Who Wants To Be A millionaire? (Game of Life)

Member Name: karenuk

Product:	Game of Life
Date:	29/12/03 (442 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: fun, entertaining, family game

Disadvantages: complex, tiny pieces to lose, outdated concepts

INTRODUCTION

Shopping round for Christmas presents, I was finding it quite hard to find suitable gifts for my seven year old daughter. My Mum was buying her several DVDs, she was getting the only CD she wanted (The Cheeky Girls album!), she has no more room for cuddly toys and apparently, Barbie is now a no-no at her vast age!

So I had a look on Ebay for a few ideas and checked out the board games section. I wanted something that all of us could play as a family. There are six of us and my children are 7, 10, 11 and 13, so it had to be something to interest all of us. The Game of Life can be played by 2-6 players, which was ideal and the recommended age is eight to adult. Well, she’s only four months off being eight, so I bid for it and eventually won.

There was also a nostalgic edge to my purchase. When I was around eleven, my best friend Anita had this game and I used to play it at her house and enjoyed it. It was one of those things that went on my ‘wants list’ year after year, but I somehow never got from Santa. Weebles and a Shaker Maker were others. I’m sure I’ve been irrevocably damaged ;-)

THE CONTENTS

The board is folded in half for easy storage and is the right size to fit on our coffee table. There are a number of buildings and bridges which you slot into the correct space, when setting up the board. This is easy enough to do and doesn’t take very long, but it would be annoying if you lost some of the pieces.

The number of squares moved is determined by spinning a wheel, so you don’t need to worry about losing dice! This wheel also slots into the board.

The playing pieces are little cars and you have pink and blue pegs to represent the people. So, in my case, I begin with me in the car (pink peg) then acquire a husband (blue peg) and if any children, the appropriate peg is added.

There are little cards to determine jobs, salaries, credit card
s and status symbols. Then there is a rack to place the money on, in denominations of 1000, 5000, 10000, 50000 and 100000. There are also little white flags to use in the gambling, but we don’t tend to bother, as they’re rather fiddly and aren’t really necessary.

It would be a good idea to keep this game somewhere out of reach, if you have young children or the sort who can’t leave anything alone, as it would be irritating if the pieces were lost. Our game arrived with only five cars, but my friend had the good idea of using a small lump of blu-tack as a sixth, as the little pegs will stick in it well.


THE GENERAL IDEA

The Game of Life is made by MB Games in the UK and – as the name suggests – it is a board game where you follow various paths traversing life stages. Your first choice is whether to head to university or to get a career. After that, you get married (This is compulsory!), you might have children (depending which squares you land on), you acquire status symbols (yachts, racehorses, beach villas, etc.) and retire – hopefully to Millionaires’ Mansion.

The idea is to amass as much money as you can, as the one with the most amount left at the end is the final winner – regardless of whether you are the first player to finish. You earn money through your job, through gambling, by saving up to buy Life Insurance policies and through sheer luck.

There is a certain amount of skill involved, as tactics can play a part, but mostly, it is simply down to luck. This means that all players begin with an equal footing, regardless of their age, which children are usually pleased about. Many games give the adults an unfair advantage, but this is not the case here. Anyone can land on an advantageous square and earn hundreds of thousands. (The currency on the notes is not specified, so you can refer to them as pounds, dollars, Euros, etc. as seems natural.)

PLA
YING THE GAME

So the gift was unwrapped and on Boxing Day, it was played for the first time. Besides my seven year old, the others playing were myself and my husband, my ten year old daughter and my mother-in-law. It was played again today with my seven and ten year olds, hubby and I plus two of our friends.

The first point to make is that we all enjoyed it. It is, though, a long game (around two hours) and a fairly complex one. Although the suggested minimum age limit is eight, I would think it is better for ten year olds and above. My youngest found it hard to understand some of the language and terms used and, to be honest, her attention tended to drift after a while.

We found a lot of fun was to be have with the rather dated aspects of the game. The idea of having to get married and only having children afterwards, for example. I’m sure we could while away an afternoon inventing a modern version – living in sin, divorcing and remarrying, having kids by different fathers, etc.

We could update the careers too – maybe add lap dancer or Pop Idol judge? The squares to land on could include ‘Pay drug dealer 1000 for an eighth’ or ‘Need operation. Stay in hospital. Miss thirty turns.’ Endless fun!

The game does generate a lot of conversation and laughs, it isn’t one of those where everyone’s concentrating too intensely. My daughter’s blue peg kept falling out of her car and at one point, she said she was fed up of her husband! (We’ve all been there, eh?) As for me, I made sure my blue peg was ‘Simon Cowell’!

The first time we played, we found it was a good idea to have one person as the banker and to check the rules. When we arrived at a particular point of the game, he would then read out the relevant instructions, so we could continue in the desired way. This made it much less complicated, as we weren’t all trying to find out th
e same thing at different times. Of course, you will need to consult the rules less as you go along.

DISADVANTAGES

Rather complicated.
Lots of small pieces that can be lost.
Outdated in some ways.
Not really suitable for young children.

ADVANTAGES

An interesting game.
Fun and entertaining.
All ages have an equal chance of winning.
The idea of following alternative life paths is a good one.

OVERALL

We all enjoyed the game and it is a pleasant way to spend a couple of hours. It isn’t the kind of game you would want to play several times in succession, as it can be quite tiring, but it is one you will bring out regularly.

It is suitable for a group of older children to play by themselves or a group of adults or a family, which means it is versatile and can take on a different slant depending on who you play it with.

Board games seem to be more of a rarity these days, with Gameboys, Playstations and so on becoming the fashionable norm. But there are many advantages to everyone sitting round a table having fun together. I know that sometimes in our house, everyone can be in a different room doing their own thing and it is good to find a shared activity that all ages can enjoy. Board games are ideal for this.

OTHER VERSIONS

There are several versions of the game. It seems to have evolved over time and has changed slightly from how it was in the 1970s and 1980s. The US variety is different as well – that one includes the opportunity to earn ‘Life Tiles’ as you play, which are basically good deeds for the community. You can buy the American game from www.boardgames.com for $16.95.

The Game of Life is now available for the PC and the Playstation. There is even a Star Wars version of the board game available here http://www.boardgamecompany.co.uk for £29.99.

PRICE AND AVAILABILITY

It seems quite a hard game to g
et hold of these days. Searching the Internet, the only place I found the British board game was at http://www.secret-games-shop.co.uk/game_of_life.ht m where it sells for £9.99.

Rather annoyingly – in hindsight – I bought my game from Ebay, which cost £11 including postage and packing! So it is worth shopping round, if you want to buy it. You might be lucky and find it selling cheaply in a charity shop

Summary: