Risk (PlayStation)

GameSpot editors' review

• CNET editors' rating: 3.5 stars Very good
  Detailed editors' rating
  Overall score: 7.7 (3.5 stars)

• Reviewed by:
  Josh Smith
• Reviewed on: 07/02/1998
• Updated on: 05/02/2000
• Released on: 05/31/1998
• Originally published on GameSpot: Risk (PlayStation) Review

Hasbro Interactive has successfully "ported" one of the oldest and most popular turn-based strategy games to the PlayStation. This one has all the elements of the board game down: the cards, the geographically dubious map, even onscreen dice that roll with a thunderous clamor. Plus you can mix real opponents with CPU ones, and there are lots of odd new options, including Blind Risk and Ultimate Risk, which replace the ease and speed of Classic Risk with some rudimentary realism and strategic considerations. In fact, the only thing missing is the little plastic roman numerals.

For the uninitiated, the game of Risk may seem a little odd. Idiosyncrasies abound. At the beginning of the game, each opponent's armies are distributed randomly throughout the world - though a manual battalion placement option is available. When you conquer territories you are awarded strange playing cards with cannons and horses on them that are redeemable for reinforcements. Last-surviving defending armies always win in a tied roll of the dice, making them fairly fearsome opponents when outnumbered. Plus there's the steamroller effect, by which a single country with enough reinforcements and a little luck can take over territory after territory in a single turn. As long as it doesn't run out of troops, it can keep going until it has taken over the entire world. In short, realism is out the window. And that's what makes it Risk.

Hasbro Interactive could have made the PlayStation version much more realistic. It could have included troop morale, food supplies, different types of units (there's only one), and so forth. Heck, it could've thrown the old game out the window and slapped the license on a brand-spankin'-new real-time strategy game with hyperrealism, and the N64 version could have used the Rumble Pak to simulate troop hunger. Thank God Hasbro didn't. Hasbro Interactive made the right call by leaving it simple, full of illogical rules that also happen to be really fun. Like the original, Risk for the PlayStation is straight-ahead, fast-paced, and easy to play right out of the box.

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Risk (PlayStation): $31.95

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