Hot Property : Rich Girl Gets Apartment in Knightsbride (Hasbro Monopoly Here & Now Limited Edition)

Member Name: susie19

Product:	Hasbro Monopoly Here & Now Limited Edition
Date:	02/05/07 (1256 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: No cash to count

Disadvantages: No cash to show, what's my credit?

There’s nothing like a game of Monopoly to bring out the worst in people. When I was just a wee girl, I always won and my secret was to buy the cheapest and the most expensive properties and slap hotels on them all. Nobody dared land on my side of the board. I liked the cheap and cheerful Old Kent Road and the rich and expensive Mayfair and didn’t much care for the middle of the road places in between.

The traditional game of Monopoly has been around for years, since the 1930s in fact when it was invented by Mr Darrow. In recent years the game has been given a variety of makeovers and you can get Monopoly in a make your own edition, in Simpsons or Manchester United flavours amongst many others. An up to date ‘Here and Now’ edition is one of the latest additions to the collection and reflects the ever expensive and ever changing capital city that is London.

Most people will have heard of and played Monopoly at some point. For those unfamiliar with the game, it is a board game for 2-6 players. Each person starts with the same amount of money and by throwing two dice, move around the board buying property at their will and paying rent when landing on an opponents land. It is a game of luck (the roll of the dice), but of skill in being able to manage your money by buying properties wisely.

Give Me Some Credit
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There are no bank notes at all in this version of Monopoly, instead the game relies on credit card transactions. This is rather cleverly done using a small hand held machine, rather like a calculator. Everyone starts off with 15 million pounds on their individual credit card (color coded to identify one from another). If you owe someone rent, your credit card is inserted in the debit side of the machine and your opponent’s card is placed in the credit side. The first jingle debits the money electronically from one card and a second sound indicates the money has been credited to the other account. The balance of each card is shown on the electronic device.

Getting Around
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Modes of transport around the board have been updated. Gone are the symbols of old London such as the top hat and Victorian iron, replaced by six modern life artifacts; mobile phone, rollerblade, skateboard, burger, aeroplane and racing car. The board is essentially the same as the traditional Monopoly board with the same colour codes for the property groupings, the same chance and community chest squares and the same corner squares. Advancing to Go will net you £2 million each time you pass but getting out of jail will cost you £500K. In this game prices have been multiplied by 10 000 compared with the original game, that’s what I call mega inflation.

Properties around the board have changed with the times too. All the railway stations have turned into airports, the utilities Electrics and Water have become Telecoms and Satellite and every coloured property has a new name to reflect changing areas of importance and wealth in the city. Having never lived south of the Midlands, some of the names on the board are unfamiliar to me including Limehouse and Wardour Street. To those familiar with London, the names and places may be very familiar. I find this a bit annoying. Go back to Bishopsgate doesn’t have the same ring as Go Back to Old Kent Road and Kensington Palace Gardens just isn’t Mayfair.

If you manage to accumulate millions, you can start to buy property. In ‘Here & Now’ these are not houses and hotels that you buy, they are apartments and hotels. The green apartments neatly stack on top of each other, much easier to manage if anyone knocks the board.

If you land on a chance or community chest you may receive £2m because your internet company is doing well which does sound somewhat better than £20 for winning a beauty competition in the original game.

Old v New
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The Here and Now version is certainly novel and a lot of fun for the first few games. However, there are quite a few drawbacks. One annoying aspect is that you never know at a glance how much money you have on your card. The banker needs to keep informing the players how much they have. It is also harder to keep up with how much others have on their card too. In the original game it is easy to spot the rich players by the size or absence of their pile of pink £500 notes.

Another big area of contention is whether the designated banker is paying proper attention. It is very easy for whoever is in control of the credit card machine to debit and credit the wrong way round. After playing this game a few times, I have to conclude that you need a designated banker if more than four are playing. It is quite a time consuming task to be a player and a banker.

The metal mover items are quite fun and the apartments and hotels are a definite improvement compared to the original game. The charm of the old named properties are lost in this game but for those more familiar with London, this may not be seen to be the case. Overall it is a newer version of a well loved game. You still get all the same arguments and family feuds but there’s something quite healthy about that. I’m just waiting for the game when the batteries die.

Summary: Sometimes new is not always better.