A highly popular board game brought to life by Hasbro entertainment. Risk 2 for windows brings the game into a 3-D world with better action scenes, different levels of tournament play, and battles zooms which show your battle for middle earth at close view. Risk 2 is a strategy based game which tests your skills at diplomacy, betrayal, multitasking, and unit management.
Playing
Nothing super impressive, the board has a distinctive layout highly related to the original board game style. However in SameTime mode the board includes additional pieces of land to conquer, which makes gameplay more difficult and interesting. Besides the basic attack and retreat mode where you manage one task at a time on your turn, you have the ability to play SameTime where you attack on multiple fronts and issue orders at the same time as your opponents.
This new faster paced gameplay brings a certain level of excitement to taking over territory and strategically planning your attacks from different fronts to dominate your opponents.
The tutorial is a nice feature, as it trains you to take hold of your army and show you the different commands like allying with your opponents (temporarily of course), and how to manage multi-front attacks with your army.
After awhile my patience grew thin with the constant loading of the battle scenes, dice rolling, and zoom features; luckily for me it has options to turn these off and speed up gameplay.
Artificial intelligence of the game is somewhat lame, like with many games you learn the flaws of the computers tactics and use them to your advantage. I wish they could create a game where the computers strategy was ever changing and highly unpredictable.
*A quick gameplay tip, in SameTime mode the attacker has the best advantage, as the tie goes to the attacker rather than the defender so keep your troops on the move. For those of you whom play the standard risk the tie always went to the defender, (If you both rolled a 5, the attacker would loose a troop rather than the defender).
Sounds
Well soldiers falling off horses is nice, but canon blasts and gun fire is better. I find the battle zooms showing your soldiers in a standoff exciting as the explosions and gunfire from each dice roll shows both sides of troops dropping like flies.
Risk 2 does have a decent sound track of uplifting classical music with symphonies and instrumentals, but I find myself turning it off after a short while. I like to concentrate on the explosions, battles and well music of my choice as I turn on my personal selection of MP3’s to complement the bombs going off.
Graphically
The battles zooms are nice to look at, but graphically the game is nothing outstanding or groundbreaking. Even though the game board has two separate views of both a globe and standard, nothing besides continents of the earth along with a colored number showing how many battalions of troops it contains. However nothing comes in grainy or hard to read, the graphics are fine for what the game is trying to accomplish.
Click! Click! Click! Mine Turn Yet??
My first disappointment was shortly after installation and startup, as I was not treated to an opening movie. Most gamers appreciate this little extra effort put in by the designers as it brings both realism and interest to the user. I know it seems weird to mention this, but this usually sparks my interest in the game itself.
Why play a strategy game that doesn't have a story? I mean what the heck is the goal?
Mentioned before the AI has a tendency to be somewhat poor and the computer seems focused on simple goals, which prevent it from thinking Outside the Box. For example rather than stopping an opponent from taking over a continent and gaining a monopoly, it chooses to do something less productive.
I also find the pauses irritating after each set of commands you have to wait for the little menu bar to fill you in on what each opponent is doing, this constant clicking of the next or done button can become burdensome and boring. This overbearing nonsense is tiresome and unnecessary, which is usually what leads me to turning the game off.
Replay Value
There are few games today that do NOT require the CD to play, and this game is an exception to the rule, which makes it great for quick install and plays. Furthermore the load time is nearly nonexistent, which makes for quick gameplay action. Who the heck wants to find 6 friends to play, then setup up the game board, with Risk 2 Windows setup is a breeze.
Multiplayer mode allows you to play online or network computers to play against your friends.
I found that after several months of not playing I get this weird urge to challenge myself and waste some time playing this classic game, so I end up reinstalling it on my computer.
Recommendation
Risk 2 for Windows has some serious replay value as setup, load time, and getting a game going is extremely easy and fun. Nevertheless the game does lack some challenge in the Artificial Intelligence department as the computer never seems to learn new tricks or tactics. My overall experience is alright and because the game is easy to learn and play I usually find myself popping back in once in a while. Truth be told Risk is a classic game where rolling the dice, getting together with good friends, and setting up the board will always be more fun than the virtual game.
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