Risky Wars

It’s been a while since we’ve seen a good remake after a classic turn base strategy board game, especially one that you can play both on the PC and your mobile phone.

Christian Gross is to be given a friendly pat on the back for pulling off Risky Wars, a modern version of the dusty old board game, Risk.

Granted, there are no significant changes to the gameplay itself or the rules you have to abide, but the same addictive nature has been handed down to its virtual counterpart as well.

Story

If you’re looking to make sense on why you’re so bent on taking over the world, just don’t. Risky Wars is not one of those games where you have to read through countless pages of text or watch several minutes of cinematic scenes just so that you can have some moral justification over your actions or your role in the game.

It is here simply to satisfy the power-hungry needs inside you and give you a taste on what absolute power is all about. Basically, you’re the star of your own fictional story and a strong and vivid imagination is all you need to drive your world domination campaign.

From the moment the game starts, all you need to know is that you are under attack and you can either fight back, to defend your borders for as long as you can or take the fight to the enemy, grinding your teeth and carefully planning out your next moves.

Gameplay

Peeling off the simple design and elementary graphics of Risky Wars, you’ll find out that the strategy behind it all is a lot more challenging than anticipated. With up to six players (including you) competing for world domination, your ability to plan your moves ahead and carefully choosing your fights will be put to the ultimate test.

With five levels of difficulty for your computer opponents, the game is bound to become interesting once all of them decide to go after your territories. On the bright side, the AI (artificial intelligence) doesn’t seem to join up and constantly try to take you out of the picture.

From what I could gather, all non-human players fight amongst themselves with the same ferocity as they would with you, which makes it a lot easier to just sit back for a while and watch them get weakened while you plan for the crushing blow.

With each turn you will be given additional reinforcements and depending on the sector bonuses that you’ve conquered, that number will become significantly higher. So, not only that you have to take out your enemy, but you also have to conquer specific regions as well. These bonuses can tip the balance of power in your favor if you know how to keep them under your domination.

There are also a couple of army cards (four of them to be precise) that you can unlock by invading certain territories. These also come in handy at some point because they allow you to get an extra boost of reinforcements, giving you the upper hand in a close-call battle. These infantry, cavalry, artillery and joker cards can also be used to fortify a position if you’re about to be attacked.

As a free piece of advice, always try and move your troops to the edges of your borders and fortify the locations most prone to destruction. This way, you stand a better chance of repelling any attack and you can fight back swiftly and decisively when your turn comes.

I’ve also noticed that the game pauses whenever you switch focus to another window, which is kind of weird considering that it runs in window mode. Because it’s a turn base strategy game I could skip watching my opponents move and I could only resume when my turn comes up.

Audio and Video

As I previously mentioned, the video part is not all that impressive in terms of stunning and eye-catching effects. The only thing that you’ll notice is the exploding effect when you’re attacking a target and the flickering attack crosshair.

One could argue that for a turn base strategy game for a handheld device the graphics are well within expected parameters and that the PC version is simply an extension to another OS platform.

The bright colors and the smoothen menu buttons are mostly the only predominant graphic effects that Risky War has to offer. Also, I’ve noticed that when you scroll the map horizontally you can view the line that patches together the repeating map that is supposed to make you feel like you’re circling the planet.

The background music is a single track that keeps looping in terms of several minutes. The only control you have over it is that you can bring the volume up or down, the same way as you can for the exploding effects.

Conclusion

Risky Wars is definitely fun to play, especially if you’re a fan of the classic Risk board game. The same rules have been ported and now you can play against the computer if your friends and family aren’t around.

It obviously has a good replay value considering that you can adjust the difficulty of your opponents and that you can never know what strategy the computer will come up with next.

While visually not very challenging for the PC, it makes up by offering you a great opportunity for testing your strategy skills. Risky Wars is a nice escape from daily activities, giving you a turn base strategy challenge at its core. If you’re a fan, you can check out the trial version and then you can purchase it for $16.49.