Review by: Michael Barnes

The digital format might make it impossible for you to vent your rage at a couple of bad dice rolls by sweeping the pieces from the board and flipping over the table, but the classic board game Risk is back in an all-new Xbox Live Arcade format.

Risk: Factions is a well-presented implementation of the 2008 rules update that saw the introduction of a few modernizing elements that have streamlined and reinvigorated the game for a new generation. Stainless Games could have easily translated this latest version of the game that sunk a million friendships to a digital format and called it a day and I think most gamers would have been satisfied, but they took it all a step further by presenting the game as a five-way struggle between cartoon factions and by bringing in new maps along with some all-new terrain features that add some strategic wrinkles to the time-honored formula. It’s almost like an extension of the latest edition, and both long-time Risk fans as well as newcomers will find a lot to enjoy despite a barely present AI and a couple of places where the game could have transcended its source material but stopped short.

Without paraphrasing the rulebook for those who might never have played the original game, Risk: Factions puts players in charge of taking over territories with armies by rolling dice to destroy opposing armies. The attacker can roll up to three dice, the defender two. Highest rolls win, with the defender winning ties. That’s why it’s Risk-y, and it’s really that simple. Each turn that a player manages to take over at least one territory, they get a card that has one to three stars on it, and in later turns the stars can be turned in for reinforcements. There are also reinforcement bonuses for controlling entire continents as well as for claiming enemy capitals. So what tends to happen is that a player will pile massive amounts of reinforcements into a single region and then spend a turn cutting a wide swath of devastation- but you’ve got to be careful not to spread your forces to thin or you might find your hard-won territories swept up by another player in the next turn.

It used to be that Risk was solely about taking over every territory on the map, but I’ve often wondered if a tabletop game has ever actually ended like that instead of gamer rage or cowing capitulation by players steamrollered into submission. You can play it this way in Risk: Factions if you so choose, but the smart money is on the 2008 version. The key renovation is the inclusion of short-term goals and flexible victory conditions. Objectives such as claiming a certain number of capitals, taking over a certain number of territories in a single turn, or controlling a specified continent will earn you an objective and an award, and getting three wins the game. And you really want the objectives- they can offer you an extra maneuver, dice bonuses, reinforcements, and other advantages. Because of the objective system, the game’s length is also drastically reduced- it doesn’t take eight hours to play because there is more defined and practical endgame.

The transposition of the physical game into an electronic format is really quite outstanding and serves as a good model for future video game versions of board games. Not only has Stainless done an excellent job of making the game look and feel relevant to a 21st-century video game audience, but the interface is clean, uncluttered, and supremely intuitive. The maps are clear, and it’s always easy to see who is in control of what and what the values are for each continent. Advance Wars-like combat animations including faction-specific custom dice tumbling about the screen are fun, but inevitably you’ll tire of them and choose the “fast battle” option. I was impressed too that it plays fairly quickly; there isn’t a lot of downtime waiting for the AI to take its turn. Naturally, in the four or five player games you’ll be waiting longer than in a two or three player contest, but unlike some other video game editions of tabletop games, I didn’t feel like it was plodding along, number-crunching at all.