In today’s virtually dominated world of dark colors, violence and explosions, few people have the patience or mental capacity to sit down for two hours and play a board game with some like-minded friends. That’s a shame. I know it’s hard to believe, but boardgames are awesome. Especially a reimagining of a classic, admittedly terrible, board game from your childhood. So, in an attempt to sway the ADHD riddled minds of my fellow classmates, I’m going to present to you a board game so awesome, so legen-wait for it-dary, that you are going to want to drop everything and get this game right now. May I present to you: Risk Legacy.
On the surface Risk Legacy seems like a normal game of risk with brighter colors. The board’s the same. You might be thinking “Jacob what is this nonsense? I thought you said I’m going to be playing an awesome game.” My response? Chill out. I haven’t gotten to the new parts yet. Jeeze, see this is what I was talking about with the ADHD thing. Anyways, there’s a lot of new features. First off we will talk about the new characters. I don’t mean like there’s a red guy and a green guy. Sure they are different colors, but they are completely different factions with different pieces and abilities. You’ve got your Nazi robots, some British space soldiers, and even genetically altered dudes who run around in loincloths (honestly they’re terrible, but to each their own.)
But what really makes this awesome game the most awesomest of them all is that fact that you make real decisions with real consequences. Let that sink in. You make a decision that you stick with for the rest of the game. You can’t go back on it. These are long games, too. Fifteen rounds, each round lasting anywhere from five minutes to two and a half hours. What initially sounds like a good decision could completely knock you out of the running in later games. That’s legit. The decisions don’t apply only to the characters you choose, though. You have to decide how to change the board with scar cards, cities, and other crazy modifications that means no one game is played the same. Maybe you want to throw down a fortification and a major city on Brazil to make it an impregnable fortress straight out of a Spanish rendition of Camelot, or maybe one of your friends messes you up and puts an ammo shortage on there first, making it an undefendable quagmire. You have to act first, but still keep an eye on the future. That kind of strategy is awesome and unfortunately, lost on most of this generation of entertainment.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t even mention the packets. The oh so secretive white little envelopes found in the starting box can only be opened by completing certain objectives, or by being “that guy” and opening them whenever. These packets contain cards that either add on to what you can do, including missions and more scar cards, to straight up flipping the entire game on it’s head by changing the ever-loving mess out of the rules you’ve been following for hours. They make you completely change the way you play the game, keeping the monotony at bay with the awesome of a couple of cards.
If there is really one thing that I need to say about Risk Legacy, it’s this: by writing and marking the board, developing your favorite factions, and discovering all the different ways you can play the game, you become more invested in your efforts and the game as a whole. This makes the victories all the more sweeter, and the defeats all the more bitter. That’s just freaking amazing.
