To say that I was awaiting the arrival of this game in the office with great anticipation would be something of an understatement. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, playing Risk the board game is one of the most enjoyable ways of passing the time with your friends you will ever come across. It's also one of the easiest ways to fall out with them all, for ever and ever and ever. Secondly, this latest computer incarnation of the board game reminds of a computer game that came out years ago that changed my life completely. The name of this game, ladies and gentlemen and anyone else who cares to know, is Steel Empire...
You bastard!
Picture the scene: I'm sitting in my flat and through the post arrives a copy of Steel Empire. I take a look at the back of the box and decide the screen shots don't look particularly exciting but I'll have a go at it anyway. I install the game onto my trusty 286 (they were state of the art then, believe it or not) and off I go. Before I tell you what happened next, let me tell you a bit about the game. It's turn-based, just like Risk. You need to capture territories, just like Risk. It's set in the future and in each territory you occupy you get to build factories and stuff that churn out robots. When you invade an opponent's territory you are transported to a real-time arcade section in which you get to blow the shit out of your opponents with the robots you've built up. The opponents can be computer-generated, or you can play against your mate on the same pc, not looking when your mate takes his 'go'.
As it happens, Chris Dyson, my long-standing friend of eight years, showed up while I was playing Steel Empire. We decided to have a two-player game. It lasted for three days solid (with four-hour intervals to catch up on some sleep). At the end, all the computer opponents attacked Chris and left him in a bit of a mess. So did I. He freaked out, screaming 'you bastard, they've all wrecked my cities and now you're getting in on the act, you bastard', etc. He then walked out of my house and didn't phone me for two weeks. He wouldn't take any calls from me either. He was, in fact, 'pissed off'. So what has all this got to do with the computer version of Risk? you might be thinking. Well, my friends, it's got everything to do with it, everything in the world...
Why are we waiting?
Steel Empire, not to put too fine a point on it, is f***ing fantastic. I still rate it as one of my favourite games of all time, purely because it's the best game you can play on your PC with a mate (or two) and get totally engrossed (lost?) in the whole thing. To my knowledge there has only been one other game on the pc to use Risk-style gameplay combined with real-time action sequences since Steel Empire, namely Global Domination, but, unfortunately, that was a bit pants. So, when the version of Risk under review here came into the office promising to be everything you could want from computerised Risk and much much more, my eyes lit up. Could this be the elusive 'Steel Empire beater' I've waited for for so long? Well, in some ways it is, and in some ways it isn't. For a start, there are two completely different ways to play the game. You can choose to play 'classic' Risk, which is, as you would expect, an exact representation of the board game on PC. For some people this will be more than enough, bearing in mind that the presentation of the game, both graphically and in terms of sound effects etc, is far superior to the many shareware versions of Risk hanging around on bulletin boards everywhere. But for me, it is not enough. I want more. I want the experience I had with Steel Empire. A bigger challenge than plain old Risk. I want more options, different units, more territory types, I want... I want... MORE. Hasbro, makers of the game, have responded thus...
Ultimate Risk
This is the all-singing, all-dancing, bells and whistles version of the game which is supposedly meant to shut people like me up. And to a large extent it does. Ultimate Risk brings tons of new features to the classic game. For a start, you get realistic terrain types like forests, jungles, mountains, swamps etc, all of which affect how your units perform in these areas. You can erect capitol buildings and forts to strengthen your territories, and use generals to better organise your units and broaden your strategic options. One of the best new features is the option to take enemy units as prisoners of war instead of killing them, so you can use them as a bargaining tool against your opponents. And, of course, you get action sequences which kick in when both you and your opponent have ten units or more before going into battle. These battles look quite smart but, unfortunately, you can't control the units yourself. Ultimate Risk also has five different game maps to play on, Internet and modem play (and the option to play against human opponents on the same pc) and lots of other little tweaks that make it far more exciting to play than the classic version of the game. In summary then, Hasbro have taken a classic board-game, put it on pc, and brought lots of new features to it, and I for one enjoyed it. It's addictive, highly replayable, and it looks quite smart too. If it had real-time combat we would have been talking a 90+ score but, sadly, it hasn't. So, wonderful as Risk is, it unfortunately isn't the Steel Empire for the 90s affair I was hoping against hope it would be. Now if you don't mind, I'm just going to retreat into a corner and cry my eyes out for a couple of days.
// Overview
Verdict
Excellent board-game conversion, but where's the real-time combat?
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