Friday 10 October 2008

Risk: Black Ops

Introduction/Topic
There will be released a new version of the old boardgame classic "Risk" in autumn, and for that reason a limited prelaunch version (in a different design than the final one) has been produced to set the focus on the game even before "Risk: Black Ops" will be available officially.


Components
The overall design of the game is simply stunning - the design of the board and the cubes, as well as the beautiful cards and even the rules booklet. It is straightforward and elegant, black and grey are the dominant colors - although, when the board is setup you feel like sitting in front of a stylish chart, which makes you want to start conquering the world immediatly.

Gameplay
The basic gameplay hasn't changed - you have to roll dice to resolve attacks. But around this basic mechanism a lot of small changes have improved the game significantly. For example all missions can be seen (and chosen) by all players and are divided in major and minor objectives - the first player who fulfills three objectives wins the game. Futhermore new elements like capitols and cities are introduced, whereby each player owns one capitol and on certain countries cities are placed (making them more powerful).

Conclusion
I hadn't played Risk for a really long time before I discovered "Risk: Black Ops", and I wasn't sure how to feel about this new version - because I had a couple of somehow negative experiences with the old version. But I really have to admit that the relaunch has been pretty successful, as on the one hand the game lenght has been reduced (average: 1 hour) and on the other hand a couple of new elements and slight changes of the rules have lead to a significantly more strategic game - without losing the feeling of classic Risk. This game will hit our gaming table more often in the future for sure.


From the publisher: This is a promotional version of the forthcoming re-vamp of the Risk ruleset and game components. Introducing Capitals, Cities, Objectives, and Rewards the game has become about completing Objectives instead of Global Domination. Global Domination may still be played with the updated components. In the updated Risk, the Goal is to be the first player to complete 3 Objectives and be in control of your capital. Objectives and Rewards are broken down into minor and major categories. The new Goal of attaining Objectives provides much of the original Risk experience with a decreased time commitment and randomly selected Objectives changing the experience on each play.



2 players, 60 min
publisher: hasbro

category: wargame


buy risk games online @ cosimshop.de or coolstuffinc.com

risk (black ops) @ boardgamegeek.com
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