As a teenager in the 90s I was distracted by the advent of games consoles. For me it was the Sega Mega Drive. I loved Sonic the Hedgehog and eagerly lapped up every new release. But as I grew up I mostly lost interest in consoles. Did have a PlayStation, still it never really gripped me the way the Mega Drive did. However, I did come across a new game. Being the pre-internet days and not really knowing anyone into board games I tended to stumble into things myself, and the new game I found was an old classic, Risk.
As I've said before, a lot of games for children were ‘roll and move’ games but Risk was something different. It was an introduction to war gaming. Each player had an ‘army’ across the globe map and a mission to complete. The units themselves are all the same so to a veteran player it is very basic but to a new gamer it is an introduction to tactical thinking. Working out what your mission is, which units are important and need to be reinforced, which can be safely ignored, where to conquer to get bonus units or - as they are known.
The classic tactic of grabbing Australia and building up a huge army is a well known and a mostly successful play, although if the game goes against you it does mean you’ll last a long time. There are better games with more depth to them, but as an introductory game it’s certainly worth it for me.
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