Up to five players can go to war, online and off, taking on the roles of Cats, Robots, Zombies, Yetis, or Humans. A single-player campaign mode can help Risk veterans familiarize themselves with Hasbro's 2008 rule-set, and three multiplayer modes await: Command Room, Classic, and World Conquest.
"Risk: Factions has been designed to offer something for every level of strategy player," said Chip Lange, GM of the Hasbro Division at Electronic Arts. "We've taken a pop culture favorite and injected doses of innovation and creativity across all aspects of the game to deliver a Risk experience that can only be achieved on a digital gaming platform such as XBLA."
Command Room features the objective-based 2008 rule-set; Classic mode tasks players with eliminating all other opponents; and World Conquest features a mix of Command Room objectives and Classic winner-take-all battles.
"From original Classic mode to new Factions mode, and online multiplayer to an assortment of rule-set options, game-changing strategic weapons, quirky factions and eye-grabbing graphics, the quest for world domination just got more extreme and fun," Lange said.
Risk: Factions is available now on Xbox Live Arcade for 800 Microsoft points ($9.99).
Sharkey says: I've only seen the screenshots of the new cartoony look in Risk: Factions, and as an old school dice roller, I'm not a big fan. And by that I mean a "must buy" has become a "maybe when it drops to 400 MS points."
