Lux - World domination made easy

Aug 25, '04 10:59:00AM

Contributed by: robg

Lux icon The macosxhints Rating:
9 of 10
[Score: 9 out of 10]

Growing up, our family and friends used to pass hours taking over the world, again and again ... by playing Risk, the "classic game of global domination." The objective in Risk, peaceful and fun-loving game that it is :), is to control the entire world by taking over the various countries with your armies. No diplomacy here, just world conquest via takeover! Although Risk is a great game, it suffers from the "Monopoly effect" -- games can take literally hours to play, which makes it hard to break out the game for a quick bit of relaxation. Though I haven't played the board game very often recently (usually just at Christmas time with the family!), I've been looking, off and on, for a decent Mac-based replacement ... which I think I've now found in Lux.

Lux is Risk ... and much more. You can choose from the "classic" Risk map, eight other pre-defined maps, or use a map generator to create a random map on the fly. You can even create your own maps, complete with your own background images and more. Up to six people can play, in any combination of human or computer opponents. The computer opponents' skill level ranges from easy to hard, with several "personalities" in each bucket. Even better, there's a network mode that's as easy as clicking a button -- the game finds other servers for you to join automatically (you need to buy Lux to host games). Lux is also available for Mac, Linux, and PC, so you can dominate a cross-platform online world!

The gameplay in Lux is much as I recall Risk -- lots of thoughts on where to put armies, and then battles coming down to the luck of the roll and the number of units in each country. What I really like about this version, though, is the speed with which you can play a game. After you've taken your turn, the computer opponents' battles go very quickly -- it's almost like a fireworks display as you watch the explosions from their skirmishes. The explosions are a very cool way of showing the battles in progress; the image below shows a couple explosions in northern Canada ... or watch a movie of the entire sequence of the five computer opponents taking their turn.


I played against five computer opponents, and the entire group took maybe 10 seconds or so to make their moves each time, as you can see in the movie. As a result, you can play an entire game of Lux in a reasonable amount of time -- 20 to 30 minutes or less, depending on how good you are :).

If all that's not enough for you, there are even plug-ins, such as a game set entirely in California or Hawaii, and quite a few Middle Earth (Lord of the Rings) based maps (again, registration required to use the plug-ins). Quite fun, and well worth $20 in my book.

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