May 16, 2011
Risk has always been one of my favorite board games, but I can never find anyone who wants to play it with me. I can’t necessarily blame my friends for not wanting to get wrapped up in a game of Risk; after all, you need a large table to set the game up on, and a lot of time to play the game from start to finish. Drisk brings Risk to the Android platform in a surprisingly effective way. You don’t need a table and a large game board to enjoy Risk alone or with friends anymore, but do the flaws outweigh the great gameplay elements?
Drisk is a very direct port of Risk with some unique additional features. You can choose to play on a wide variety of maps, including the entire Earth, America, Europe, Asia, and even Middle Earth. You can choose to play with other people by passing your Android device around the room, or go solo against the built in AI. The AI is surprisingly challenging, and if you like, you can set it to Skynet mode, in which all AI players will be more inclined to attack human players – not a good idea if you’re playing alone against a lot of AI opponents.
If you’ve played Risk, you know the rules; deploy troops, attack other territories, redeploy your troops to reinforce your
territories, end your turn, and hope your opponents don’t ruin all your hard work. You receive rewards in the form of additional troops for knocking other players out of the game, and for achieving various goals in game, though Drisk never does a good job of letting you know which tasks merit reward and which don’t. In other words, if you’re not already familiar with the rules of the various versions of Risk, you may not have a clear idea of what’s going on in Drisk. That doesn’t necessarily keep the game from being fun, it just means that there’s a somewhat steep learning curve for users unfamiliar with the original board game, and the alternate versions that have come out over the years.
Drisk allows you to customize the rules to your liking, and it offers a lot of great gameplay options to keep you coming back for more…if you don’t get frustrated by the controls first. The maps are all fairly large, and without a zoom function, tapping the right territory can be an exercise in frustration for all but the most patient of players. This might not be the case if you’re playing it on a tablet, but on a cell phone, you’re almost certain to have some problems witht he controls.
Despite the control issues, Drisk offers up a great Android adaptation of the classic board game Risk. If you love Risk, you’re going to want to grab Drisk. Despite its flaws, it’s a great game that will keep you coming back for more.
