The best board game ever (Monopoly)

Member Name: paulie1975

Product:	Monopoly
Date:	09/04/09 (19 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fun, great strategy based game, complex but not too complex

Disadvantages: People always try to cheat

Monopoly was created in America in the 1930's during the great depression by Charles B Darrow, at the time the excitement of having money and being able buy and sell money must have been incredibly exciting (I imagine there is possibly an upturn in sales of Monopoly around the world right now for the same reason.

Monopoly is the best selling board game on the planet and has been adapted in so many ways, there are versions in each country listing their capitals main streets, there are even Star Wars and football versions from what I understand.

For me the UK version is still the premier board game in the world, I love the idea of buying up streets in London (Especially in this day and age where on some of these streets I couldn't even afford to buy a skinny latte!). The basic premise of the game is that you choose who you want to be, will it be the car, the boot, the hat, the dog, the iron or the thimble?

Once everyone has chosen your starting piece you roll dice and you move the number of squares corresponding to your dice throw.


One person is designated to be banker and as well as holding their own money, they are the person who must collect and disperse money as required throughout the game.

To begin with when moving around the board you can pretty much buy any square that is free, once you have moved around the board one full turn and have returned past the starting box, you receive £200 for passing go, this happens each time you pass go, also if you land on the 'Go to Jail' box you move directly to jail and must throw a double or pay a fine to leave and rejoin the game.

There are chance and community chest cards which mean you pick one up when landing on the corresponding box, these advise random things, such as taxes you must pay, or that you've inherited money, these can also include little gems such as 'Get out of jail free cards' which are very handy.

If you land on a street and it is unowned you have the option to purchase it if you have the money, if it is owned you have to pay the owned rent, the rent is listed on their deeds card.

The streets are set out in colours (due to their vicinity to each other), so Mayfair and Park Lane are both blue, Old Kent Road and Whitechapel are Brown, if you manage to buy the entire set of properties for a particular colour you are allowed to buy houses and then hotels from the banker, this means that the value of your road increases and any other player who lands on the square must pay an inflated rent, this is where the real money is made.

The game is so much fun and incredibly involving, you can play from the age of 6 to 106 and most people seem to understand the rules, even if some like to throw their own variations in, the winner is the last person left, so your goal is to bankrupt all of your rivals, this is fun and creates lovely little rivalries

I have always enjoyed this game and find the whole thing wonderfully fun, the board is brilliantly designed and looks classically stylish, the pieces remain in the format they were created in 1937, the money is different coloured and flimsy but it feels great holding it when your winning.

Overall I would recommend this to anyone, its fun with family and friends and actually you learn a lot from it about areas and strategy, do you go out and buy everything you can hoping to gain rent, or do you attempt to build up a large sum of cash and buy property strategically, there are no rights or wrongs, just go and enjoy it.

The game in its original format is available in all good toystores and I recently saw it at around £16 in Argos. There are also phone and console versions of the game where you can play computers but this is no match for a table full of family or friends all trying to double deal each other.

Summary: The best board game ever