Overview
Lux Touch was an entertaining RISK simulator for the iPhone. Lux DLX takes the same gameplay and fancies it up with a truckload of new features. The game of RISK itself is greatly simplified here, with nothing expected of players except placing and moving armies. On the whole, this is a great representation of RISK, and the extra maps included in the Deluxe version definitely add some extra playability, but the price is pretty steep.
Features
- Touch To Move and Place Armies
If that's going too slow for you, hold your finger down to automatically dump armies into your country of choice. This sizes down the gameplay to picking a country and holding down your finger 'til it's taken. Rinse and repeat.
Lux DLX gives you a satisfying level of control over the game you're about to play. Choose the number of players, their difficulty, and what map you're playing on. From there, adjust options like how many extra armies you'll get each turn, how armies will be distributed at the start of the game, and how quickly reinforcements will escalate.
Set one or more players to "Human Player" and pass the phone around with your friends. This seems like it'd be a little tough to pull off, since keeping track of what your opponents had done might take a little catching up once you get ahold of the phone.
Breakdown
For those of you who were never a teenage nerd, RISK is a boardgame that has players moving armies across a map of the world, rolling dice to determine the outcome of battles. It was a game that could often take a whole afternoon to complete. The Lux games thankfully take a lot of the computation and complication out of RISK - making it a breeze to move armies across the map. I am personally a big fan of this simplification, because while I like crushing enemies with my military might, I don't like rolling dice, messing with complicated rules, or generally having to work for my enjoyment.
I think the AI programming is pretty good in this game - I felt challenged but not overwhelmed. Games flow fairly smoothly and deciding how to move your forces around is easy once you figure it out. While there was no help feature in the free version, Lux DLX fixes that up with a fairly detailed explanation of the features and mechanics of the game.
The inclusion of extra maps aside from the traditional world map is key to the replayability of Lux DLX. Each map has its own little quirks - whereas the original gives you bonuses for controlling a whole continent, a map based on the United States gives you bonuses for controlling major cities. This serves to shake things up and provides different objectives to go for, different strategies to try out.
The Bad:
The price seems kind of steep here. While Lux DLX is very full-featured and I don't have many complaints about the game itself, this is not an eight dollar game. It's no blockbuster AAA title. The graphics are very simple (when zooming in, the low resolution becomes very obvious) and the sound effects are minimal.
Verdict
While it's not the most fun I've had on the iPhone, Lux DLX gives me RISK in a form that takes out all the fuss, which I'm grateful for. This game doesn't blow me away in any particular way, but it works and it's fun enough to spend a decent amount of time playing. I strongly recommend that you try the free version before springing for the Deluxe form. If you're not quite sold, try holding out for a price drop.
