Look out World.

My friends and I used to play Risk for hours when we were in high school. Heck, it just took that long. That is one thing that even the "Fast Dice" option on the PC version can't avoid. If you want to kill two or three hours this is a great way to do it.

The box makes a lot of great claims for what it calls "Ultimate Risk." "Ultimate Risk" is an option that attempts to update a game that didn't need updating. Don't bother with it. Some poor schlepp in marketing thought this up and the programmers did their best with a crummy concept. They have added generals and random events as well as rebels. In Ultimate Risk when you attack you are given several options such as "attack on right flank" or "recon in force." All the generals do is make more choices available. The more experience a general has the more choices you have. The random events are usually things like half your soldiers in Chile die of cholera or something drastic like that. They also attempted to make the weather a factor. On some turns you will find that there is a storm blocking the sea lane from Great Britain to Maine. The presence of rebels is pretty well developed and makes the deployment of troops much more realistic. In the original version you can pretty much concentrate your forces on the fronts and leave vast areas unoccupied. In Ultimate Risk if you leave a territory unoccupied chances are it will be taken over by rebels. That is one nice touch in a generally unimpressive update of an old classic.

But the old classic is also a new classic. The computer version gives you several new maps to play and they all have more territories than the classic map. Many. many more. This makes a deeper level of strategy available. There are also several different versions of rules available within the classic version. One option I found challenging is the "Blind Risk" option. This allows a player to see opponent's troops only when they are in territories adjacent to his own. The first time I tried this option I had my head handed to me. You can also select "Random Turn Order." I find this a little annoying but definitely more difficult. I think "Random Turn Order" takes away from the flow of the game.

And the game is already hard enough. If you select seven computer opponents and set the AI to hard, I can pretty much guarantee you will be in for an all-night dog-fight.

The only drawback is that if you have Direct X 7 you will probably have to turn off Direct Draw and Direct 3D to be able to play Risk. Otherwise you get sound but no picture. They don't mention that in the game manual but the website has a pretty good customer service area. I would also recommend downloading the patch.

I don't know how well the multiplayer works on this because I've never tried it. As far as I'm concerned the AI is ruthless enough, I'd hate to put myself at the mercy of my friends.