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Hasbro Connect 4
by askmeanything
Connect 4 is a classic game for players aged six and up according to the box. However, this is another game that I've had younger children happily play with from around four years of age.
Two players compete against each other. One player has the yellow set of counters and the other has the red counters.
Players ... take it in turn to drop a counter of their chosen colour, into the slot from the top of the provided blue frame. The frame is very easy to put together into the separate stand. The plastic is thick. Just keep away those counters from the mouths of young children.
The first counter clatters down to land, where you have chosen, somewhere on the bottom row of the frame. After this you may choose to position your counter to the side or on top of a counter that's all ready in place.
The winner will achieve the successful placement of their four counters (or more) all in an uninterrupted row even the opposition has been trying to block them.
The rules allow for the successful player to have four counters, of their own colour, in a line either horizontally, vertically or diagonally.
Players must think ahead as to where the best placement of their counter will be in order to win. The game set-up, play and conclusion are simple, but the people who win over and over again are the best strategists.
Apart from the obvious educational value in developing strategy this is good fun. The game length is often a few minutes, if that, but the fun is often continued over and over again for hours. Once a game is completed just open the mechanism at the bottom of the frame, and out comes all the counters, to be gathered back up. Everything is sturdy and decently made.
Often the price is much cheaper than many other classic board games. There's no need to pay any more than ten pounds for this. In fact, that is probably too much. I bought mine for about six pounds.
I find the game isn't always picked out by children from my collection of toys all that often but when they discover Connect 4 they are engaged in play for hours.
Why not connect with the children with this game of Connect 4?
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Parker / Hasbro Monopoly
by CallMeRalph
The other day I wrote a review of Jenga, in my review I often mentioned how this is a classic game. So today I was thinking about other classic games, the first one that sprang to mind was of course Monopoly. This game which used to be made by Parker and is now made by Hasbro is one of the most popular board games ever invented. I have ... been playing Monopoly since the age of about six and I love it just as much now as I did back then. So naturally I thought this game was well deserving of a really good review.
So in case you have lived on Mars all your life and have never come across Monopoly, I will run you through the basics. So Monopoly is a board game where you must buy property and earn money to eventually own as much property as possible and beat the other players. The ultimate goal is to have a monopoly on all the property on the board, hence the name. The original game which is still in my humble opinion the best version, is set on the streets of London and there are familiar street names such as Mayfair, Trafalgar Square and Regent Street. The game involves dice and you can have as many as six people playing. The rules are a little tricky at first but you soon pick them up.
So how does the game work? Well first off each player is given a set amount of money to start the game with. Then you all start from the 'Go' square. You take turns to role the dice and move around the board. Each square you land on represents something, most are property and if you are the first to land on a property you have the option of buying it. Each property is also colour coded, so there are three blue properties, three pink etc... When you have purchased a full set of coloured properties you can start to build houses on them.
You earn money in the game in various ways. There are community chest and chance squares where you have to pick up a card, sometimes this earns you money, whereas other times you may have to pay a fine. You also collect £200 every time you pass Go when you navigate around the board. The main way you earn money though is by collecting rent. So when you own a property, if someone else lands on that square they have to pay you the rent money. For a simple one off property this is not very much, but when you have a full set and start putting houses or even a hotel on a square, then you can start to charge big money. Each set of property has different values, so Old Kent Road and White Chapel are the brown squares and these are cheap to buy and you can't charge much rent. However, at the other end of the board Park Lane and Mayfair are very expensive to buy but you can charge a small fortune when people land on you. So obtaining the best property is always key to winning the game.
There are other fun little features such as the train stations and utility squares that you can purchase. Then of course you can sometimes end up in jail if things don't quite work out the way you were planning. Usually game play takes around two hours although sometimes it can be shorter and sometimes it can be longer.
Although there is an official way of playing the game there are other ways to either make the game shorter or longer. One variation we sometimes play is to give out a few random properties to start the game. Some people will play the rule where if a player lands on a property and does not buy then the property is auctioned off, some play where you must land on a square to buy it. There are lots of slight variations on the rules which people often play by.
So now you know the basic mechanics of Monopoly, what is actually playing it like? Well as I've been playing this game for many years I can safely say it's really good fun. There is something very special about monopoly that brings people together. The game is part luck and part skill which really makes it much more interesting. There is definitely a way of winning when you play but sometimes no matter how good you are at the game, if the dice don't roll the way you want someone else will eventually take the win. Despite Monopoly being great fun and usually bringing people together, it can also cause some massive arguments. Due to the nature of the game it can be very easy to wind people up and if you are on the wrong end of that it can be very frustrating. Everyone in my family remembers the great caravan Monopoly disaster of 1995, many lives were almost lost, we don't really like to talk about it. Joking aside though this is a game that more often than not brings families and friends closer together.
A measure of a good game like anything in life is longevity. Nobody can argue that Monopoly has this. It has been going for decades and has reinvented itself many times over. All you have to do to realise this is type Monopoly into the Dooyoo search bar and you are presented with around forty versions of the game. There is everything from Simpsons Monopoly to Lord Of The Rings Monopoly, there are American versions of the game and versions where other English cities are used. You can play Monopoly streets or Monopoly city and that's before I even mention all the online and console versions that have now been created, there is even a couple of Monopoly apps that you can now download. The is no denying the universal appeal of this game and just how popular it still is today.
So in conclusion there is one thing that is for certain. Monopoly is one of and if not the greatest board game in the history of board games. Who would have thought that an old boot, an iron and a little dog could bring so much pleasure into the lives of so many people. This game will always have a special place in my heart and it will be one that I play on a regular basis for many more years to come. If you have never played Monopoly then you really are missing out, go and get yourself some form of the game and enjoy becoming the next property tycoon to monopolise the market.
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