RISK Factions

Pros

• Retains the general feel of the traditional board game while adding a ton of personality
• High level of customization for how you like to play

Cons

• A little short on game modes
• Online multiplayer can be sluggish

Risk Factions takes the venerable strategy board game of Risk and provides a new polish to upgrade it for the sensibilities of modern players. There's something stately about the original Risk. First developed in 1957, it's a game that's almost stuffy and impersonal, representing the nature of global warfare through faceless figurines that represent entire armies and condensing the threat of international invasion in a static approximation of the world map. While Risk Factions keeps the core values of the board game intact, it takes a wildly different approach in how it treats its world and its setting.

Factions is a game that brims with personality in just about everything it does. Gone are the plain colored soldiers that typify the traditional version of Risk. In their place are armies made up of yeti, zombies, humans, cats, and robots. If the original Risk was about distilling the basic fundamentals of game theory on a geopolitical stage into a sterile and academic exercise, Factions throws all of those conceptions out of the window. It's exceedingly goofy, and all of its characters are portrayed as over the top cartoons. This is reflected in everything from the in game attack animations to the bold and hilarious narrative sequences that punctuate the single player campaign.

On its most fundamental level, the rules here are the same as they always have been. The animated sequences punctuate something that could otherwise work as a standard board game, and the 2008 rules update - which was designed to speed up the late game war of attrition - serves as the basis for Factions. This may not sit well with avowed traditionalists, but it makes for a speedier and less frustrating game for many of the players involved without sacrificing much in the process. It relies on an objective based system rather than necessitating full control of the map, and thus leaves the door open to a wider variety of successful strategies as well. Despite the purity of purpose in the core experience, Factions does add some wrinkles that would be difficult to replicate on a more traditional game board. Natural hazards are scattered throughout the map, and they can change the balance of power in some major ways. These cover everything from crypts that allow you to freeze entire cities in your wake, missile silos, and temples that allow you to outright gain control of any one territory. This makes for a more chaotic approach to the game, but it surprisingly doesn't create a sense of imbalance.

But for all of the cosmetic changes to the formula, this is still largely Risk at its core. Purists can play on a more traditional Risk map, create a game that uses the original rules, or even configure a version of the game that merges together the newer and older rule sets. Both local and online multiplayer are included, while a brisk single player campaign serves as a game tutorial.

Pros

• Retains the general feel of the traditional board game while adding a ton of personality
• High level of customization for how you like to play

Cons

• A little short on game modes
• Online multiplayer can be sluggish