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MonopolyReviewed By: Bill Stiteler Review Date: December 29, 2000
I won't waste your time by using one of those, "If you haven't heard of Monopoly, then you" (joke about what a pathetic freak you must be). Monopoly's the most famous game in the world. Everybody's not only heard of it, they've played it. Japanese soldiers who don't know the war is over are haggling over Pacific Avenue as you read this. You know Monopoly. I know Monopoly. Further, I know MacSoft well enough to be confident they wouldn't screw up the port. The review could end right here, except Hiner, sensing I wasn't busy, came in to my office to tell me for, like, the eightieth time the story of how he made this perfect Night Ranger logo on a computer, only to have the power go out as he was saving. So, doodly-doodly-doodly, here we are.
It's also one the legends of gaming. Long after the Don't Wake Daddys, Eat at Ralphs, or Magic: The Gatherings have been been forgotten, evolved cockroaches will be arguing over whether they were in jail or Just Visiting. So, now there's this computer version. You can play Monopoly (which is good), you can play Monopoly against other real people (which is good) or computer opponents (which is kinda good), you can customize the game (which is good), and it has computer-animated graphics and voiceovers (which are bad). Monopoly, the original game, is all there, just like you'd expect from a game entitled "Monopoly." I point this out as a helpful note to the designers of KISS: Psycho Circus...put the stuff in the title in the game. So anyway, Parker Brothers' game of real estate trading and making your little brother cry is all in there, right down to the purple slums. You can set it up to play against computer opponents of various skill levels, which is fine, except when you're trading properties. Computer opponents view properties in terms of their cash value or potential value, lacking the emotional reaction you get in a regular Monopoly game. I mean, hold a gun to my head, and I won't give up Marvin Gardens. This is an essential component to Monopoly: the pig-headedness of your friends and family. In addition, computer players seemed to trade with each other far more often than with me, trading at high speed and reminding me of Colossus: The Forbin Project. Also, and I hate to bring this up; you can't cheat. My favorite tactic of Monopoly is that when I land on a property owned by another player, I try to get the next player to roll the dice before the property owner realizes it--my turn is over, and I don't have to pay rent. Of course, the computer catches it every time.
I'm sure you've seen those relatively new custom Monopoly boards they've come out with--Harley Davidson Monopoly, Dallas Monoploy, Pokemon Monopoly, and the like. I'm sure you've seen them because it's a federal law that some idiot must buy you one so you can remember your time at the University of Minnesota. You know, when you bought all that real estate. Well, Hasbro and MacSoft had the insight to include a board editor which is simple to use, enabling you to create your own board. Customize a board for your Quake clan! Come up with properties for every item in your cubicle! Let the world know what an obsessive freak you are about one aspect of socie--oh wait, that's the Web. Personal attacks on my readers aside, creating your own board is kind of fun, and the editor features that simple point-and-click interface. Then there are what we in the business call the "value-adds;" the whistles and bells which make you want to get the computer version you're licensing, as opposed to the actual game which you can buy. The two biggies are computer animation of the pieces and character voice-overs. The visuals simply waste your time, the audio will drain your soul.
The voice-overs. I hate to make fun of people who do VOs (unless they worked on System Shock II). I did one when I was in college, and it's easily the most embarrassing thing I've put effort into. Voice-over work means standing in a booth reading the same line over and over, trying to make it sound spontaneous each time while a guy in a chair tells you to do it better next time. But the VOs in Monopoly aren't just silly, they're...they're riddled with puns. Every one of them, from the cannon to the car, all making stupid puns based on what they are. I gritted my teeth at first, thinking, "This'll get better, this'll get better." Then the dog made a joke about how "ruff" things were, and I knew it was time to trip the breaker on my power bar, wrap myself in a comforter, and lay down for a few hours. An option to turn off voice-overs is included in the game, possibly by United Nations mandate. Right now I'm winding my way through Deus Ex. It's a great game, probably my nominee for Game of the Year, and I'm losing a lot of sleep to it. However, I will eventually finish Deus Ex, and put it to the side. In time, its graphics will seem primitive; its characters, flat; its interface, childish. In forty years, Deus Ex will be used as an obscure cultural reference by a smartass, hipper-than-thou reviewer in reference to a new game. And people will still be playing Monopoly.
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Monopoly is an odd game; it doesn't end when you win. It ends when everybody else loses. Off the top of my head, I'd have to say this is unique in a board game. All the rest, from Sorry! to Parcheesi to that one that had the really annoying British children in the commercial, have some sort of goal that has you racing against your opponents to complete. Not Monopoly. In Monopoly you get to see the shame in people's eyes as they look down at their pathetic little pile of mortgaged properties and rumpled, pink $5 bills as they glumly realize they are losers! As if that's not bad enough, they now have to find something to do for the next hour while everyone else continues playing. And it's not like they can give advice to the other players while the game is going on, 'cause hey... they're losers(!), you know? In the end, one player has everything, everyone else eats dirt.
One element MacSoft and Hasbro did capture was customization. Monopoly is a game that can take you years to learn all the rules, especially if, like me, your sister only told you the rules when they benefited her, and hit you when you tried to read them. Still, that's not complicated enough. In my family, you put the "taxes" (money lost to cards and board events) in the middle of the board, and the player who landed on Free Parking got it. The proper and true way to play, yet some find issue with the fact that this is not strictly laid out in the rules. Heretics. There are about two dozen other options you can set, including fiddling with the income tax amounts, getting double salary for landing on "Go," auctions and house shortages, etc. Not included is an option for locking your money and deeds in a keepsake box while you go to the bathroom. (My sister again. She works in insurance now, and has three kids.)
Yeah, it's nifty to watch the pieces jump out of each other's way, even though it's funnier to knock someone's piece over and make jokes about how it's dead. The problem is that the animations are the most processor-intensive aspect of the game, which is what I came here to play. I'm always impatient to get to my turn, and something taking away from even a second of me-ness drives me nuts. You can turn 99% of the animations off in the options, however, the game will still pan around to show you the pieces moving out of the way. I didn't see the point.