Deathground is a recent game from Freeverse Software, which is a small Mac game company which publishes games based on board and card games. Freeverse's main claim to fame (such as it is) are Jen and Monty, their virtual public relations ambassadors. In any case, Freeverse had an offer to buy Deathground for $10 if you're willing to sign up to their product announcement mailing list. So I took them up on the offer and a few days later I received the boxed game Deathground.

Deathground comes in a nice, big, colorful box with only a CD strapped inside. The CD itself has the game and its support files, demo versions of other Freeverse titles, and some desktop pictures of Jen, and other Freeverse frivolities (like Jared, butcher of songs). Installation is easy, just drag the whole CD to the destination. It's about 130 MB of files, most of which really aren't needed for the game as you'll read later. When you start Deathground it'll want to see the installation CD, but after that you can run it without the CD mounted.

Deathground is based on the boardgame Risk. On one of three maps included you try to take over the world by occupying territories. Each territory provides you income, starting at about $100 and increasing each turn, so that long held territories are worth more than new acquisitions. There are also region bonuses. If you control a region, composed of anywhere from four to a dozen territories, you get the income from the territories and bonus income depending on how accessible the region is.

Each turn you receive mobsters, the only unit in the game, costing $300 a pop. Place your units and attack adjacent territories. Combat odds are almost 50% either way, so the side with more men usually wins. There are also bullets that are added to the map each turn. If you capture a territory with a bullet, you get an event, about half of them good (extra men, extra turn, hitmen, etc) and the other half inconsequential or deleterious to your cause.

One map has two airports, which connect the territories that they occupy. All the maps have two police stations and two hospitals. Controlling both police stations allows you to have the cops take out one mobster each turn, great for killing a lightly defended territory and robbing a player of his region bonus. If you control both hospitals you get 0-2 dead men back each turn, at each hospital.

So far it's a pretty standard game. Nothing to be excited about and certainly nothing that requires 63 MB of data files. What makes this game is its fun character. Much like Spaceward Ho!, Deathground has a motif. Spaceward Ho! has an old west motif, while Deathground uses 1930's gangsters. Your computer opponents go by names such as Stinky Corleone, Miss DeMeanor, and Granny Dirtnap (this is not a serious game). Each computer player has their own set of sayings that they'll exclaim as good and bad things happen to them. The icons are little mobsters, each battle is accompanied by the roar of machine guns. The opponents each have their own comical pictures and death sayings when they're eliminated. And the cards that are shown when you get a bullet have little gangland drawings on them.

You can have up to eight players in Deathground, any or all computer controlled with about six different skill levels for each computer player. There are three maps, one of New York, one of the USA, and one of the world (with far more territories than in Risk). Each map can be played in one of three variations: strategic game, quick game (start out with more men and the territories are valued higher), and crazy game (lots of bullets). You can also specify how lucky each player is in combat, with luckier players having a better chance of scoring kills.

Still, when it comes down to it, at $30 it's a bit overpriced. Although a well done game, unless you play with your friends it doesn't have a huge amount of replay value. I spent a weekend playing all the maps and game variations at beginning levels and then with all the computer players at Godfather level and I still won easily once I got my basic strategy developed. I guess I'll have to make the computer luckier. But even if I don't and stop now, I spent several hours and at $10 that wasn't bad.