On the many cold and windy winter nights and week long exercises I had to do while on duty as a Signals Technician (Royal Corps of Signals - British Army) I used to play this game regularly (in between shifts). This is the first version ever to be transferred to the computer and faithfully recreates the original board game as opposed to trying to make it look fancier as with later versions of Risk that you can still buy from places like Reflexive and Big Fish Games. It's a classic board game that is up amongst the greats such as Monopoly, Cluedo and Scrabble; and that I'm sure the majority reading this have played at some point in their lives. If you haven't then you've missed something great. (lol) The download would easily fit onto one of the smaller floppy discs at only 275Kb.
Risk
There's no installer, so you'll need to unzip the file to wherever you usually place your games (the default is usually C:\Program Files\), or unzip to the desk top and manually place the file yourself. Open up the installed folder and create a shortcut for the RISK file that you'll find within the main RISK folder; there's a short tutorial in the games discussion thread (around page 7 now) if you're not sure how to do it.
To start the game you click on RISK which brings up a DOS window that asks you "which graphics does your computer have". You must select 2 from this option. Then you are asked "which input device your computer have". You can select from mouse, joystick or keyboard. The joy stick option allows you to configure the joystick before starting the game. Once you've selected your input device press the space bar to start the game. The opening screen looks extremely blocky (due to the 8 bit graphics) by today's standards, but don't let that put you off. The basic game play includes UK and US short and long play rules as well as a custom setting for making up your own.
The game is controlled via the familiar toolbar menus that we are all familiar with now, so I wont go into details as you can find out about the varios options for yourselves.
The following was copied from the download page:
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The graphics are standard EGA (nothing breathtaking, but still quite nice). You control everything with a mouse, so the controls are really simple enough (only thing you can't click is the number of units – if you want to change it, you need to type it yourself). The game also features some weird beeps which should be the sound, but I suggest you turn those off and play some pompous music in the back (I played Carl Orff's Carmina Burana).
The best thing about this game is, that you can invite up to five friends to play with you, or you can play against the computer (it has three difficulty levels). Unfortunately you can't play the game via the modem, so you'll have to prepare some snacks if you plan to host this game.
So what do you have to do? Well it depends on what type of game you chose. You have the FULL game or SHORT game option (both US or UK). If you chose a full game you need to conquer the whole world and destroy all opponents. The short game on the other hand gives you a mission (like conquer some continents, capture 24 territories,…) and you win after you complete the mission. The difference between US and UK version of the game is of a different nature. Those who are familiar with the game already know that you have the RISK cards which you can trade for more units. You need either three cards of the same type (cavalry, artillery or infantry) or one of each category (you can also have a joker card). In the UK version you get a certain number of units for every set (infantry – 4, cavalry – 6, artillery – 8 and different cards – 10). The US version has a different system. Every time you change a set you get more units. So the more you change (doesn't matter what kind of a set), the more units you'll get.
But just how do you fight? Simple, you roll dice (just like in the board game).
Enough said, it's time to play this gem, which surely deserves at least a 4 (out of 5).
Download Link:
