Review: Monopoly (Wii)

As shocking as it may sound a lot of the younger generation might not know what Monopoly is. As the name suggests it’s money related where the goal is to make your opponents bankrupt by owning properties, building houses and hotels all in the hope of charging mass amounts of rent to any player that happens to land on them. This classic version of the game is what we found taking up most of our time. It can be played with up to four players, but if you don’t have that many friends don’t worry because you can play against the computer. However, as expected this takes an awful lot away from the experience. There isn’t even an online mode, which is hardly a surprise, but still a disappointment. During the classic mode you can save after every roll of the dice thankfully and with friends it is really great fun and easily the highlight of the overall package.

Richest Edition has been created for quick games, but turns the whole game into more of a luck based experience than it is normally. Three variations in Richest Edition are available (Developer, Industrialist and Tycoon). All have slight variations on the rules, however ultimately come down to the same idea. At the start of each round four dice are rolled and the four numbers that appear are saved. Then comes a mini-game (this is the Wii after all) which decides in what position you get to pick a number. The mini-games are instantly forgettable and mainly involve waving the wii-mote around or pointing and clicking things. After this the number you selected indicates the amount of markers that you drop on the board. This is where the luck comes in. There’s no way of knowing where each marker is dropped, so it could end up on an opponents property causing you to pay rent or end up in jail. Thankfully you can’t become bankrupt in this mode with the aim of the game being to amass the biggest fortune. This mode is a nice diversion, but ultimately poor compared to what the rest of the game has to offer.

The good news is that this is far from a barebones package. There are goals to achieve. By owning properties they are then added to your passport. With each new property your passport grows until you gain a new level and unlock new boards. They’re nothing more than cosmetic changes, though they do add some variety to the experience with the usual classic and world boards accompanied by more strange choices like a sweet board and an erm… cardboard board.

Probably the biggest downfall will affect the monopoly newcomers out there. The game pretty much assumes that you know the ins and outs of monopoly with the little monopoly man appearing only to describe what is happening on screen rather than telling you how to go about doing them. Having not played monopoly in about ten years it took us a while to remember how to build houses, going into the accounts section (where trades and info is displayed) only shows the option blacked out. We did try reading the instruction book, but that was about as much use as a chocolate fireguard. The other slight annoyance is with the camera. It only really gets in close to the board when pieces are being moved, the rest is done from a far out perspective. It’s not a bad looking game so it’s not really understandable why they would want to throw you as far away from the board as possible.

As far as console versions of Monopoly goes this is one of the better ones. It’s perfect party gaming, but there’s something about the feel of moving a piece around the board and that lovely paper money that we miss. Maybe we’re just old fashioned.

Rating: 6 / 10

Words by Adam Gulliver