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Mobiles

Mobiles >> Hotlink

Wednesday, 11 Feb 2009

Hotlink - Risk

Risk your troops? Or not?

This latest rendering of the popular boardgame to the mobile format retains much of the same flavour of the original game albeit with renderings of postmodern Humvees, infantry and rocket launchers on the Risk cards in lieu of the traditional musket infantry, cavalry and cannons. The goals of the game are essentially the same: world domination. The meat of the game lies in single player Conquest mode where you square off against multiple enemy AI generals on a world map with victory being achieved by eradicating everyone else from the face of the earth. Before you begin a game, you get to tweak the number of AI opponents and their level of intelligence. You start the game off by you and your opponents placing units on the world map to claim territories. This is an abstraction as each "unit" on the map comprises an entire army. Once you're done, the battle begins proper as you get to move your armies around the map to invade enemy territories. When two opposing armies meet, battles are fought and decided using a dice roll with the loser losing a number of units. After battles are resolved, players get to assign and move existing units around their territories. Unfortunately, there are no diplomacy options with the AI barring battle so you can't forge temporary alliances like the tabletop version. The enemy AI is robust and mercilessly exploits weaknesses in your defenses though its noticeably less observant on lower difficulty levels, making for a careful game on Hard and a fairly brisk one on Easy. A full game can easily take you an hour or so; plenty for a mobile game. Those who want a faster match can opt for Quick Play mode. There's even a Hotseat mode so you can play the game with a friend. Decent sound and good graphics round out the experience. Definitely worth a whirl if you like strategy gaming. KT

Verdict:

85%

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