Risk Factions, where Zombies rule the earth.
I know it’s been a while since I picked up this game but there has bee a ton going on. It does help that I keep playing it and thinking “Man, I really need to write up the review”. As a kid we always liked to play various board game. I always kind of feared the nights where we would play RISK though because of the massive involvement of the game. A good RISK game could last for hours of hours, and when it’s done there is so much clean up. Not to mention the RISK of stepping on one of those like roman numerals in the middle of the night. Once again, the Xbox steps in to simplify the board game genre and add a little spice to it at the same time.
RISK Factions brings all the fun of territorial control and conquering that the original game had but with no clean up, simplified scoring and much faster game play. The “Factions” portion of the game come in assigning different cartoon characters to the colors of Risk. Black becomes Zombies, Red for Robots, Yellow for Cats, Green for Humans, and Blue for Yeti’s. The Single player campaign takes you through the story about how these characters interact, but mostly it’s there to provide a little more eye candy for the grueling dice rolling game play. They have also added a form of “Fast attack” where the rolls are all done in the back ground and you keep attacking until someone wins.
For those purists who don’t want any taint on their precious game, they preserved the original game play in a “Classic” mode that includes the original cards and structure. Honestly, I tried to play this way once, and it seemed slow. I much enjoyed the newer style better. The turns are faster, the scoring is much easier, and when you are done, no clean up. This is one of the best family board game ports on the arcade and I highly recommend it! I give it an VIII out of X
What are you playing?
I have been thinking of trying to get a weekly post up of what I am playing and maybe put it out to see what you guys are playing as well. I have seen a lot of sites do this to get a good discussion going and maybe get some ideas about a game I wouldn’t normally pick up. So, seeing as how I am the only one here, I’ll go first.
The past week or two I have been working on some house type stuff and reconfiguring things on my network. After picking up the new Xbox 360S (I traded in my old 20gb Xbox) I decided to upgrade my router to a Wireless N to use the new Xbox’s N device. I bought the Belkin Play Dual Band Wireless N router and replaced my crappy Netgear G. Long story made short, I can’t stream media from my PC to the xbox anymore and have no idea why. While I am not a hard core network guy, I still know my way around a subnet and have spent the past 2 weeks tweaking and such to figure this out. It’s kind of a pain.
Outside of that I have been playing some Lego Harry Potter with Sarah. It’s one of those games where we pretty much only play together. I believe we are towards the end of Book 3 right now. the Quick review on it, it’s a Lego game. Same basic premise and humor. That’s not a bad thing, because I love the Lego games. Aside from that I have picked up Risk: Factions from the Xbox Live Arcade. They found a way to really make a Risk game fun for everyone! We have played as a family, as well as through the solo campaign. Enjoyable all around. May have more of a full review on it up soon.
In the life department, I also picked up an Elliptical machine and am using it to get back into some sort of shape that’s not “round”. My hope is to turn some of this belly fat into muscle in time for DragonCon at the beginning of September. We’ll See, as of this morning I was at 192lb. My target is Around 175lb but I would be happy with a strong 180-185lbs. The goal is not so much loss but re-distribution. Wish me luck!
Toy Soldiers (Micro Review)
So I have been a little out of it this week due to some crazy injury to my back. Don't ask, I am not sure how it happened either, I just know it hurts like all hell and I apparently did the worst thing I could do for it. You see, the Doc tells me that I strained the cartilage on my ribs. So when you strain a muscle you want to apply Ice to reduce swelling and heat to encourage blood flow. Yeah, when you strain cartilage, you apply ice, and that's it. When you apply heat it only makes it worse. So the other night when my back was hurting to all high hell, (and I hadn't been to the doc yet) I came down and slept with a electric blanket balled up on my back......alll night. Needless to say the next day was insanely painful. They gave me lots of good drugs and I am spending most of my time laying down on an Ice pack. So I have had lots of time to sit and play on the Xbox.
Enter Toy Soldiers. Toy Soldiers is a new Arcade title that was released about 2 weeks ago. The premise of the game is more tower defense style set with your old fashioned Toy Soldiers (Duh). Now, back in the 90's there was a game called Army Men, which took your old green army men and animated them to a strategy game. This game is nothing like that. The soldiers in this one are the old old style, think the old metal soldiers your grand dad would have had. (for some of you, your great grand dad, damn I am getting old) In Toy Soldiers you have your toy box and an unlimited stream of soldiers at your disposal. You however only control the defensive aspect of the game. You can queue up your offensive force and hope they make it to the other side. You can take control of the various turrets and defenses to add more of a human element to the defense. But that is all just the basic game play. Some of the best parts of the game come from the overall design.
So lets charge into it, shall we?
The Hoo Rah's!!
- The overall look of the game is awesome. The setting of making the backgrounds look like a bedroom where you are really sitting and just playing with your soldiers is great. Add in the period music and it's a great package. I could almost just set the menus and leave with the background playing and enjoy it.
- Upgrades Upgrades Upgrades! Each unit has a series of upgrades which not only make the unit perform better, it changes the look! A machine gun turret changes to a cannon and it has a completely different look of the soldiers.
- No Launch and leave. Most Tower Defense game you can build them up to a specific place and then just leave them alone to finish the job. Like it or not, you can't do that here. You have to stay engaged.
The "Don't Ask Don't Tells"
- It's a race! When playing multi-player you pretty much are in a race to get your upgrades done the fastest. If I can get my howitzer up to level 3 it will have the range to destroy your guns. So first to get there usually wins.
- The AI is smart, but not that smart. You need to be on top of almost every aspect of the defenses if you want to catch everything before it gets to your toy box. It can get a little "Micro (no pun intended) Management" like.,
- No Specials for teams. Maybe I just haven't found it yet but it looks to be just two Teams, the Brits and the Krauts (British and German troops) and they all seem to have the same equipment. It would have been nice to have the Germans get a special gun that the British don't, and vice versa.
Now all that being said, I really do like the game. It's a great way to spend some time while I am laid out on the couch. And I am sure I will find more good in it the more I play. (I could do without the creepy gas mask Avatar award though). If you enjoy the old timy aspect of classic Toy Soldiers, I Highly suggest you at least download the demo and check it out! If you buy it then feel free to send me a game invite!
About Me
My Twitter Feed
Pages
Categories
Important Links
Archives
Recent Posts
- What are you Playing? (When you aren’t getting ready for a CON)
- Risk Factions, where Zombies rule the earth.
- Belkin can suck my butt.
- What are you playing? or….The Risk of Cracking Down on your Limbo Skills
- What are you playing?