DO NOT PASS DOH! DO NOT COLLECT £200 (The Simpsons Monopoly)

Member Name: stuleg

Product:	The Simpsons Monopoly
Date:	24/06/04 (429 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A great new take on a classic game

Disadvantages: Can be time consuming

So what is The Simpsons Monopoly then? Well, it is the latest incarnation of the classic Monopoly board game that was first introduced in 1934 and has since sold over 200 million copies. Many different varieties of Monopoly have been produced over the years, from a Wizard of Oz edition to Disney and football themed games. Each edition has the basic Monopoly game at its base, why change a winning formula? but with a selection of quirks and embellishments to make each variety unique. And the Simpsons themed edition is unique enough to excite fans of both Monopoly and the dysfunctional cartoon family.

The basic premise of The Simpsons Monopoly is that the monorail has come to Springfield, and the residents are racing to buy up chunks of the fictional cartoon town. The Kwik-E-Mart, Moe?s tavern and even the Nuclear Power plant are all up for grabs as players race to try and secure monorail stops and stations on their completed property sets. The game board is brightly coloured and has all of the Springfield landmarks around the edge, from the tire yard priced at £60 and replacing the traditional Old Kent Road to the top end property of Burns Manor replacing Mayfair for £400. Some of the properties are a little obscure, for example Springfield Glen Country Club or The Gilded Truffle may not evoke many memories of Simpsons episodes, but I can assure you all of the properties on the board have featured in the Simpsons at one time or another, all be it somewhat briefly.

The game comes with eight character tokens all fashioned from finest pewter, they are:- Homer in a Monorail conductors uniform, Bart in his Go-kart, Santa?s little helper (The Simpsons dog), Jebediah Springfield (founder of Springfield), Kang the Alien,
Blinky the three eyed nuclear fish, Otto?s school bus and a frosted doughnut. I was a little disappointed to find no Marge or Lisa playing pieces included, surely as two of the main characters in the show they should be represented. The only reasoning I can think of for not including them is that the eight tokens that are present are all of different shapes and heights; perhaps a Marge or Lisa token would be too similar in look and feel to the Homer token. If this is the reason I can see the idea behind the theory, especially if you are playing the game with a sight impaired person or young child. Even with Marge and Lisa missing, players should have little problem picking a token they like, just keep your hands off my Homer piece.

The game commences with the highest rolled dice thrower going first. If a double is rolled (two threes or two sixes etc) the player gets to roll again, but beware if you roll three doubles in a row it?s a one way ticket to jail, and as you do not pass go or collect £200 this is a cruel punishment indeed. Provided you manage to stay out of jail you will land on any one of many different squares. The Community Chest and Chance Squares are still present, and landing on one of these results in the player being required to pick up the corresponding card and acting on the instructions contained thereon. The traditional ?go to jail? or ?Bank pays you dividend of £50? are still present but have been joined by more Simpsons specific cards. ?You are assessed for track repairs, £40 per monorail stop and £115 per monorail station? will be sure to strike fear into anyone with a little blue or yellow building on their completed property group, and ?Grand opera opening, collect £50 from every player for opening night tickets? will upset all of your fellow competitors who have to part with some of their money.

I men
tioned briefly the yellow and blue buildings included with the game. These are identical in look to the red and green houses and hotels in the traditional Monopoly game except that they have been renamed monorail stops and monorail stations. The pricing structure is also the same as in the normal monopoly game, a monorail stop for the Tire Yard still costs £50 and you need four monorail stops on your property before you can buy and build a monorail station. Landing on a set of properties owned by a fellow player can be a painful experience, If you were to find yourself sitting on the Tire yard that has not been built on you will have to part with the fairly manageable sum of £2, however, if you happened upon Burns Manor resplendent with a monorail station you would find yourself having to raise £2000 to pay to the lucky owner, a potentially bankrupting sum to find. Of course, if you are struggling financially you can mortgage any properties you own to try and raise some funds. The mortgage value of a property is always half its face value, so the Tire Yard will give you £30 mortgage value while the top property, Burns Manor will deliver £200 in its mortgaged state. When a property is mortgaged it must be placed upside down, the player can un-mortgage the property if he / she has the funds available to do so, and the property is turned the right way up to signify it is no longer mortgaged.

Landing on a property that has yet to be bought by anyone delivers two choices for the player. He / She can buy the property at its face value price, or if the player who has landed on the property decided they do not wish to buy the property, an auction takes place in which all players, including the one that has just turned down the chance to buy the property, can bid. The Banker presides over proceedings as any or all of the players can bid any amount they wish to try and secure the
property. This part of the game is particularly exciting if a player owns two of the three properties in a set and is desperate to secure the remaining property in order to start building monorails stops and stations. Exorbitant amounts of money are often bid in order to secure that last remaining property.

Elsewhere on the game board the two tax squares are still present but have been renamed ?Legitimate Businessman?s Protection Tax? and ?The First Church of Springfield Offering Plate?. The two utility companies have also been renamed; ?Springfield Nuclear Power Plant? replaces the Electric Company, while the Water Works in the classic game are substituted for ?The Springfield Dam Hydroelectric Company?. The four traditional railway stations make way for four new Monorails, out go Liverpool Street, Kings Cross et al to be replaced by Springfield Station, and Shelbyville, Ogdenville and North Haverbrook Express?s.

Money is much the same as in the original game, each player is given £1,500, divided as 2 x £500, 4 x £100, 1 x £50, 1 x £20, 2 x £10, 1 x £5 and 5 x £1. The banknotes are all different colours and are decorated with a Simpsons character on each separate denomination. The game is over when only one player remains with all others having been made bankrupt. A player is made bankrupt when they owe the bank or another player more money than they can raise from mortgaging assets etc. In this situation all money from the bankrupt player goes to the person it is owed to or the bank. All properties are sold and also given to the player or bank who is owed the money.

Many people say that Monopoly is a great game but that it takes too long to play. With this in mind the makers have introduced rules for a time limit short game. In this
version, each player is given two properties before starting the game, they then must pay the price displayed on the cards they have been given. Also, when the first player is declared bankrupt the game ends and the winner is the remaining player who has the most money, be it in cash or property value. Personally I prefer the full fat long version, although it has been said I get a bit manic when playing Monopoly, I think it is the power and a handful of cash that goes to my head. Whatever, I?m running out of opponents willing to play against me, anybody here fancy a game?

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