing or even random territories via cards (we did), but I can't understand why the game designers felt the need to assign territories to players.
Only 3-5 players: Granted, 6 player games were rare, but 2-player games were quite common. In classic risk, there were rules for a "buffer state", a neutral player who did not attack or gain reinforcements. This prevented 2-player games from becoming just a war of attrition between the two players. In this version they decided to have no 2-player rules at all. Also, despite the fact that 6-player games were rare, I rather liked them when they did occur. The more the merrier (and the 42 territories were divided evenly too).
No more 5-man unit: As stated earlier, there is a small arrow to represent one man, and a long arrow to represent 3 men. The units in Risk have gone through a number of changes: at first an infantry represented one man, a horse five men, and a cannon ten men. The game designers later changed this to 1-3-5 since having ten units on a single territory was rare. However, in this game you get more units due to the inclusion of cities and capitals, and having more than 5 units on a territory is quite common, so why they left out the 5-man unit is beyond me.
All in all, it's still a good game. I recommend playing it without the assigned territories; Risk is more fun that way. The reason I gave this a 3-star instead of a 4-star is that even though the board is new, it is already breaking down. I don't care how shiny it is, board games should hold together.