Risk: Urban Assault

 PlayStation 4
User Score
5.3

Mixed or average reviews- based on 10 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3 out of 10
  2. Mixed: 3 out of 10
  3. Negative: 4 out of 10

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  1. FriedConsole
    Aug 15, 2016
    7
    This game is basically the capital variant of Risk. It is much better than the previous Ubisoft Risk. Games move a lot faster than previous Risk because of the rules and faster AI animations.
  2. Dal_ReviewedDat
    Sep 26, 2016
    6
    As an epic fan of Risk as a board game, and a keen player both online and local since the release of Risk:Fractions on the PS3, I've always loved the simplicity and tactics of risk. Easy enough to pick up vs a noob and have a good challenge. I'd eagerly been checking for the release of Urban Assault since it first appeared on Haribos webpage as 'coming soon', over a year ago. I'veAs an epic fan of Risk as a board game, and a keen player both online and local since the release of Risk:Fractions on the PS3, I've always loved the simplicity and tactics of risk. Easy enough to pick up vs a noob and have a good challenge. I'd eagerly been checking for the release of Urban Assault since it first appeared on Haribos webpage as 'coming soon', over a year ago. I've reviewed the original Ubisoft RISK and had put plenty of hours into it (500+ easily). I felt that the game lacked the additional game modes that was featured on the Risk Fractions game, but was fun and a great little game.

    What I was hoping for with Urban Assault, was new game modes, fraction-like-teams, and plenty of new maps. What I found was, well confusing:

    Urban Assault breaks the world map of old, and now has a range of cities to fight in instead; London, New York, Paris, Shanghai and Hamburg.
    Each city has neighbourhoods replacing continents. When you take over the entire continent, you get to build a Town-hall that adds an advantage to your dice roll in defence. Additionally, you get a commander to place on any owned tile that also gives you a bonus. Each fraction has varied commanders to pick from, and each fraction has it's own perks.
    Additionally to this, by taking neighbourhoods you also gain extra stars. With these stars, you can build on owned tiles. Stars can be used to buy troops (as before), or defence bases (giving you a +1 to your defence rolls), or building farms (which give you extra stars at the beginning of the next go) or you can build gun-turrets (which can attack up to 2 tiles away from where it's built). These simple to use new builds add a much deeper strategy to the vanilla game, and therefore makes this a real welcome addition to RISK. Stars can also be used in the movement stage of the game to bribe a rival fraction into a ceasefire for a set amount of goes. They'll often ignore it, but if they dont you honour the ceasefire when it concludes by giving stars to that player. After each round (every fraction having a go) the player with the highest amount of territory is elected mayor, and gets to chose a few perks which can add more strategy to the game.

    So why have I rated it a 6 if its so good?

    Well, despite it's great playable set-up, Ubisoft have scored a number of own goals in this:

    Setting up local games is now MORE limited to game modes. In the previous version, you were able to play "secret missions" "conquest - take over the entire map" or "cities". Now, the local game is purely a version of cities, where you can edit it that the winner is the person with 3 to 5 townhalls (in effect, cities).
    This is a real shame. The lack of being able to completely take over the entire map - standard RISK, seems mad to me, and the Secret Mission games on the last ubisoft version was actually a good little quick skirmish game, that could be won in 30 minutes. I really struggle to understand why they took modes out from the last version.

    That, and the entire layout is unchanged. A few more animations that are still hugely underpar from PS4s capabilities.

    All in all, I bought this in sale at £6.70. The single player 'campaign' is short. The online mode has a small community - expect a wait of 10-15mins per game, and ultimately, this feels like a GREAT DLC for the last version on the PS4, not in itself a new game at all. I waited for a sale to get it as i was actually insulted that it wasnt a DLC on release anyhow - on playing it, I was more annoyed it wasnt DLC. It really really should of been. Ubisoft has no love for the RISK community!

    Anyhow - it's fun and will give you plenty of hours of gameplay for harden RISK fans, I just hope they DO do free DLC for extra maps etc down the line... which is what i said on the review of the last version!!    … Expand
  3. Rkre77
    May 9, 2020
    1
    Very fun concept! I appreciated all the nuances that were added as it freshens up the game considerably. However, while playing with friends, we rarely make it through an entire game without it freezing or disconnecting someone 30 minutes into the action. It's very frustrating.
  4. RAGNAROK11
    Feb 19, 2023
    2
    This game is just not fun, the dice rolls are pre-determined, annoying narrator, you are heavily targeted by the AI, the faction abilities are overpowered, and the factions aren’t that interesting. It is a faithful adaptation though.

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
61

Mixed or average reviews - based on 4 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 0 out of 4
  2. Mixed: 4 out of 4
  3. Negative: 0 out of 4
  1. Brash Games
    Aug 23, 2016
    60
    Unsurprisingly, the core gameplay and the option to play locally with friends are what hold strong, perhaps indicating that no matter what technological advances come our way, the tried-and-tested strategic Risk experience will always be relevant.
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  2. XGN
    Aug 18, 2016
    70
    The game is good. The rules and play style vary slightly from the board game which makes the game interesting. The campaign is tricky at some points although it gets repetitive when you play too long.
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  3. Areajugones
    Aug 10, 2016
    55
    RISK: Urban Assault adapts the board game to the consoles so that we can enjoy it playing it with friends. However, if you play alone, you will find that the AI is terrible in this game.
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