Monopoly Party! (PS2 Review)

Games have always been a popular way for mankind to put away their daily problems and retreat into a fantasy land. Although video games are the escape of choice for today’s generation, this was not always true. Back in the day before television or video games were even though of, people passed the rainy days away with board and card games. Very rarely would there be a dreary weekend go by without the family breaking out some form of board game to occupy the children and allow the parents to spend some quality time with the rest of their family. Probably the most popular game within the annals of history would have to be Monopoly.

 

Although the true origin of the game is debated, the current rendition that we all have come to know was created during the Great Depression in 1933 by Charles B. Darrow. This game was originally rejected by Parker Brothers. Undaunted by this decision, Darrow went about producing about 5000 handmade sets for sale to the public. Monopoly caught on like wildfire and Darrow was unable to keep up with the demand of the public for more copies. So, two years later, he re-approached Parker Brothers and the rest is history. Since that time, over 200 million games have been sold in 80 different countries and produced in 26 different languages. An uncountable number of versions have been released over the years, including multiple games for many of the home platforms and personal computers. We now take a break from our busy schedule to hitch a ride on the Reading Railroad. Let me introduce you to Monopoly Party!.

Since just about every living human has had the opportunity to sit down, at one time or another, to play some version of this 65-year classic, I won’t bore you with the complete list of the fundamentals for the game. Players simply move around the board and purchase properties that are landed upon. After you collect an entire set of colored properties, you then have the ability to build houses and hotels to jack up your income when opposing players land on your spaces. There are also Chance and Community Chest spaces where players can receive random cards that can either help or hurt you financially along with various other designated spaces that can either subtract or add to the size of your wallet.

Since the game has such a long and colorful history, there have been numerous special and customizable rules established along with the basic guidelines. Monopoly Party! has just about every rule variation known to man included in the game, and players can customize their playing preferences by going through the option section in the rules. Even though it may seem picky for players to care if there is a jackpot when landing on the Free Parking space, or that players have to pass Go the first time around the board before buying property, these are the specifics that many have grown up with and to exclude them would do nothing but ruin the personal feel of the game. 

For those who are a bit rusty on the rules, players can peruse the included tutorials. These are all fully animated and broken down into bite-sized helpings to keep things targeted for very specific refresher courses. Nevertheless, if you have never actually played the game, these can be utilized by the rookie to bring you quickly up to the knowledgeable level of the Monopoly pro in no time flat.

The big difference between this version of the game and previous renditions is the all new Party-Mode. Normal games of Monopoly have a habit of drawing out the hours like an anteater at an anthill. In an attempt to shorten the marathon style of the traditional game, Party-Mode has every player taking their turn at the same time. All of the players roll the dice and move their pieces together and when any cash payments need to be dished out, they are handled in the order of financial stature. Although this does speed up the overall time that you will have to dedicate for a complete game, it does make for some getting used to and can be chaotic when four players are on the board.

Visually, this is the best looking Monopoly game ever for a home system. You have your choice of the classic board or four additional themes that add quite a bit of flair and fashion to the game. Each theme has custom playing pieces that are animated when they move around the board, but these can only be appreciated when utilizing the standard play mode. When the game shifts its view for the party mode, since all players move at the same time the entire board must be visible, your aspect is extremely limited and it is exceptionally hard to keep track of the progress of the pieces. Another problem that arises when using the various themes is that all of the property names are changed to match, so only persons of intimate knowledge with the game will be able to know where they are and which properties are the desirable ones to have in their portfolio.

There are multiple intelligence levels for the computer opponents, for those rare occasions when you desire to play the game and nobody else is available. Fortunately, even if you are not able to have some human companionship, you don’t have to worry about falling prey to a lack of scruples. Even on the lowest setting, the computer will not allow unfair trades for property and stands its ground when its back is against the wall. Only allowing for a total of four players is a big minus for the game. Since most game sets usually have eight to ten different pieces, there really should be the ability to have more than just a normal quartet involved.

I’m personally disappointed in the lack of possibilities explored by Monopoly Party!. Although it gives a solid presentation and represents the franchise very well, there just could have been so much more to the game. Including a single-player storyline or tournament structure where a player could challenge various opponents would have transformed this from just being a title that sits on your shelf until a group of people come over on a rainy Saturday afternoon into a game that you wanted to play by yourself. Online play also would have helped keep the dust off of the case, as you could probably always find someone on the Internet willing to dedicate a few hours for a contest or two. Honestly, I found looking up the history of the game more interesting than actually sitting down to play it. If you are a Monopoly fanatic, or don’t personally own the board game, go ahead and pick up a copy. All others can save their dollars for something more stimulating.

Difficulty: 5

Control: 8

Audio: 5

Visuals: 7

Replayability: 3

Overall: 5.5