4 Player Tactical Espionage Action
So last Friday I finally got a chance to play my copy of Metal Gear Solid Risk and lemme tell you, if you at all like the game of Risk or games like Risk – this version of it is amazing, different, and fast paced and a significant improvement over standard clunky Risk.
I first halfway expected MGS: Risk to just be a themed board game like Simpsons Monopoly or Star Wars Battleship. Just buying it for the theme alone and not expecting it to be a game that adds a lot of new layers to the standard game that makes you wonder why Risk isn’t always like this.
So the first big change that is immediately noticeable are the bosses. The game is built for at most 5 players and each of you command an independent military force as seen in MGS4. From there, you select a boss for your armies. It could be Solid Snake, Raiden, or even Liquid Ocelot, there are I think 8 boss tokens. Your boss token is placed in a territory with your armies and while attacking or defending no matter what your boss gives your force the perk of rolling a D8 instead of a D6 and in addition each Boss has it’s own extra abilities. For instance Solid Snake, you get to add a +1 to your highest die roll AND he can basically allow you to reinforce from anywhere on the board through enemy territory. Each boss has a different ability that sort of suits what their character is like in the game of MGS4.
The major twists to the game are that in order to win you have to complete at least 3 main objectives and control your headquarters. These main objectives are different depending on the number of players involved and everybody is competing for the same pile of goodies. So in a 4 player game, there was a pile of 5 Main Objectives. The interesting thing is that if you are the first to complete an objective – it is yours until your army is defeated or you win the game. So if 4 players in a 4 player game each got an objective, those players would need to start eliminating each other to win. Interestingly enough, the game doesn’t encourage or advocate global domination as a means to win the game – they try to force you to get the objective tokens.
Outer Heaven docked at South America
The other major and noticeable difference is the inclusion of a mobile battleship/fortress of Big Boss – Outer Heaven. Outer Heaven is also made up of 3 territories can move to one of 6 ports on the map, and adds a bonus when attacking other territories from it. Getting control over Outer Heaven gives you a flexible advantage to strike anywhere on the board.
The other significant change is Drebin Points and the Drebin Shop. Every turn you gain a number of Drebin Points and you can buy game changing advantages from the Drebin Shop. These cards can literally change the state of the game quickly. Some cards I saw would allow you to do a missile strike on a neighboring territory & eliminate a D6 of armies without entering battle. These changes may feel like small changes on the game, but can significantly change the fate of a player in one turn. Pretty fun twist on the game.
Examples of Drebin Cards.
All in all, my first experience with MGS: Risk kinda blew my mind. I’m eager to play in again and the friends I played it for about 4-5 hours and feel like were coming closer to the end of it – hard to say… but those 4 hours we’re a helluva a lot of fun and we’re all eager to finish it up soon.
Anyway – it is a limited edition game – Amazon.com only has 8 copies of it left. If you’re a Metal Gear fan and a board game fan. Get it. It is a must have.
