Monopoly: A guilty pleasure
Originally posted: 07/02/2009
As of late I got a chance to play Monopoly on the 360 and I must say it was quite the experience to play the classic board game in 3D on a 50 inch HDTV. Obviously this game is in that lovely and often favoured category of gaming known as "causal gaming", but you know something, who cares if it's casual if it's fun!
This Monopoly plays out no differently then the board game. You still have a maximum of 4 players as you go around the board and buy up land and built houses and hotels. The Community Chest, Chance, Railroads, and Utilities are all here in glorious 720p! I can't remember if this was a rule in the board game or not, but in this version you can trade money and land between the different players, which helps when you are near bankruptcy and need to pay back a player whose land you had landed on, but if it is specific to the video game I must say it was a great addition. The graphics of the game are not too shabby when you consider this is a video game of a board game, but the colours and graphics of the board, icons (such as the player icon) and Uncle Pennybags/Mr. Monopoly are nice and sharp.
Unlike the board game, which comes with only one board, the Monopoly video game features a variety of different boards to play on and even offers the World Edition board in which the familiar Boardwalk, Pacific Avenue, Water Works, and St. James Place are replaced with cities such as Sydney or Montreal. I thought this was a terrific feature to add as well as in-game achievements (I assume that the PS3 version includes Trophies) that adds to the level of fun and excitement of this game.
The best part about this game, aside from the fun factor, is that is fairly cheap for an X-Box 360 or PS3 game, costing only $29.99. It's definitely a game I would like to add to my library at my earliest convenience as it is a title that can be played by young and old, the only question is, which platform (PS3, 360, Wii)?