Risk 2210 reimagines a classic board game

Every once in a while, our regular Friday night RPG session falls apart. It might be because of sick kids, weddings, extended business trips or just bad luck, but only a handful of our players can make it. If it’s a night when the party really needed the resources of the missing players, we ditch the RPG game in favor of one of the board games in my closet. And our favorite one to date is Risk 2210.

Avalon Hill’s Risk 2210 is the successor to the classic board game Risk, greatly expanded for a far future age. In this version of Risk, up to four countries have been nuked off the globe, and dozens of new ones have formed in the wake of 21st century conflicts. Armies can once again wage war for control of continents, but they can also seize sea and moon colonies.

Aiding the armies — and allowing them to attack off-shore and off-planet resources — are special commanders. Stronger than regular armies, these commanders also allow players access to the redesigned command deck. In the original game, trading in command cards netted additional armies, but in the new game that’s only the beginning. There are five types of command cards: Diplomacy, Land, Sea, Nuke, and Space, and each offers special abilities ranging from instant armies to destroying attackers to nuking every country on a continent.

The designers did a great job with this sequel, keeping the feel of Risk while greatly expanding what you can do with the game. These new capabilities keep the game from getting boring, and provide the sort of cutthroat, backstabbing gaming experience that can keep you up until 3 a.m. It’s well worth its $45.00 sticker price.

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