Risk 1959

Customer Reviews

Great for Nostalgic Purposes Review by David

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Risk is a game that I played with my friends all through high school and into undergrad. There was nothing more fun than settling in with five buddies for what could be several hours of dice rolling, truce making (and breaking), and a wide variety of trash talking and arguing.

That said, the game is somewhat dated and suffers greatly as you move into more complex and nuanced games. The heavy reliance on rolling can frustrate players with superior strategy and lesser rolling. Also, the necessary war of attrition that can start to occur about halfway through a game can be extremely boring and drag the game out for an extremely long time. When playing with five or six people, one player can be eliminated extremely early, leaving him to twiddle his thumbs while the game drags on.

Overall, I'll probably return to Risk once or twice, and I think it's a great game, but it quickly loses its luster when you move to newer and better games. (Posted on 10/7/09)

Time has moved beyond Risk Review by Murray

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Risk is a great classic game. The newest iteration of the game, called the Revised or Reinvention version, is great and does much to update Risk so that it can compete with all the other great war games that have come out since Risk's early days.

In this game, players control huge armies around the world. Every turn, their army grows according to the number of areas they control and if they control any continents. Players then can attack surrounding areas and battle results are determined by a roll of the dice. If a player manages to secure a new area, they earn a card that can have one of three symbols on it. Matching three cards with identical symbols or one of each symbol will allow the player to get a substantial boost to their army size. The winner of the game is the player that conquers the world.

Risk also includes different rules of play, including a mission variant where players can win in the traditional way of conquering the world or by completing all their secret objectives that are drawn randomly from a deck of cards at the start of the game. The aforementioned revised version of Risk includes even more rule variants that give this classic game a jump in replay value.

The components of the game are excellent. Each player's army is represented by various plastic figurines that are durable and nicely detailed. There are quite a lot of figurines and each player has three different kinds, which can make organization, set up and cleaning quite a problem. The game packs well, but not vertically as the pieces will slide around in their compartment and may mix.

Overall, I love this game. It is a classic that is fun to play. However, if possible, I would recommend the revised edition over this, more classic version. There are also various themed versions of Risk that feature different maps and new rules as well, which makes a Risk game collector seem more sane than a Monopoly game collector. I do recommend this game, but maybe a different iteration of it. (Posted on 12/20/08)