Risk: Factions hit XBLA today and it’s, well, Risk. Sort of. Published by EA and put together by Stainless Games (you might remember their most recent Xbox Live Arcade release: Duels of the Planeswalkers), it looks like this unique take on a classic just might have legs.
I’ve got to admit that the teasers that we’ve been given since the game was first announced sort of turned me off to the game. When I think about Risk, I think about mounting my savage domination of the Asian continent from my crafty base in Irktusk, not about cats shooting hairballs at zombies (or robots turning on their human masters, or warrior-monk yeti tossing icicles at everyone.) Thankfully, they’ve included a vanilla version of the game for us old-time die hards. This allows you to completely turn off all the fancy “Factions” stuff and simply play the classic board game.
However, you might find yourself not wanting to. A short dip into the campaign reveals that some of the additions they’ve made are actually pretty interesting. If you’ve been keeping up with the latest Risk rule revisions, you’re probably familiar with the concept of “objectives,” where in the “secret mission” rules variant each player was charged with trying to achieve four different (secret) objectives, short of world domination. This concept makes an appearance in Risk: Factions, however everyone can go after the same set of objectives, and each objective grants a special bonus if you achieve it. You might get to place an airfield in one of your territories (+1 to your highest scoring die when attacking or defending in adjacent territories), or get the ability to move your troops around BEFORE your battle phase. It might all sound overly complicated, but it does add an interesting twist to the old formula.
The campaign itself is split up by short flash cartoons that were apparently done up by the same guys who worked on the Penny Arcade game animations. If you’ve seen any of the videos floating around out there, that’s what you were looking at. They’re pretty well done from a technical standpoint, though I found myself wanting to skip through them. (especially after strained lolcats reference)
Custom games can be set up with either the classic, vanilla board and all the Factions stuff stripped out, or on any of the new boards (unlocked through the campaign) with all the Factions stuff turned on. A few other options allow you to set which version of the rules you play by, whether to play a prolonged, normal or shortened version of the game, and a few more. And, of course, the frustratingly terrible dice rolls we all know and love are still present. After losing nine out of ten of my attacking army to a territory held by a measly two AI armies I finally turned the game off and went back to playing This is Hard.
