RISK: Factions

RISK: Factions

I want to talk about another game before I talk about RISK: Factions - the old '900 number' call-in games from comic books in the 1990's. "Help the X-Men beat Magneto," the double page spread would beg. Then you'd get a parent's permission and call in, ready to press 1 to use Optic Blast on Toad, and the announcer would talk as slow as possible to rack up the per-minute charges. Of course you didn't ask Mom's permission, you took the phone in your room, hid under the bed and hoped you could stop Magneto's plans in just a minute or two, but it never worked out that way. Keep that experience in mind.

First things first, this is a pretty fun version of RISK. They do a lot to change up the maps (though they aren't dynamically generated) and the different colors for team choice are realized in a fun way. Red (whose general is Commandant-64, an 80's toy robot) and Yellow (Generalissimo Meow, a tinpot dictator kitty-cat) are both highlights. The combat animations are fun and colorful, and the music, though obviously repetitive, fits the mood and doesn't get too grating.

The single-player campaign has a fairly funny storyline with fully-voice-acted and animated cutscenes attached to it, though it's just over an hour long.

But on to the flaws. First the offline flaw: the game's information delivery. While the combat is skippable, every time an objective on the map changes hands or comes online, and every award claimed at the end of a round, is meticulously mapped out and animated, which gets old by the second time you see it. When a hotly-contested property like the Temple gets passed around in a round, it becomes absolutely hair-pulling, and ultimately sinks local multiplayer, which - by the way - again does not support hotseat play, which is absolutely asinine for a game with literally no actions available for non-active players.

Secondly, online play is completely worthless. I've always maintained, despite others begging for a computer game RISK with online play, that it would be worthless. Locally, you're still in the guy's house when you throw up your hands and quit; online you just press a few buttons and you are gone, off to Call of Duty land. But RISK: Factions still lets you join another game right away, leading to endless ragequitting with pubbies, meaning you can only play online with your friends.

Ultimately, better matchmaking/ragequit penalties and customizable animation levels would make this a perfect arcade game, but unfortunately it ends up with a very few, but very critical errors that make it not worth its price.

Graphics: Very fun, bright colors and good animations. The "Domination" animations are a highlight. 4.
Sound: Full voice acting, and a score that never quites gets under your skin or on your nerves. 4.
Controls: Fairly intuitive. You can't abort a fast attack, but other than that, no complaints. 4.
Tilt: You will love playing this once, but ultimately the overlong and far-too-frequent "informative animations" just get annoying. 1.
Overall (not an average): 2