Win RISK: Plants vs. Zombies Collector’s Edition (Ends 11/5)

Risk: Plants vs. Zombies Collector's Edition

One of my favorite games as a kid was RISK. It’s a classic board game that beautifully mixes skill and luck with one goal in mind: World Domination!

I played it a ton when I was younger, usually with my buddy Gary. He had two older brothers and a basement full (we’re talking floor to ceiling!) with board games. So he even had one of the original versions with wooden pieces!

Allie and I recently bought RISK for Jason and while we haven’t had time to play it too often, he definitely likes it. Recently, however, I was contacted by one of the coolest video game companies in the world: PopCap. The makers of the hilariously awesome Plants vs. Zombies game have come up with a spinoff to beat (or is that “eat”?) all spinoffs.

Yep, it’s RISK: Plants vs. Zombies Collector’s Edition. And as the box claims, it’s “The Game of Suburban Domination.”

I told Jason about it this new mashup of two of his favorite games and I honestly don’t remember him squealing with so much delight! So when it arrived the other day in the mail, it was tough to hold both of us back!

I put my cans of Sprite Zero aside and ripped open the box! We couldn’t wait to pop out the pieces and see what was included!

Opening the Risk: Plants vs. Zombies game
I just realized how appropriate Jason’s “Little Bites” snack was for this game.
Risk PVZ Box contents
Lots of goodies to play with! And check out the Zombie Yeti!

How cute are these playing pieces?!? Each side has a 1 and a 3-unit piece. Personally, I think the bucket-headed zombie steals the show.

Risk Plants vs. Zombies playing pieces

There’s all sorts of cards and tokens to use in the game too. My favorite are these little ReMINDer tokens, so you can remember which plant or zombie just attacked. It took me a minute to get it, but come on, that’s pretty darn clever!

ReMINDer tokens

The instructions are fairly detailed and explain the three styles of play nicely. There’s also loads of cartoony artwork and jokes that continually crack me up, like the suggestion of a pancake-making car!

PVZ Gardening Guide

If this game was just RISK with Plants and Zombies it’d be cool. But it’s actually so much more than that! There’s three different ways to play: Mission Objectives, Total Domination, and Tower Defense.

What makes this extra cool is that the board is double sided! One side is a huge brain-shaped map of Brainsborough. This plays just like regular Risk, where you need to take over territories as you kill off your opponents troops. There’s bonuses for how many territories you own, what you’ve taken over this turn, how many units you have, etc. There’s also cards that offer special abilities, or that can be used to “purchase” powerful Upgrade Cards.

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The flip-side of the board is seriously a brilliant move. You can play “Front Yard Skirmish Mode” (the Tower Defense style of play), which lets you use RISK-like rules to bring the video game itself to life!

Obviously this is the style Jason wanted to play first, so we did. He grabbed the planets while I led the army of the undead zombies!

Risk Plants vs. Zombies Front Yard Skirmish Mode

Just like the video game, the Zombie objective is to make it to the front porch. The plants need to stop them. If one zombie makes it over, it’s game over! If the plants destroy every one of your zombies, it’s a victory for the green. In this version, both sides start with 30 units.

The game started off slowly as I built up my undead army and slowly made my way towards the front porch. It took Jason and I a few rounds before we got the hang of of the overall gameplay. But once we did, it was a snap and loads and loads of fun.

Here you can see I’m getting closer and closer to the front porch and to finally be able to attack one of his pea shooter plants!

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You can see that Jason’s been picking off my zombies one by one. I have some on the board and only a handful left in my reserves section on the bottom right of the board. But I’ve slowly been building up upgrades, like Newspaper Zombie who gives me an extra action each turn. Plus, I get to look at his underpants and laugh.

Newspaper Zombie

Of course Jason has his own upgrades and special abilities. Thankfully he never got the Shovel card or I would’ve been toast before the game even got going!

Shovel

After losing most of my troops I FINALLY made it next to one of his pea shooters. That means a ground attack! Just like RISK, it comes down to the roll of the dice. Or in this case, a one on one die roll!

Zombie Ground Attack

Bam! I actually beat him on this roll so bye bye, Pea Shooter, and hello last space before the front porch! Unfortunately, on Jason’s turn, his Threepeater blew me away.

In fact, for most of the game, Jason was knocking me off one zombie at a time. Ultimately, it came down to one last, lone zombie against more than a dozen plants. Jason clearly kept his emotions in check at this point.

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And yeah, it didn’t take long before he wiped me out for good. So sad.

This Front Yard Skirmish Mode was a total pea-shooting blast! It really does an awesome job of mixing the PvZ gameplay with the battle style of RISK. There’s certainly strategy involved too in terms of where to place your troops, how to maneuver them and when to upgrade cards and use special abilities. Same goes for the regular RISK style game on the flip side. Can’t wait to play that one next!

Plants vs. Zombies Collector’s Edition of RISK:

This completely customized take on two-player RISK offers a double-sided gameboard and three head-to-head ways to play: Tower Defense, Mission Objective, or Total Domination. With a detailed map of the original town of Brainsborough on one side and the familiar Plants vs. Zombies backyard from the video game on the other, players opt to be plants or zombies and then pick their battlefield. Fighting for their very survival, players engage in skirmishes, battle for three different victory conditions, and play the classic RISK game mode, vying to take over the whole board.

In this mulchifying take on the traditional RISK game, armies have been replaced by Peashooters and Threepeaters who attempt to prevent the consumption of human brains everywhere by the ever-approaching Brown Coat Zombies and Zombie Mobs. The 2-player RISK: Plants vs. Zombies Collector’s game is for ages 10+ at a suggested retail price of $29.99. It is available now at PvZStore.com and Amazon, and will arrive shortly at Kohl’s, Go! Games, ThinkGeek and other North American specialty retailers.

If you’re a fan of RISK or of Plants vs. Zombies, well, why are you still reading this? Go buy this crazy, cool awesome collector’s edition now! Lots of licensed games are nothing more than a slight name and graphics change. This bad boy, however, is a complete overhaul from brain to pinky toe bone!

The rules can be a little complex, so if you have younger kids (under 10) who love the video game but never played RISK, you definitely will need to sit down and play a few games with them to really understand it. But seriously, hats off to Hasbro, USAopoly and PopCap for putting together a truly fun and interactive mashup that works perfectly for adults as well as kids!

I may’ve gone a little overboard, though. I probably should’ve stopped Jason from playing so much because, well, see for yourself…

Zombie Jason

Buy RISK: Plants vs. Zombies Collector’s Edition

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 Win RISK: Plants vs. Zombies Collector’s Edition

(MSRP: $29.95)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Giveaway ends on November 5, 2013 at 11:59 p.m. The 1 winner will be chosen at random and announced on this site. Giveaway is open only to legal residents of the fifty (50) United States (including District of Columbia), who are at least eighteen (18) years old at the time of entry. The 1 Winner will be notified by email and has 48 hours to respond or a new winner will be chosen.

 

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128 thoughts on “Win RISK: Plants vs. Zombies Collector’s Edition (Ends 11/5)”

    • It depends which version you’re playing. It could take as little as maybe 30 minutes or so. Or it could take hours for a full-on RISK game. It’s definitely not a quick game.

      Reply
  1. Hi Andrew,
    Thank you for the post about this game. My sons grandma got it for him for Christmas. Wish you would do a Google Hangouts or Video for game instruction. Maybe I just gave you a cool idea?

    Reply
  2. I would find a place to hold up and gather as many weapons as possible, medicine, food and blankets. You might not be able to get out for a long time.

    Reply
  3. I once saw a picture where they surrounded the house with treadmills… I would totally surround my house with treadmills! let them try to get in then!

    Reply
  4. I would grab my family and go to my dad’s house to hunker down for the long haul! When Zombies come for us we fight them with Dad’s arsenal of power tools and such. We won’t go down without a fight!

    Reply
  5. I live in the woods and have a fully stocked bunker. Also have enough Gatling Gun ammo for a serious horde to be dropped in seconds. LOL. Bring it on. Lol

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  6. I would stave off a zombie invasion buy stockpiling supplies, citizens, and building up a homebase and minibases of defense.

    Reply
  7. We would hide from the Zombies in the mountains! Of course, I have no brain anymore so they probably wouldn’t follow anyway. :-p

    Reply
  8. My kids and I love this game on the computer and we all love zombie movies. Every Sunday night we watch The Walking Dead together. How would we survive a zombie horde? With guns, of course! Lots of guns, plywood on the windows and a Berkey water filtration system that we can use to filter out all contaminates, even icky zombie juices…lol The real questions is : How would the zombie horde survive my family? Haha.

    Reply
  9. My cat doesn’t have a big enough brain to be an attractive target for a zombie, so I would have her guarding the entrance. She’s not much of an attack kitty, but she’s sure to get under their feet and trip them.

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  10. Hum. I actually have a huge plan that involved my sisters boat until she decided to sell it. I will grab the kids and dogs, any weapons and canned goods and head to my parents house to meet them and my husband. Hopefully my sis will do the same. Then caravan to the beach house. Then look for a boat and head north, where Yetis will eat the zombies.

    Reply
  11. I think I would rely on my 3 year old Grandson to deal with the zombies, he has quite a temper! Thanks for the great giveaway opportunity. Keep up the terrific blogging.

    Reply
  12. After I stockpiles weapons and supplies, I would start feeding off annoying neighbors to the zombies to create distractions/escape opportunities.

    Reply
  13. I’d get together a group of ppl and fly to a remote island with lots of supplies and people so we can live peacefully. Now before that we’d have to use any weapons we could to get to the airport and grocery stores for supplies so we’d have to load up on guns, knives and chainsaws lol BUT FIRST we’d have to either go to the local history museum and get a suit of armor or raid the high school locker room for football pads/gear so we can’t get bit!!! If all else fails we’ll just go to the mall and lock ourselves in lol

    Reply
  14. We would cruise over to my friend’s house down the street, they have plenty of fire power and a house that would be great to turn into a huge fort!

    Reply
  15. I’m afraid to say, but I’d probably be one of the first to get bitten, so I’d be in the herd of zombies heading your way. thinking about it, I’d have plenty of arrows to shoot them in the head, my daughter that is a zombie nut would tell you her elaborate plan if she was to enter this.

    Reply
  16. I would find a big empty plant that had gone out of business and try to set it up kinda like on Walking Dead. Get all my family and close friends there.

    Reply
  17. We would head to the local prison – my husband works there. The walls should offer protection. We would just need to clear out any within the prison.

    Reply
  18. Well I have a lot of animals, so I think id be safe for awhile..i could let one out at a time? LOL! Kidding, id send my spouse first!

    I LOVE plants vs zombies. Its the only game i play on a regular basis.

    Reply
  19. I have no clue how to stave off a Zombie invasion, but the men in my house think about it frequently. I suppose I’ll have to leave it up to them.

    My favorite Risk pop culture reference is when Hurley, Sawyer, and John are playing Risk and Sawyer tells Hurley that Australia is the key to the whole game.

    Reply
  20. Sadly I would most likely find the deepest,darkest cave and hide out until it passes, that or set sail to some island in the middle of nowhere. 😉

    Reply

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