Risky Business

Day 67 - RISK: The Lord of the Rings
Designed by Stephen Baker and Jean-Rene Vernes

How do you make a classic like Risk better? Add a Lord of the Rings theme with multiple ways to play! I think that this is one of the few "themed" classic games that actually improves on the original and really adds to the game other than just the "theme."

First of all, let's look just review RISK for a moment. World domination made easy. The game still has a lot of the luck factor, but that is what makes the game unpredictable and entertaining. Strategically attacking certain locations and fortifying others. The game can last a long time, but that is half the fun with RISK. A big SHOUT OUT to my old physics teacher who had an old school computer version of RISK that was played quite frequently.

RISK: The Lord of the Rings (Trilogy Edition) really provides a lot. The map is obviously different than the usual world map (a map of Middle Earth) and the game includes 4 sets of armies (2 evil and 2 good). The pieces are good quality and so is the board and cards. So, you can play normal RISK on the new board, or you can play the "point" version, or you can play different team versions as well. The game can be played with the fellowship (represented by a ring) moving along throughout the board. The ring is used as a time piece limiting the game to a certain length (which I really enjoy) and in certain versions of the game if the good team destroys the ring they win, and if the evil team captures the ring along the way they win. [Funny story about this actually. It takes a while to set up the game, and after all the time and effort put into this, the evil team captured the ring on their very first turn. The game was over within a few minutes after it took us about 30 to 40 minutes to set up the game. If I remember correctly, we decided to note the win, but restart the game using the same set up.]

I highly recommend this game to fans of The Lord of the Rings and fans of RISK. If you have not played RISK before, I would probably recommend playing the original prior to playing this version, although it isn't necessary. It is a very well done game and I really enjoy it when I have the time to play it and that is How Lou Sees It.

Sauron Strikes Back

Day 7 - Lord of the Rings
Designed by Reiner Knizia


The first cooperative game in the A Game A Day adventure. Reiner Knizia is said to be one of the finest game designers, and I agree with that statement according to the games that I have played of his. It is definitely a big challenge to design a board game based on a well known popular book (which was also made into some very popular movies), and Mr. Knizia does a fine job. The object of the game is of course to take the ring of all rings to Mordor and destroy it. You and your fellow hobbits (2-5 players) will take a journey through Middle Earth (should take about an hour) trying not to become corrupt by the ring's power along the way. You must work together to pass through each phase of the game while avoiding Sauron. The wife and I played the game today and Sauron unfortunately won. The Wife was able to get enough ring tokens to get control of the ring before Sauron took me. She nobly went on without me and made it to space 51 before Sauron claimed his ring back for good. Sorry Middle Earth. Maybe next time and that is How Lou Sees It.