One of my favorite board games is Risk. When I saw that there was a new release of the old board game Risk, I had to try it out. The object of Risk is to rule the world. You need to gain the conquer the entire map to win.

In case you have never played Risk, there are two ways to start the game. You can choose your territories or you can have your territories randomly placed on the map. If you choose your territories, there is more strategy involved. The game is a bit harder when you choose the random territories.

Once all of your territories are picked or assigned to you, you start playing the game. You get reinforcements based on a few different things. You get the base of three reinforcements and then you get more based on the number of territories you own, if you have cards to turn in that turn, or if you own complete continents. You can place your reinforcements on any territory you occupy.

The next phase is the attack phase. You can only attack territories that border your territory. The attacks are random because they use dice. The number of troops you have going into battle will determine the number of dice you roll. The maximum dice you can roll is three if you are attacking and two if you are defending. Ties on the dice roll go to the defender. The highest dice roll of the attacker goes against the highest dice roll of the defender.

There is a lot of strategy in Risk. You need to decide how many troops to leave on certain territories to defend them and also when to attack or just fortify.

The AI in Risk is pretty good. I have been defeated, but I also know that I made a couple mistakes. I wasn’t paying attention when I was attacking and stranded some of my troops in two different territories. You can only reinforce one time each turn. The AI will also attack you to ruin your bonus if you own an entire continent. The AI is also smart enough to just reinforce their troops if they don’t have many territories on the board.

The graphics in the game are good. The map is a typical map of the Risk board. The troops that are put on the board actually look like troops. The troops are really small but have enough detail to look like troops.

The sound for the explosions when the battles take place is really good. The explosions don’t sound cheap. The person that does the voice over in the game has a good voice, but I find the voice overs a bit annoying. When you are thinking about what your next move is going to be the voice keeps saying your turn general. It is annoying to be contemplating a move and hear a voice in the background.

If you like strategy games or if you are an avid Risk fan, then check out Risk.