The ultimate property trading game gets a 21st century makeover in MONOPOLY: HERE & NOW EDITION from Tikgames and RealArcade, a downloadable version of the board game of the same name.
The ultimate property trading game gets a 21st century makeover in MONOPOLY: HERE & NOW EDITION from Tikgames and RealArcade, a downloadable version of the board game of the same name.
In case you haven’t seen this new limited edition version of MONOPOLY: HERE & NOW EDITION, MONOPOLY: HERE & NOW EDITION is a modern makeover of America’s favorite board game but with places and prices that better reflect today’s market (hence “here and now”). For example, each player starts off the new game with $15 million dollars instead of $1500 as in the original game. Pewter pieces are cell phones, McDonalds’ French fries and laptops. Hot property includes Times Square in New York City and Boston’s Fenway Park. The four railroad spots are now airports, including LAX, JFK and Chicago’s O’Hare. A Community Chest card may read “Your computer network gets hit by a virus. Pay $100,000.” You get the idea. But the goal of the game still remains the same: buy, sell and trade well-known U.S. properties to win the game.
This new digital version looks and plays just like the MONOPOLY: HERE & NOW EDITION board game, but is brought to life with computer animation, sound effects and music, and handy extras such as a History area to show you all the moves made by all players. Big buttons are prominently displayed to Build, Sell, Mortgage, Unmortgage and Trade. Also, it just takes a click to refresh yourself on the official rules. As with the board game, you can play with friends beside you on the same computer (“hot seat” mode), but unfortunately, there’s no option for an online multiplayer, which is odd, as an older CD-ROM version of the game by Hasbro offered this.
Anyhoo, Monopoly fans will immediately fall in love with the high production values for this game; each pewter piece is animated, therefore the cell phone flips open and closes (and rings!) as it moves about the board, while the jet airplane whooshes across the properties. Land on the “Go To Jail” spot and a flashing police car drives around the board and drags you behind bars on the opposite corner of the board. Even the die (which is plural for dice, seriously) look great as it rolls out onto the screen. Buy some property and money floats out of your wallet towards the bank.
The jazzy music is good, but too bad there’s only one song. Another beef: a good casual game can be played for five minutes or three hours, but while you can certainly save your progress in this game, it’s not the kind you want to get into unless you have some time to spare.
Shortcomings aside, MONOPOLY: HERE & NOW EDITION is a great game for fans of the board game – but now you can play against a virtual opponent on a laptop at 30,000 feet. Also, not having played this board game version, I admit paying $250,000 for landing on the Atlanta Hartsfeild airport, owned by the computer A.I., proved a little disconcerting at first. That is, until I realized I had $20 mil in the bank. Paying $60,000 for landing on Chicago’s Wrigley Field was a little more palatable.
So go ahead and unleash your inner Trump by downloading this clever remake today.
